First Mountain Bike Ride Since ... February?

I haven't been on the mountain bike since I rebuilt my old frame with new parts. Weather, the band, and, well, life have just kept me from it. Today, Steve and I headed down to Greenland Open Space.

I left the house at about 5:55 AM, to meet Steve for breakfast. I rode my mountain bike down to Crown Burgers, only to realize that they don't open until 7:00. It was raining lightly, and beautiful, full-arch rainbow was overhead as Steve pulled into the parking lot. We opted to go across the road to McDonald's (much as I hate to do that).

After we were done eating, we drove up to my house and grabbed my CamelBak, and my after-ride clothes, and then headed south. It was still raining, as we drove, but I figured it would clear up, pretty quickly.

By the time we got halfway up the hill, the skies were clearing, and the sun was beaming down.

We completed the Greenland Loop, then rode over to the Spruce Meadow Trailhead, and took the trail over to the intersection with the Spruce Mountain Trail. After a nice singletrack climb through the trees, we stopped at the top to enjoy the view.

Over my shoulder, you see the Greenland Loop, which we had just ridden.

As we sat on the rocks, enjoying the view, a train approached from the south, on the tracks between us and Greenland. I saw some bluish-green tanks of some sort, on the train, and was curious as to what they might be. As the train got closer, I realized what they were.

Those are passenger jet bodies. I don't know what model they are, but they looked to be about the size of a 737. I had never even considered that planes might be transported by rail. I always figured that they just built them and flew them to wherever they were going.

Soon after the train had gone by, Steve and I took off on the loop trail, on top of the mountain.

There are some nice views from that trail.

And, there is some nice, flowy singletrack through the trees.

On our way back, we stopped to check out the plastic lizard I had spotted on the way in.

As we looked at it, Steve realized that the plastic jug was a geocache. We looked in it, and signed the log book, before riding on.

It was a beautiful day for a mountain bike ride, and we ended up with 18 miles of off-road riding, when we were done.

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