WW // Tibradden - Nice & relaxed mountain bike spin

Another Saturday means another XC spin, so we wasted no time: got on our bikes and turned up towards the Dublin muntains to have fun on the bike on this great, sunny morning. This time I went out with my friend Csaba and since we haven't been out on the bike together for like a million years we decided to have a cool and chilled out spin with lots of talk and a very civilized pace. :)

The plan was to show him the new trails that I started to use lately and the fastest way to get there was to climb up to Threerock and from there we hit the super rocky and technical Wicklow Way to reach our destination.

Rocks after rocks, puddles after puddles...it was so much fun to ride on that upper, flat sector of the Wicklow Way and rise to the challenge to manage a good pace without loosing control of the bike on the aggressive surface. It was cool! :)

That's not smooth indeed :)

After the short sector of the Wicklow Way we turned right and started to roll along of the trails of Tibradden. The real fun started when we got on the Legend trail which was extremely muddy this time...I mean the whole place was super slippery! The best part was the switch in between the opened parts of the trail (they were real challenging 'cause of the mud) and the forest sectors (they were extremely quick and dry enough). To go from easy and fast to difficult and slowish, and to repeat this soooo many times was pretty cool! :) 

At some points it was a real challenge even just to stay upright on the bike. The most sketchy bit was the right turn after the big, flat rock that lies in that left turn drop. It was savage to ride that thing in that mud! :) 

The biggest & deepest puddle that I've encountered for a long time!!! :)

We had good fun while we tried to ride accross that thing but it was soo deep and the bottom of it was full of rocks and branches it was impossible to ride through in the middle. The water was as deep as the axles and the BB! The only way to get through was to pick a nice line on the right hand side. Here is a short video of the crossing: 

After we finished messing around the muddy trails we got back on the road and started to head back home. By the time I got back to my place I got 30 km in under a little longer than 2 hours.

Here is our route this morning

Havin' such an easy and fun filled mountain bike spin on a bright and sunny Saturday morning is just great. I loved to be out on the bike and mess around in the mud! It was short, it wasn't fast or difficult spin but hey! It was brilliant and for today it was more than perfectly enough! :)