Not In My Backyard

But it was in a backyard nonetheless. 

I’m talking about Charlotte’s famous (and former underground) trail system, the Backyard Trails.  No longer a secret since an agreement was reached with local government to make it legit, it’s quite the popular spot around here.  It used to be the “trail whose name we do not speak”, but now it’s open for all.  I hadn’t been there in a couple of years, so it was time to see what was going on and have myself a little alone time.

Even though it’s all legal now and junk, it’s still a little difficult to find if you don’t know where to look.  After parking in a parking lot that’s not the trailhead, you have to cross a busy road to even find the trail.

Once you cross the road, you still have to do a little searching.  Luckily I’ve been there before, so I wasn’t wandering around the neighborhood streets looking for singletrack.  If you know where it is, you’ll find the trailhead.

This place is nothing like the other trails around here.  Fun, flowy singletrack gets you moving fast, but there are lots of features thrown in to keep you on your toes.

I’ve always been told to “look before you leap” there, and I was quickly reminded why.

After riding around and jumping shit, grabbing the occasional handful of brakes, and generally having a helluva time, I saw something odd.

Now, I hadn’t been there in years, and I think I may have missed some things the last time.  The railroad sign was followed by this:

Aww, isn’t that cute?  Little baby railroad tracks.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that these were the now infamous poo tracks.  I couldn’t wait to ride them (I missed them before for some reason.)  I looked around, and there was poo, I mean tracks everywhere.

Basically, these “tracks” are like little skinnies (formerly used to haul poo to and fro I’m guessing), and the loop takes you back and forth over several of them.  I didn’t know what to expect, but luckily another sign was there to inform me of the difficulty.

It was freaking awesome, and easily the most interesting loop out there.

On one of the track sections, a tree had taken over.  Not to be robbed of poo track goodness, they made it into another feature.

My bars were too wide for the option on the left, so I didn’t do it.

I rode across a bunch of these tracks, and it was fun as hell.  I was laughing my ass off and enjoying the ride. Mostly because I kept saying “poo tracks.”  

It’s fun to say.

Try it.

"Poo tracks."

You know, all this talk about poo makes me want to cut this blog post short.

I’ll finish the ride tomorrow.

I gotta go poo.