What day is it?! It's mountain bike Saturday!!

After a quiet busy week at work and even more busy weekend at home I managed to get on the mountain bike and do my usual Saturday XC spin that I've been missing for a while. The day was 100% the best for it after all the bad weather during the week. Warm and sunny day, no wind, just perfect! Exactly the one I was hoping for! :)

Ready to hit the road

After last week's Orwell Randonnée and that some repair on on my bike understandable enough how much I was looking forward to some muddy cycling action up in the mountains! I knew it was gonna be a good spin and it turned out I made no mistake. It was brilliant! :)

Lovely view on the way up to Threerock

Enjoying the climb on the fancy, new road surface. :)

Since I haven't been on the MTB for about 2 weeks now, I just wanted to get out and ride wherever the bike takes me. No planned route, just take whatever comes. After I got up to Threerock I got to the bottom of the Boneshaker and started to climb on the technical trail up towards the top. With all the rain previously the bastard was even more difficult than it nornally is! :) 

After a quick ride on the Upper Metro trail I started to do some very mucky natural trails on the other side of the hill. 

Beautiful view of the Dublin Bay from the end of the Upper Metro

 

Mud, rocks, roots, more mud, roots, bigger roots, even deeper mud...I could go on all day about the conditions up on some forest trails. Was excellent to trying to stay upright and grab the last bit of traction on some steep technical climbs! I loved it! :)

Ouch...very challenging conditions!

Once I got the job done around my favourite trails on Threerock I cut accross the mountain and got on the Wicklow Way to ride back towards the lower carpark on Ticknock. 

Checking out the Wicklow Mountains

After I had a fuper fast descent on the Wicklow Way I got a little more climb done on the fire road and some more natural trail riding around the back one more time before I turned back towards home. 

Taking my time up on the mountains, was just too nice to get back home :)

The way home is always extremely short and fast, it's practically downhill all the way to my place. So it took me no time to arrive home and realize how much mud I've been taken home on the bike. It will take a while before I can ride the bike again (I'll be working at the Irish Cycling Show with next weekend at the RDS), so I decided to clean the bike straight after the spin. I just couldn't leave it the way it was.

Washing bike in the sun can't go wrong, can it?

This afternoon's spin was just simply great: 2 hours and 15 minutes of speed, fun and mud. I can't tell how greatful I am about the weather today after all the depressive weather in the last couple of weeks. This spin got me charged until I can get out again. Great stuff! :)