Yesterday afternoon, I headed over to the Mt. Ida area and camped out for the night. Along the way, I stopped at The Ride bike shop in Conway. I was going to buy a new cassette because I’d somehow bent a cog on mine while riding fire roads the day before. When I got there, instead of just selling a new cassette, they took a look at mine, then went at it with a screw driver… lo and behold, he was able to fix it! Woohoo! Gotta love good customer service- if you’re ever in the Conway area and need something, check them out.

Anyway- After a chilly night in the tent, I woke up in the morning and went to a local cafe for breakfast (French toast!) then headed out with Todd to the Brushy Mountain trailhead near the Ouachita trail. We took forest roads to the beginning of the singletrack for the upcoming Ouachita Challenge race. Brushy is tough- I didn’t get off my granny gear most of the time because the trail was either straight up or straight down.

Once we arrived back at his truck, Todd gave me instructions about how to get to the next couple of sections of trail (he wasn’t feeling well). So, I headed off to Blowout Mountain on my own. After the initial climb, it’s not that bad- there are a couple of hike-a-bike sections where the trail is piled over with rocks (see photos below), but it’s otherwise just a lot of picking your way around a lot of medium-sized rocks.

The last mountain was Cleabit (I could be mispelling that… but the name reminds me of the word “fleabit” so I’m sticking with it!) It starts with a steeeeeeeeeep climb. OW! It also had a random rockpile (the photo below with the blue blazes on the trees). I paced myself and was still feeling great by the time I reached the trailhead where Todd was waiting to pick me up. Great day! I’m feeling confident about doing well in the OC race.