Summoning Shadowfax -- DirtDaze2017

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Venturing into off road territory was a little bit of an adventure for me. Battling the elements with 200 miles of riding in heavy rain, only to be followed by a couple of days in hot sun and dusty trails. Both physically and mentally challenging days make for a good sleep, even in a small tent.

[Nerdy intro, skip if you want: 1.8in (4.67cm) That’s the distance between the knobs on my new off road tires (scorpion rally II). At least on the front wheel. In the rear it’s slightly more. Incidentally this is leads to a whistle of a bout 440hz around 45 mph (~72 km/h). Since the rear wheel is slightly different, you end up with a dissonant whistle of slightly different frequencies when riding. So while I am making my way up to DirtDaze at Lake Luzerne, my bike is trying to summon Shadowfax (Gandalf uses a whistle like that to get his attention).]

the route

I chose a nice off-highway route to get to Lake Luzerne through the down pour on Tuesday. I threw on all my rain-gear and jumped on Yuki with all my camping equipment: Yuki ready to roll
As it turns out, my rain gear is a lot less water proof than originally advertised, or maybe they’re just not talking about 5h of riding in heavy rain… long story short, I was pretty wet by the time I got there and finally got to put up the tent. Luckily there was a little break in rain just at that moment. tent site claimed
During the evening and night a couple of people actually showed up, so the camp site looked a bit more crowded when the sun was trying to pierce through the morning fog. first sunrise at DirtDaze2017 The next few days blend in together a bit with two guided rides, a lesson with Jimmy Lewis, and a wide range of random running around with new friends exploring random paths through the woods. Adirondack loop on Wednesday an actual selfie somewhere in the Adirondacks