by Steve_Balogh » January 23rd, 2011, 8:44 pm
I ventured out to Adrian today hoping for something a little different than what I've been seeing locally. Surprised to see so many hiker's prints there too, however the first 1/2 mile or so that forms a loop back to the nature center was so packed down it was almost smooth. Outside of that my fat tires came in handy getting over the frozen footprints. The section between the roads entering and exiting the nature center I did a couple of laps there. The first was pretty tough, but I got through much quicker the second time around. Seemed I could smash a lot of the frozen tracks down. The worst section is the east end on the other side of the road. Fewer hikers there, creating some frozen shoe prints for a really bumpy ride. Most of the trail was bumpy, but not as bad as that section.
I got lost crossing the bridge at the bottom of the hill, ended up in the frisbee golf course. I made my way back around the farm and did another lap and rode sections I missed. I'm thinking I still missed some areas I remembered from last year's night ride. Lots of people cutting across loops as well as a few animal tracks going off on what looked like trail sections made me think a few times. Is the "swamp section" still there? I didn't see anything that looked like that, appears to be part of the golf course from what I can recall.
Beautiful day. Was a tough ride but I enjoyed it. Only walked a couple steep hills, everything else I could pretty much mash through and could climb many other decent sized hills.
One note: On the east section I spoke of, where there are some good size log hops, the large tree trunk that's part of the trail had a pedal trap. On the right side the chicken wire covering has a hole in it. Looks like someone snagged their pedal in it, and ripped an 8" hole in it. I got my right pedal caught in the hole. I tried to flatten that down the best I could, but it looks like it needs a trim. I was actually walking over the log, thankfully I didn't try riding it.