ZOLDER

When Alex asked if I wanted to do the Zolder toertocht, I thought, why the hell not? I had imposed a mtb moratorium on myself until the trails dried up...one can wash a bike only so many times in one's lifetime. But, ever since I moved to this crazy little country, everybody was talking about Zolder this, and Zolder that. "Did you know Roel Paulissen trains in Zolder?" So how bad could it be, right?


Sad to say, it was MISERABLE. Ok, riding in the dirt with a friend is always ok. But the course. Oef, the course. The picture above is really the highlight of the day. A short little climb where we tested ourselves to see if we could climb it without getting off. We made it.


The rest of the course was like this. Cold. Dirt roads. Muddy. I'm falling asleep just writing about it. To give the organizers some credit, apparently it's a new group putting this on, and there was some reason why they couldn't use a bunch of the normal trails. But still.

Fortunately, the bicycle dinosaur museum was especially powerful today. Look at this! I don't even know what it is, except it's probably almost as old as me. Full carbon fiber with an elevated chainstay. Magura HS-33! And what is with the strange, sea-foam green bar-ends pointing up to the sky, as if to receive special instructions from the mothership?


Here was another beauty. And I'm not laughing at these riders. I think it's cool that they are still shredding belgian singletrack on them. But you must admit...this one is also a little peculiar. The frame, combined with the wheels. V-brakes on a carbon Specialized-branded Rockshox. This was the sexiest bike in Belgium in 1994.


Anyway. Highlights were few and far between this day. But that's all right. Bike wash. Beer. Home to watch a cyclocross race. It was all good.

Tokul, WA

It used to be that if you lived in the Seattle area, there were really only 2 or 3 areas to ride: Tiger Mountain, Tapeworm, and maybe St. Edwards park. But over the last 5 years or so, a ton of fantastically excellent riding places have popped up. Grand Ridge, Preston, and a totally new one to me, Tokul. Despite a late night of xbox and whiskey until 4am, I managed to drag myself up to Tokul where Eric, Garret, Chip, and Matt were waiting to ride.

It had been a tough week. 5 continuous days of endless driving, big meals, and little sleep. The crash in the last week's road race gave me a dislocated rib. So I was totally pathetic going both up and down. But whatever. These were totally wicked trails.

Wallace brought me a Turner Flux to ride. Although I disapproved of the tires, the bike was solid. And the trails? Did I talk about the trails? Fantasstic.

For those about to rock...

Of course, it had to be AC DC

You Yangs

Ah, Australia. Our last mtb ride took us to You Yangs, arguably the main mtb spot on the general Melbourne area. I had ridden here before with Mark but there had been some improvements to the trails and some new additions. The You Yangs now was a dedicated mountain bike area. Pretty cool!

The two manly men set out on their ride. You Yangs is kind of a lumpy little hill in the middle of a giant, dry plain. It's not all that big but they aussies have managed to cut some fun little trails.


Trails were impeccably marked for idiots like me and also graded on level of difficulty, so you could push yourself to the brink of injury. The Boulder track was a good one. Short and sweet, but lots of slick rock and testy little sections.


And wildlife. Australian wildlife! If you squint really hard you can see in the center a wallaby, which I found out is just a small kangaroo.


This is also really the only place you could ride a big dual-squishy, and they had a handful of dedicated DH trails with some north shore features. We ended up doing a big figure 8 loop that took in plenty of climbing, some little jumps, lots of flowy singletrack, and some technical delicacies.


...as evidenced here by yours truly SHREDDING that rock face. Practically turned it into molten lava...


Not sure if you can tell from this photo, but it was HOT there. We were pooped at the end.


Luckily the pilot had pre-empted our tired thirst by bringing cold aussie beverages. Good day all around!