Wallowing in Buckwallow

Made the hour and a half country road commute from my mother-in-laws place to Buckwallow one day after a long gravel road ride. Well worth the trip in my books. I always love riding here. There's not a lot of trail, but what is there is plenty O'buckets of fun.

I was very happy to be back on the mtn bike for only my second ride on it since tweaking my ankle real good a month and a half ago. The first bit of dirt, rocks, mud and roots under the diSSent's wheels and without a doubt it rode indubitably well. After a heavy rain the day before, the trails proved to be a bit damp in a few spots, but overall were in excellent shape. After riding the CX and road bike so much over the past month I had begun to forget how smooth a ride it is for a rigid steel single speed.......pffffffft, full suspension geared bikes.

The trails are full of rocks and roots - one of my favourites, West D'nile, is 85% rock.

Some nice log features which I accidentally found myself riding on a couple of times - luckily I had my weakened ankle braced to the nine in case of any log related mishaps.


There is some trail erosion. Meh, I say it adds to the charm.

Grumpy old man......
I originally rode Buckwallow back in 2001 or 2002 a year or so after they first opened. It cost only $2 to ride it back then, now the price is up to $10 (thank Mr Harper for the recent HST increase). With only about 25 km of trail you can pretty much cover everything in about an hour or so. I rode it all twice, once in the direction posted and once in the opposite - and a few trails twice in both directions. Ended up with about 2.5 hrs in total riding.

One of my favourite technical tires, the Nevegal, is a trusty go to roots and rock tire which proved to be excellent in the rear. . . . not my rear, the rear of the bike, which I rode and the tire was on the ground.

Finally got around to testing out the Rampage in some wet, muddy conditions (with some sandy bits thrown in to boot) and was impressed with how well it rode. This is one all around wicked tire - not as heavy as the Nevegal and rolls much smoother. It will be accompanying me in the hills of Colorado next week for sure.