Mohican Wilderness Pre-ride

Today was the first warm weather mountain bike ride! It was meant as a pre-ride of the Mohican Wilderness race in two weeks. John and I both had today off and the weather was as warm as it was going to get for a couple days it was the perfect day to try the trails out. The first thing I noticed was that the trail was hard to find. It's located along a dirt road right outside of Mohican Reservation. Once you get there it's not entirily clear where the trail starts, and once you get on the trail it's easy to take a wrong turn in the early season. The area is potmarked with old logging roads that crisscross the trail, some are designed into the trail others are not. There were three places where the trail left the logging roads but there was not sign to show a change in direction. So needless to say a lot of time was wasted getting lost. 

The first major climb was up a gravel covered logging road. It was a steep uphill and John and I stopped to see who could get up it the furthest. I was first to go, I hammered hard up the hill and got about halfway up. John went second and beat me by about 50 feet. Third time I tried a different approach and went slow and steady. This time I made it most of the way up before I lost traction. John tried to best me but in his overgeared signaled-speed couldn't best me. To the right is my winning run up the hill.

After the hill climb fun we found the trail to the right and followed a fun rolling rollercoaster section the bottomed out with a small rock covered section. Followed by yet another climb but less severe. Besides another wrong turn that sent us up a crazy steep logging road. We found our bearings and got back on the trail, where John endoed. From here it was clear where the trail went and we headed back to the parking lot and rode down from the top of the trail, which is in this video.

When we got to the bottom I noticed my stem had loosened at the handlebars. So we stopped back at the car for me to retighten the bolts. To my dismay the screws had stripped and the ride was over before we could get to the second half and the major hill climb. I was dissapointed but it is what it is. Even though John has the right length stem the size didn't match and we had to call it a day. We'll be back later this week now that we know the course the next time we go we can enjoy the ride and finish the entire loop. Can't wait to get back out there.