The Dirt on Durham

On Saturday I travelled to Durham, an area about an hours drive North West of Toronto, to get some time on dirt into my under slept body. My apologies for the lack of photos, I didn't realise my camera batteries were flat until we were almost there.

The riding was great fun, we had a group of around 12, a lot of people had registered for Crank The Shield next weekend and had come out to pick up their registration packs and get a couple of hours of riding in. The group consisting of all bar 3 riders on rigid, 29er single speeds took me on an adventure of the forest's sandy loam trails. I was a bit tired so never felt the flow of the area but the trails carved their way under the pine trees, often crossed by roots, certainly hooked up.... well until you hit a big patch of fine river sand, at that point it was drift-o-rama.

The day wasn't all smiles, we had an unexpected stop to look for a Rotor Anglis crank bolt that came unstuck through the twisty stuff. Thankfully it's anodised red body was found and returned to it's rightful place on the left side of a bike. The plants deserve a mention with raspberry plants that ripped at arms and legs, while the forest floor was festooned with Poison Oak, a plant that looks to me like every other plant, but delivers oils to your skin that 1-3 days later can give you boil like rashes. Needless to say when I returned to my apartment I scrubbed like Jim Carey in Ace Ventura.

*edit* Tom took some photos that are available here.