Minnesota River

 

Rode part of the MN river today.   I love it that all the trail work done down there has been washed away.  The trail is now so new and fresh I did not even recognize or know where I was at times.   I am a big fan of allowing MTB trails to evolve naturally around obstacles, through wet and over fallen trees as they happen each year.  This trail has had a massive trail extinction and has wonderful potential to be what it was before it turned into the nearly straight freeway it had become in recent years.  I like a trail that forces me to get off my bike to clear a few obstacles, to duck under some, to go through some water, sand or mud  and is unpredictable enough to make me crash at least once a trip.   I got it all today.  The Pugsley was a dream bike for the unpredictable and at times sandy trail but as of today it was dry enough for any mountain bike.   The cotton wood trees looked bigger than ever and the vegetation has exploded to heights and thickness levels I have never seen.  The flood has strewn giant trees all over the place giving the trail a kind of post apocalyptic/ primaeval forest feel.  Lots of animals as a result of little human contact down there this year.  The only problem I really had today was the stinging nettle/burning weed plants that stuck into most of the trail.  The burning was all the way up my arms and down all over the front of my legs and got so bad at one point I felt kind of panicky.   My pics are kind of sucky because of the need to keep moving from bugs and the burning weed.