Epic Fail @ Ganaraska Forest

What's a worse biking experience than riding in the freezing rain, though tons of sand and then catching hardcore leg cramps? Nothing.

The theme of yesterday's ride was shame (for me at least). It was a severely degrading ride as I begged for mercy like all day long trying to deal with lame leg cramps. What started off as cool weather turned into rain and cold. It's probably because of my poor nutrition and fat ass I don't know what it is about my legs + the cold these past few days but it's been like insta-cramp pain sauce. I experienced double full leg cramps, it was pretty intense. Funny, but intense. I need steroids bananas.

Anyway, the point of the journey was to see if we could ride the Ganaraska in preparation for the enduro race Kevin and Jon are running in 2 weeks. By my broad estimation, it would have taken us 4-5 hours to cover the 30km since it took about 1 hour to cover 7 km or so right off the bat. I'm not sure how much distance we actually cleared but we didn't even make it to the halfway point before I begged them the weather caused us to turn back. The ride got severely less fun once the rain came down.



I'm pretty sure that if I entered this race they would have their first fatality on the course ever. We have yet to ride this long a distance all year so the race will be a serious test of physical and mental fitness for the both of them. They are better bikers for I than entering it - I can't wait to see the results.

Since we're pretty n00b to the biking scene in general, one of the hardest parts of a ride like this is setting a pace. With zero experience in this field we usually stop as needed, which just happens to be pretty often. There's no real idea of how fast to go, how much water to conserve or when to eat to successfully finish a ride like this (and not finish dead last/DNF). Other casual weekend warriors like us would probably not normally participate in something called an enduro...

Anyway, about the ride... lots of fast wide double track and single track in this forest since its shared with dirt bikes and quads. With the loops, there's no turning back once you get into them. The rain was not helpful at all.



Always make sure your quick releases are tight unless you don't mind flying over your bars into poison ivy. That could have been tragic, especially this far into the forest. We probably weren't even that far.



When the rain and mud gets on your discs, stopping is hard. Real hard.



The weather was definitely harsh as it kept pouring and got super cold. The current weather or storms from the day before engulfed the trail with fallen trees. Surprise!



It's a good thing we found this service road to bail on. On the way back my body was pretty much in 100% survival mode to make it back to the lot. Funny though, how as soon as we got back the outdoor center the weather got beautiful. Thanks Gaia for mocking me.



And as per usual, seems like everywhere out East is covered in poison ivy. The Park recommends you hose off well afterward. No problems with that.



Until the next leg cramp adventure.