Allison and I shuttled up Guardsman’s Pass around 6am today for a pre-work Crest Trail ride.  It’d rained hard last night and tire tracks from previous riders had been replaced by smooth singletrack dimpled with texture from the torrential thunderstorm.  Only a few minutes into the ride we ran into an F250-sized bull moose grazing from the trail.  Waving and yelling did little to relocate the unflappable moose so we backtracked and pedaled the old trail over Scotts Hill.

For those who don’t mountain bike, just-barely-damp trails (aka tacky) are about as good as it gets for maximum traction.  Even my tired old tires pull around corners like they are mounted to roller-coaster rails.  A week ago I could feel both tires drifting sideways across some of the dustier, higher speed turns. Not today.  For trails like the Crest that have few bermed turns, riding on a morning like today allows you to pull about as many G’s around the corners as you’ll ever will.