Goat Sessions

Goat has my goat. I spent lunch out under the cloudy sky today. I wanted to give Goat a second go, and a third and a fourth… After almost cleaning the trail last week I thought if I adjusted the tire pressure, seat height and played around with gearing I could sail up the loose stuff and glide over the tech.

I was wrong.

The only sailing I did was on Desert Classic. It was the maiden voyage for my brand new Specialized Captain Control 2Bliss front tire. My Roll X blew a sidewall while it was just sitting in my office… you gotta love the Specialized tire guarantee. Credit 40 bucks, slap 5 down and I’m sailing with Captain Ned Overend. I’ll give a proper review for the Captain later, but for now, all I can say is this tire sticks to the trail like no other front tire I have owned.

Back to Goat. I cleaned everything up to the false summit except for the last bit before the saddle. That’s where I rode into Trouble spot #1. Five tries and I nailed it.

Trouble #2 came right at the top of the real summit. I made a silly slip, lost my groove and then couldn’t find any way over the last two sets of steep tech. It’s not lose there, just tricky. I sessioned this spot a few times before giving in to the “I gotta save something for next time” excuse.

I think I did everything right except warm up enough. Three circles around post marker 59 just weren’t quite enough. Maybe next time I’ll do four.

The ride down Helipad was true bliss. If only the trail was longer. Then I rode back up Helipad. Even truer bliss. Down Goat is a blast. As U2meetoo says, “it’s a hoot” and I fully agree. He rode up Helipad and down Goat a couple days ago. Here’s his sweet vid.