Chickasaw Trace Mountain Biking - 8-19-09

The weather forecast was completely off today (mostly cloudy and thunderstorms) so I decided to ride my home course, Chickasaw Trace in Columbia, TN. I really like this course since it has a nice mix of technical sections and singletrack. I think it is really challenging with climbs, especially in the aptly named "Trail of Tears" and "Blackhill Trail."

I got my handheld mapping GPS and wanted to try it out with tracing my tracks. I am learning the hard way how to do this. Some things I am learning include:

1. Power the GPS on and let it get satellites while you are getting ready. I turned it on, threw it in the backpack and was off. It never got a good read of the satellites as a result.
2. Read the owner's manual. This helped me figure out where to save tracks, clear old tracks, etc. Even though I am a GIS person and can edit these files, I am making it harder than it has to be.
3. Save the tracks then clear the current track right before you go into the trail.

Here is the track from yesterday:

Not bad overall, but it is seriously off in some places.

Special thanks go out to the Columbia Cycling Club for their maintenance of the trail. It had rained earlier in the week so there were some muddy spots, concentrated near the end of the trail (as usual, this is how the drainage works out there).