Treasure Valley Cycling Club

Just a word of caution for all those that enjoy (the unpublished and non official trail we call,) Sweet Connie. I personally am going to stay away from it for some months because of ruts. Not your run-of-the-mill sandy foothills trail ruts after a rain, I'm talkin' caverns of tire-sucking canyons on the upper part and continues down into the cow pasture. Also, the upper trail is has eroded into a v-shape so you can't really avoid the tire suck. Plus, some rutty sections on the top are unavoidable since the single track has a drop off on your left and incline on the right of the trail.

Last Friday morning, me and two other experienced riders (sorry, non TVCC and exclusively MTB only buddies that I ride with off and on, one a SWICA board member,) rode up Bogus starting from the end of the trail (at least a 10 mile slog on your fat-tire knobs,) to the upper part of East Side trail (which was MTB dreamy heaven by the way,) and then down Sweet Connie. She was a stressful trick trying to both ride alongside and into the ruts. I even roll on huge 2.5 width Continental Diesel tubeless balloons on my rims with over 160mm of luscious travel but to no avail on that trail! It took an hour longer to ride it just from navigating the ruts, with each of us taking multiple sagebrush crashes or controlled bailouts and also from getting your tires whipped around in and out of the ruts. Since it is a "hush-hush" off-the-record trail, I'm not sure what maintenance it will receive and it won't be worth it (at least for ME to ride) maybe for some time. Just giving ya'll the downlow.

Tom