Fall Riding
With the falling of the leaves and the cooler weather taking a fall ride becomes very appealing. So appealing that I try to get out as much as I can. When the temps are in the 50-60 range you can ride with sleeves and not get as hot. It makes for a quite a nice ride, but there are some things to look out for. Last year around this time I snuck out of work early and tried to sneak in a ride before dinner and I lost light, but I learned a valuable lesson that day. Leaf covered trails can be a bit tricky.
On Sunday I managed to get out in the afternoon and visions of my ride last year came back to me quickly. The first covering of fresh leaves is so pretty to look at and smell that you can get almost hypnotized by the beauty of it all. So much so that the trail can get lost by the sea of colors. There were a couple of times on Sunday I either missed my turn or road off the trail because I literally couldn’t see where the trail was actually going. My trick here is to play with the tint on your sunglasses and try to look down the trail as far as possible. Using a yellow lens may turn everything to one color, but a dark lens may not help either. Clear or a redish tint seem to make some of the colors stand out more. I always keep a couple of lens choices with me so feel free to see what works best here. Just remember to keep looking down the trail.
Next lesson you will learn quickly would be fallen leaves are very slippery. So much so that last year I took a couple of spills around some corners which didn’t seem very tight when on dry dirt. I had my bike slide right out from under me and I slid in a different direction twice on the same ride. Fortunately I was by myself and I didn’t get hurt. So my pride didn’t take any hits and overall my body was fine. Unfortunately my Carbon Force at the time managed to get a bit scratched up and full of mud. It cost me a night of cleaning the bike to remove the evidence of my mishap. Lesson learned here would be just slow it down a bit and test some slower speeds on corners to make sure you are not going to slide around too much. Water doesn’t make this any better so if it has just rained or is early morning be prepared for it to be really slick.
Last bit of advice I have for you is simply to stop and smell the rotting leaves. I mean roses…..whatever. It really is a pretty time of year so take a break and enjoy the beauty that mother nature has created. On Sunday Jay and I took some time in the woods to test the new IOS slow motion video software. For some quick videos and simple editing you can get a dramatic video clip. We ran out of battery on Jays iPhone so we only got a few clips, but here is one that turned out nice.