It was another beautiful fall day in town today & after Saturday morning chores, discovering some drunken lout had kicked one of my tail lights in (grrrrrr) & a trip to the grocery store my thoughts turned to going for a ride.

There was a bitter cold wind blowing down the valley today & riding across to get to the G8 was on the chilly side – I wasn’t enjoying that at all.  Feeling rather lethargic I failed to clear that first steep climb & was pretty slow until some guy caught up to me & I got a bit of motivation to get going.  From then on the ride was great & as I was by myself I decided I wouldn’t complete the last part of the figure-eight – I rode back up the first part I did to make more of a Gp or Gd ride.  This was a stroke of genius as I could finally check out a side trail I’d seen many times shoot off up the hill a bit further.  At some stage after climbing a while & then a little pushing I felt that I was going to hit the hiking trail going all the way up Grotto.   I really wanted to turn around at the top of the loop & come back the way I’d come as it looked really fun, but this desire was less than the one to see where the loop came out on the main trail.  There were small bits of steep slickrock & some fun parts in the descent.  I finally knew where I was after another couple of junctions & I shot down the last descents to come back out at Cougar Creek.