More thanks to Travis Olson for sending me out the word on the Tour de Lilly from Blackwater bikes in Davis, West Virginia. In just the nick of time, might I add. This is a pretty low key event on some of the same trails as the Revenge of the Rattlesnake . Low key but high quality and fun. They even laid out a major spread for lunch out on the trail. You could try, but you would be hard pressed to find a better trail guide than Blackwater's owner, Roger Lilly, and he still gots some skilz. I followed his line more than once.
35 strong, we rolled out from the back of the shop at about 10:15 on a beautiful dry Saturday morning. Particularly in contrast to snow they had one year and the damp, rainy, cloudy summer they had this year.
The dirt starts just out of town, on Blackwater Road. It is a nice warm up on fairly level dual track. The first single track climb was leaf strewn (the season was aptly named Fall), with several logs as obstacles as well as a bunch of natural rock features. While every rock, root and log were ridable, I doubt many cleaned the entire trail. There was just enough mud for variety.
We were treated to a real estate pitch from Susan Hayward, I think she was joking. :-)
We rode part of Plantation to Lindy and after some lunch headed back to town, while the rest of us went down the Allegheny trail to check out how the trail maintenance was turning out. Then back up.
Roger took the main group down the pipeline, while Jonathan took a few of us down Davis. Davis is a rockin DH, that kept you on your toes, demanding total focus, especially on a fully rigid bike. We finished up on the Yellow trail. I can't remember the name, but a slight change of spelling was more descriptive of the technical nature of this short, steep, rocky/rooty featureful trail that led back down to Blackwater Falls Road and back to the shop. Post up if you can tell me the name of this trail. Thanks.
Also let me know if you can tell the difference in quality of the first two videos in the play list below. The were similar on my iPhone, but on a PC they were different.
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