It was a great ride yesterday. Great to get back out on the bike after being rained out for nearly two weeks. The rain has made everything bloom at Rock Cut State Park. Young trees and scrub brush has taken over the singletrack in places and just staying on the trail meant getting whipped in the face by leaves and twigs. But the sky was blue and the air was warm, thick with the smell blossoming things, a cocktail of honeysuckle and lilac.

Seems everyone else has been rained out the past couple weeks too and was busy catching up on lawn mowing and other springtime landscaping to go out for a ride. I took a short solo ride, just over 13 miles, one lap around pierce lake. The trails were in amazingly good shape. A little muddier in the parts that are always muddy, but otherwise dry.

Here is the route from my Garmin Edge 205.

It’s sunny and warm today for the first time in over 2 weeks. The trails at Rock Cut have been unridable due to the sloppy weather, so I’m looking forward to a ride this afternoon.

April in the midwest is ify anyway and the “Do the Rock” race was rained out twice, so the Rock Cut Trail Crew decided to just cancel it this year and reschedule for next year. So I have a bunch of raffle swag and 2 boxes of outdated t-shirts to store in my garage until then. My wife will love that. Bummer.

Still planning a race episode for the next TrailTapes TV show. We’ll have an interview with the Kegel’s/Bad Ass Coffee WORS racing team. As I type this, they’re on their way to Alpine Valley in southern, WI, to pre-ride the WORS race that will happen there tomorrow. Holiday weekend next weekend, then up to Wausau, WI to race at 9-Mile.

I’ll be in San Francisco in early June and am working to line up a story with Marin Bikes. SRAM has invited TrailTapes for a tour of their Chicago facility and looking good for a tour of the TREK machine shop up in Waterloo, WI and, if I’m really lucky, might get some helmet cam footage of the TREK test track in the woods across the street, which I’m told is very cool.

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 TrailTapes Mountain Bike TV Episode 4: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

My apologies for being a bit late with TrailTapes this month. I’ve been busy with the Rock Cut Trail Crew, helping organize the race, which ended up being postponed due to rain. It has been rescheduled for May 13, so, weather permitting, I will have complete race coverage in the next episode of TrailTapes.

We built a new section of single track at Rock Cut State Park yesterday. Just a short reroute around an old, eroded fireroad. Visit www.rctrailcrew.org and check out the forums for lively conversation and details on the race too.

We have a report by Ezra from Gearnoise.com from the Sea Otter Classic, held in early April in Monterey, CA.

Nick Bojda contributed a report from the Midwest Mountain Bike Festival, held that same weekend at Klondike Park, near St. Louis, MO.

TrailTapes visited the Chicago Bike Show and found a chainless bicycle developed by Dynamic Bicycles.

And the Trail-Logue takes us to Stevens Point, WI where the Point Area Single Track Association (PASTA) has built 13 miles of mountain biking trails in Standing Rock Park. Download a PDF of the trail map here. Music: “Wired for Loud” by David Henderson

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Enjoy the show.