I had a revelation this mountain bike riding season, hardcore riders are, well, too hardcore. They have the matching spandex outfits and talk about their loop times afterwords instead of admiring that pack of wild turkeys at mile marker two. This theory was confirmed when I recently made a comment on the MMBA web site. The site has an area (
http://mmba.org/forum/) for riders to enter the trail conditions for pretty much every riding location in Michigan. With that, I made a comment on the conditions at Highland Recreation Area. That is when all hell broke loose.
My comment (my page name is "largemelon") was a simple one:
The tree roots are the worst I've seen in quite some time. I would be happy to
help but I think it's time for some re-routes.
That is when page name "irishpitbull," probably reading my comment after his fourth Red Bull, came back with:
As a guy that does this trail 3 times a week and has years of experience doing
trail maintenance. I see no area that need reroutes. This isn't road biking. If
you want flat and smooth go somewhere else and leave highland alone.
I
was out there last night and the trail was perfect, the TC's do a great job
here. Will be out there again tonight, for a night ride.
A little while after this, page name "c0nsumer," on his fifth Bull, jumps onto the pile:
Are you sure you don't want to cut out those unsightly roots and remove those
trip hazard rocks? Or maybe just paint them orange to make them more visible?
The "irishpitbull," not to be outdone, shoots back:
Orange cones over the rocks, you wouldn't want to hit one of those. The trees are pretty close to the trail also, can we pad them?
Late to the party, but still heard, two weeks later, page name "BusDriver" decides to pile on with:
ROFLMAO, With all due respect melon, that's help we can do without! You must
have never ridden Oleta River SP in FL!
Hats off to the TC's at Highland,
you guys rock!
I'm not up on my acronyms for the ROFLMAO reference (some kind of laughing and ass in there somewhere) but wow, relax fellas. It was just a general comment. I respect the passion but stop and smell the roses every so often and leave that riding timer in the car. The only person that cares about your riding time is you so why do you always bring it up in the parking lot for everyone to hear? It's great you beat your best time but did you see that pack of deer drinking out of that stream? I didn't think so.
Thankfully, the hardcore riders are a minority and the mountain bike scene was an enjoyable one this year. Hardcore nation, I'll still be out there waiting for the "on your left" call from you as you pass me once again. Ride on.
Trail Head
Although I'll probably be wearing gloves and scraping my car windows on Sunday, it's not Sunday yet! With that, the wacky Michigan weather gave the riding tour one last evening loop for the year tonight at Maybury Recreation Area. With my fellow riding brothers on hiatus (insert reason - ha), part time Molson Bike Tour rider Judy, who is part of the SOLAR (some kind of acronym there) club, advised a few members of that club were riding so I joined them for the pedal. The whole SOLAR intention sounds pretty cool, getting people together who like the outdoors whether it be bike riding, kayaking, backpacking, skiing, etc... although I was joking with them that there is probably some hidden cult mixed in there somewhere. A nice night it was. 
