Mountainbiking, Lake Thunderbird

Thought I might share my crazy story with folk back home about a little mountainbiking adventure with Todd yesterday afternoon, Wednesday 19 September at the Clear Bay trails, Lake Thunderbird (15 mins down the road from where I live in Norman).

Unfortunately I forgot the camera, been doing that a lot lately, maybe I'm getting complacent and it doesn't feel like I'm traveling anymore, now it's been 6 months.
After work Todd & I threw the bikes in the back of my Jeep (I have a borrowed bike from a lovely lady at work whose husband isn't using it currently) and we drove down Highway 9 to the South Dam trail head which leads straight to the expert trail.

Bodgy site about Clear Bay
Clear Bay Trail Map

We were attempting the expert trail because the intermediate trail and the Stanley Draper lake course didn't do much to raise pulses. The afternoon weather was warm and calm, the lake was amazing Todd and I agreed that we were doing the wrong activity and we should be on the boat, storms were building in the distance. Well after 10 minutes on the trail I was sweating and already had ridden through dozens of spider webs. Soon I was surprised to find some pretty crazy stuff, a totally different level from everything else I've seen here, and throughout the afternoon we encountered several rock drops, very deep and steep gullies, some of them with mud at the bottom and severe erosion from the spring and summer rains. We are both very new to the sport, and where Todd used to balk at a drop and think it was suicide, it wasn't long on this course before he started going first and making it through despite hesitation wobbles, feet slipping off pedals, brakes screeching, shouting 'holy moly!' etc. Very amusing stuff, for some strange reason, seeing my room mate in distress is incredibly funny to me. Probably because most things we do here, like Frisbee Golf, Wakeboarding, even Xbox gaming with the boys, he's infuriatingly good at all of it!

We encountered the 'Totter', a great big 2ft by 12ft long see-saw that you can ride over. The idea is to ride up the ramp, slow down to an almost complete stop and creep over the center so the see saw dips down, and ride off the end. Sound easy? I attempted it 3 times and each time I stacked off the top of it, losing my balance at the point where the plank tips over, falling to the left and having to jump off the bike or over the handlebars from about 7ft in the air. Big moments each time, lucky I landed on my feet as an awkward fall from that height could mean broken bones. Todd's first attempt was funniest, he went too far past the center, and the see saw pivoted real quick and crashed to the ground, suddenly propelling Todd forward on the steep decline. As he had his weight leaning back on the bike, he rolled down and off the see saw with his front wheel going up into the air and he fell off landing flat on his back on the ground!

So the Totter defeated us both, and we had to move on. We saw two Deer running around, first time I have seen wild Deer. Then, we got lost. The signage definitely needs improving, at least 4 times we thought we knew where we were, only to pedal down a chosen track to find out it's not the one we thought. We were running out of light and were still lost when the sun was about to set, we were somewhere in the middle of the 5 mile course, hadn't seen a single person, and Todd thought we had about 20 mins of light left. We had bearings of direction, from the sun, the lake and the sound of traffic on Highway 9, but under the trees with the light running out, several times neither of us had any clue as to where we were. Finally at about sunset we located ourselves and decided to get off the unknown and hard-going advanced track and go back along the intermediate one we had done before to the other trail head, which is over a mile away from the trail head where we parked. Anxiety was mounting, not panic though, I have never panicked as that doesn't serve any useful purpose, and Todd's the same. After a half hour of serious pedaling and never-ending winding tracks through the darkening bush, under an approaching storm with thunder and light rain, my thoughts were far away from how cool the lightning bugs looked blurring past in orange streaks. Todd said he might have swallowed one. Soon it was virtually dark, I was leading and couldn't go fast even in a straight line, for fear of riding off the track I was straining to see. I had my mobile phone though, which as I have proved before, can be used as a source of light, if it came to it, we could walk our bikes single file off the track by that light, provided we didn't miss the intersecting trail.

Finally we made it to the exit trail that leads back to the car park, and that feeling of relief, that's when all anxiety turns to joy and triumph and suddenly you're having the best fun in ages. I think we had less than 5 minutes of twilight left before we would have had to stop and resort to walking, under the trees it was nearly pitch dark. As it was when we got off the exit trail to the road, it was 100% night and we rode back down highway 9 in the dark getting blinded by oncoming car headlights. So we hustled as we were supposed to meet some of Todd's friends in town for dinner and we were way late, and Todd washed the muddy bikes off the boat ramp in the lake while I went and got the car, getting dozens of sharp burs on my shoes and socks as though the lake was having one last go at me. All told I'd flicked 5 spiders off me, rode through over a hundred spider webs, Todd caught 2 ticks I caught one (just crawling around not digging in), and I had curious itchy swelling under my left eye and neck. But it was the best adventure I'd had since coming to the US, and I'd do it all again tomorrow!