As readers of this blog know I’ve been trying to get back into the sport of mountain biking after years off the fat-tire beasts. So far, besides a little face-plant action at Paradise, it’s been fairly easy going.
Last week I decided to ramp it up a bit. Mind you I didn’t know at the time I was taking on a bigger challenge, but … well it turned out I got a little bit over my handlebars as they say.
After a few spins on some easy trails, a friend from work and I decided to hit up Tokul outside of Fall City last week. Well first thing I wasn’t ready for was the 1,650-foot elevation gain right off the bat. Trust me when I say I was doing a lot more hiking with a bike than tearing up the mountain. This was a slog with many intermittent stops, which means I need to train a lot more if I’m going to take on Tiger Mountain.
Secondly when it came time to go back down I was not prepared. I didn’t wipeout this time, but there was a few moments early on I felt my back tire coming up and my momentum carrying too far in front of me. Thankfully my brakes are in good working order and I was able to brake and keep my speed at a reasonable pace most of the rest of the way down. Mind you that isn’t really the point of downhill, but that’s OK.
The best part of the trip – besides the being in the woods and breathing some fresh air on a work-day, was the iPhone app I stumbled upon. The alltrails app is great. It uses your coordinates to find local trails nearby and also allows you to save trails to your favorites or a wishlist. But the best part of the app is the tracking feature. The app will track your entire trip up and back and then feed you information like elevation gain, speed, miles traveled and elapsed time. So for our trip here’s the stats:
Lower Pink Ribbon trail on West Tokul
Elapsed time: 1:30:03
Distance: 5.6 mi.
Elevation gain: 1,654 ft.
Avg. speed: 3.7 mph
Another nice feature on the app is that you can search trails or adventures based on criteria from bird watching to snowshoeing. It’s just another reason that owning a smartphone can really enhance your enjoyment of the outdoors … as long as you’re outdoors when you’re using it.
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