Tuesday Night Casual Mountain Bike Rides at Wakefield Park sponsored by Bikenetic

[acc]

Dirt, I’ve gotten lost back there in broad daylight. I’m just sayin’

[Dirt]

@acc 41200 wrote:

Dirt, I’ve gotten lost back there in broad daylight. I’m just sayin’

That is why it is good to go on a group ride. One of the first things you will learn is HOW to ride in a group. If we’re doing it right, then no-one gets lost. I’ve only lost one rider on a ride…. and he showed up safe and sound the next day.

[acc]

I feel so reassured. In the dark bumping over logs and boardwalks, what could go wrong?

[eminva]

@acc 41211 wrote:

I feel so reassured. In the dark bumping over logs and boardwalks, what could go wrong?

Whatever it is, you will have (300 lumen) x (# of participants) trained right on you as you stumble to your feet trying to figure out what went wrong.

Liz

Okay, so that’s not acc’s theoretical nightmare, it’s mine . . . I spent over eight miles wiping out on CCT singletrack today . . .

[Dirt]

If you’re not confident about your mountain biking skills by day, then perhaps this might not be the best ride for you.

[eminva]

I’m sorry Dirt, I joke. I think this will be a great asset to our local MTB community and I am happy you are offering it. You are right, it is not for me. I hope that others who are better prepared take advantage and find out what you mean when you say night riding is fun. If you are reading this and have any interest, you will be in good hands with Dirt.

Liz

[Dirt]

Later in the year these rides happen during daylight hours. I’ll still be doing them at that time of the year.

Y’all bring up good points and it is important for people to be realistic about their mountain bike skills. I should have stated that in the first post.

[dcv]

@eminva 41213 wrote:

. . . I spent over eight miles wiping out on CCT singletrack today . . .

You are hilarious. Was that the section between the WOD and Oak Marr?

[DaveK]

Pete is like a fluffy pink Yoda. Whatever your riding level, when riding with Pete, learn something you will.

[eminva]

@dcv 41225 wrote:

You are hilarious. Was that the section between the WOD and Oak Marr?

Yes — I was not so much wiping out, as getting sidetracked from the trail (once), stopping to check the map to make sure I didn’t go off the trail again (extremely often) and my usual tactic of walking sections where I didn’t want to ride. I had never been through there before, and to do it justice I would probably have to go back and practice a mile at a time, learning the trail better and how to approach each challenge (just need a month of Sundays for that). But today I just wanted to get through to see what was there.

The part where I was kind of lost with dogs chasing me? Didn’t like that at all.

Overall, it was fun and a challenge. That is always good.

Liz

[Dirt]

I’ll add some clarification on these rides…. or any ride I lead.
1) This is not intended to be a clinic to teach you how to ride a mountain bike. That said, I pretty much guarantee that you will learn something while you’re out riding though. Most people do…. including myself.

2) Every ride has a designated leader and sweeper. No-one rides in front of the leader and no-one rides behind the sweeper. The ride is paced so that no-one gets left behind. It is the responsibility of the ride leader, sweeper and every member of the group riding to make that goal happen. One of the first things you’ll learn is HOW TO RIDE IN A GROUP.

3) The one thing you don’t have to know is getting lost. You have a ride leader who has been planning and leading bicycle rides of all varieties and skill levels for over 30 years who is guiding the group. The ride leader has been leading rides at Wakefield park for the better part of 15 years. The ride leader has been leading night rides at Wakefield for almost 15 years. Wakefield is the home stomping grounds for this particular ride leader. He had lead many hundreds of rides there by day and by night. I’m quite confident that this ride leader will NOT get lost.

4) Riding a mountain bike at night is different than riding during the day. You move slower and probably attempt fewer technical challenges than you would by daylight. As with any bicycle ride, YOU need to make reasonable decisions about your skills and the terrain you’re riding. If you don’t want to ride a section, stop, walk through it, get back on at the other side and start riding again. I’ve been riding bicycles avidly for over 42 years. I get off and walk some sections of virtually every mountain bike ride. I rode at Wakefield with friends today and I got off, walked around to survey an obstacle I haven’t attempted before. Found that it was to my liking and then rode over it. Had I walked up and looked at it and decided that I wasn’t comfortable with how the obstacle looked, I would have lifted my bike over it and continued riding on the other side. I might attempt it on another day, under different conditions. I might not ever attempt that obstacle. I’m okay with that. Make your own wise decisions and feel good about them.

That said, riding at night is one of the most beautiful and surreal experiences you’ll ever have on a bike. Moving through the woods at night under your own power is a pretty dang cool experience. Doing so with other riders is kind of neat. You’ll meet some new people to ride with. Some of them, I can say, are pretty amazing people.

If what I’ve said here sounds like something you might enjoy, I look forward to sharing this experience with you. If this isn’t your cup of tea, then I encourage you to not attend.

Thanks for reading.

Pete

[Dirt]

I know the initial reaction to these rides was pretty negative. Just thought I’d let y’all know that the weather is now lovely and they’re happening most weeks. The MORE forum will have the go/no-go information every week.

http://www.more-mtb.org/forum/showthread.php?t=22384

There’s a casual (no-drop) group and a little faster group too. I’ll be leading the mellow group. We’ll ride for an hour or so in Lake Accotink, then head into Wakefield. You’ll still need lights for the last 30 minutes of the ride….

If you’ve got questions, please let me know! This is a cool opportunity for a guided tour of some nice, suburban mountain biking trails.

Love,

Dirt

[JoeB]

1995! And in one word, it was *fantastic*. Everything Pete said above turned out to be absolutely true – I learned a TON on the ride (probably not surprising as a newbie) but a couple points stood out:

@Dirt 41232 wrote:

This is not intended to be a clinic to teach you how to ride a mountain bike. That said, I pretty much guarantee that you will learn something while you’re out riding though.

I actually preferred this ride in many ways exactly because it wasn’t a clinic. I’m sure I could learn a lot too from more specific training or skills work, but at this point more than anything I was just looking for a chance to get my tires back on dirt with a cool and fun group of people. And that’s exactly what this ride was.

I can add: I did have one small mechanical problem with cable stretch, which Pete and another rider got straightened out in about three minutes in between Accokink & Wakefield. Point being: this is not a supported ride in the sense of a maintenance tent or water stations en route, but I couldn’t have asked for better support for a newbie rider in the sense of: “Shoot, my bike stopped working.” Three minutes later: “Cool, that’s much better. Many thanks!”

@Dirt 41232 wrote:

That said, riding at night is one of the most beautiful and surreal experiences you’ll ever have on a bike. Moving through the woods at night under your own power is a pretty dang cool experience. Doing so with other riders is kind of neat. You’ll meet some new people to ride with. Some of them, I can say, are pretty amazing people.

Riding with this group was a lot of fun in and of itself – watching Pete mash that fixie over some pretty tricky obstacles was worth the price of admission alone – but riding trails at night was 100 times cooler than I ever expected it to be. You absolutely do need at least one really solid light (the 400 lumen setting on mine came in handy for the first time since buying it), but riding behind even just one or two other riders with lights really puts a surprising amount of light out in front of you.

I can imagine how really fast riders would need multiple lights to cover both the ground right in front of your tire and the ground 20/30 feet ahead, but at a casual pace with six or seven riders in the group there was plenty of light to see where we were going – but not so much that it was just like riding in daytime. Hard to describe (and wouldn’t have made sense to me until I tried it) but it really was a blast and I’m looking forward to doing it again soon.

So Pete: (a) many thanks again for your help with the bike and overall, and (b) IIRC, you mentioned a possible Wednesday night ride for next week, where would that one happen?

[Dirt]

@JoeB 48873 wrote:

1995! So Pete: (a) many thanks again for your help with the bike and overall, and (b) IIRC, you mentioned a possible Wednesday night ride for next week, where would that one happen?

Hi Joe! It was a blast riding with you last night. Thanks for posting up.

Wednesday rides are in the works… I want to lead them at Lake Fairfax Park in Reston. It may be a few weeks before those are put into play. I need to make sure that the ride sponsors are okay with that.

Catch up with you soon.

Pete

[JoeB]

All sounds good Pete, I’ll stay tuned. Thanks!

[Author]

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