Today was cold and windy, perfect for a long day on the trails. We hit the Lake Chabot Bike Loop about noon and I thought I'd see how far she wanted to go. From our start to just about 2 miles there is a bench that is a good place to take a break. It is after a long climb, has nice views, and gives me the chance to see how the dog is feeling. Tongue draggin? I'll make it a short day. If she just takes a quick drink of water and recovers quick, hey off we go for a longer loop.
We got there pretty quick, the trails were great, and she looked good after a quick water break, so off we went. We rolled up some smaller climbs and down a few small sections to the paved road at Merciel Road.
We took a longer break there and talked to a few people out for the day. It was an awesome day. If I turned back it would be an up and back 8 mile ride. But if I went down the hill I would be committed to going all the way around the lake. That's just over 11 miles. I've only done that a few times, but my dog has never been that far in one day. It would turn into a 3 hour ride.
The day was beautiful, nice and clear and dry and cold. Perfect for doing a long day. After a 10 minute break I decided to go for it and down the hill we went.
Here's the elevation graph of the ride. The "Let's Go" decision came at the top, as you can see it is a pretty steep drop from the top down to the lake.
That's about a 500 foot drop.
At the lake you run onto lots of people walking round, fishermen, baby strollers, joggers, other dogs. But you gotta have your dog on a leash. Cassie does really well on the leash as I ride along on my bike. We go about 5 to 8 miles per hour and she stays just off to the left rear of the bike.
We got to the Lake Chabot Marina and took another break. She was pretty tired and took to the comfort of the shade under a picnic table. I gave her a few shots of water in her foldable water dish. She was pretty happy to have a few shots of H2O. I watched her breathing to wait for it to come down, then waited some more, then she and I were ready to do the second half.
We had more of fairly flat lake trails to do before a few brutal climbs to get back to the truck. Once again she was on the leash chuggin' right along with me. After the dam at the south west end of the lake I unclipped her leash and the rolling climbs started again. We got to Bass Cove and laid down in the grass. We could have both stayed and taken a nap in the warming sun.
I had a Shot Blok snack and got ready to finish up.
A little more water for both of us and we had about 2 miles of mostly climbing to go. 2 tough miles. We stopped a few times, but mostly kept going. All day the trails were in perfect shape. No dust, no mud. It couldn't have been better.
And we made it. 11+ miles at just under 3 hours. The dog sure is beat, and, well, me too.
Here's the GPS route link @ MotionBased. http://tinyurl.com/march-mtb-dog
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