i first rode matson hill back in 2001, i think. i didn't like it very much. pretty choppy and just not very rewarding. i rode it again in 2002, maybe a couple of times, and came away with the same feeling. yuck.
the kaiser and i met up out at matson today. i would've never gone, except we're supposed to have a race their saturday. we parked at the parking lot on the katy trail, and we were of course the only people there. i've never seen another soul out at matson, which never shocked me because, well, it sucked.
kaiser and i pedaled slowly up the gravel road toward the trail head. he had never been there, so i was sort of giving him the scoop about the course as the road steepened into an impossibly steep wall, then leveled out.
"this'll be a great warmup, eh?" i asked. he agreed, and we both bitched and moaned a little about this gravel road being the lead-out train for the actual race on saturday, too. ug. then, a short jaunt on a perfectly paved road, and we reached the trail head.
we zipped around the trail at a leasurely pace, and i was really amazed at the difference. it was no longer choppy. it had the same g-outs and creak beds to jam through, but somehow it was much nicer than i remember. i also like the clockwise direction that we did, which is the direction the race is supposed to go, too. we finished our first lap, and it only took 20 minutes or so. i was up for another lap, but kaiser sat it out. he was still a little pekid from last weekends 28 mile romp around castlewood.
i went faster this time, and finished up in about 17 minutes, still not taxing myself. it's looking like a race loop will be 15 minutes or so. did i mention that i was having fun? i was. i'm glad i revisited matson. i don't think it's a good race course (too narrow, no spectator area, too short) but it's a fun place to ride.
kaiser and i coasted down the big hill to our cars. it's much more fun going down than it was going up.
No comments:
Post a Comment