Ahquabi pre-ride

Hopefully I'm not giving away any trade secrets for the upcoming race weekend, but Brian and I went down to pre-ride the trails at Ahquabi last night. He had ridden down there a number of times so I let him be my indian scout. Add in that work was dragging me down and I needed to turn some pedals in anger and all was good.

We didn't hit the course until close to 7 and since there were no markings really up yet, we just had the base description to go by on figuring out where the course might go. Since we parked up top, we got to hit a wickedly fun little descent that has railroad ties laid across it to form "steps". It's also covered with fine gravel and a wash down one side to add some interest. Once we hit the bottom loop around the lake it was awesome wide double track with small little rollers up and down. Across the first bridge is a nice little steep power climb that isn't too technical other than just being steep. I rolled slowly up it the first lap and didn't have too many issues. There are a couple mudholes of no real concern on the back part of the course. Just enough to flip some stuff up on you at speed. On the back side there are a couple of really fun little descents as well. Once we got to the campground, we weren't sure where the trail was going to go as there is supposed to be some looping around the catch basins. We rode that area, but nothing of much consequence was up there.

For the second lap I wanted to up the pace and see what kind of flow I could get going. The wide paths really inspire some fast riding, but there are a few turns that you could easily get in over your head due to various washes and sandy spots. about the most technical thing you have to worry about is washes and ruts sporadically spread through the course. Other than that it's a fast fast track. Sure, it's not true singletrack in the middle of the woods, but it's definitely fun in it's own way.

There are a couple miscellaneous climbs that could be thrown in depending on the final routing, but still nothing like what I experienced on the beginner portion of Boone. Unless it happens to rain which would change things up pretty good, I'd hope for expert at 4 laps, sport 3 laps, and 2 laps for us beginners. Hopefully I'll see a few of you on Sunday.