rain and weather...

[camp]

Interesting (to me at least..)
Since I’m a weather geek, and my life and hobbies have always been so affected by weather, I keep some of my own data.

Reading that thread about the Wakefield rides being canceled made me think that there hasn’t been a single week in the past 2 years where I was reasonably confident that any planned rides or races would actually happen or get cancelled. Yes, we’ve had plenty of dry weeks, but the ground was always so close to the saturated edge, that even one rain event in a week could alter the ride/race schedules.

So I was surprised by the 2004 summary.
Compared to average temps & precip.
Warmer & dryer – 6 months
Warmer & wetter – 3 months
Cooler & dryer – 2 months
And one month (Aug) was cooler, but had the exact normal precip.

Only 3 months were wetter than average (Apr, Jul, Sept), so why were so many events affected?

[Dirt]

It isn't only the amount of rain that is affecting the riding this year. Since we're now only allowed to ride Wakefield at night, there are a lot more people riding the trails at Wakefield.

When it was wet last year, we'd head off to Accotink since the trails hold up to wet weather much better than Wakefield. If we had that option available to us, I can honestly say that half of the rides that I've cancelled would have gone off without a problem.

I have no firm statistics on this, but I'd estimate that the number of cyclists riding Wakefield at night has roughly doubled since we're not allowed to go into Accotink after dark.

I'm amazed at how well the trails have held up to this. I'm impressed that we haven't had to cancel more rides.

Hopefully we'll come through the night riding Trial period in good shape and will have some more trails available to us. Time will tell.

Thanks for the info. It is interesting to read.

Peter

[cbuki]

[QUOTE=PeterBeers]It isn't only the amount of rain that is affecting the riding this year. Since we're now only allowed to ride Wakefield at night, there are a lot more people riding the trails at Wakefield.

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1-6-05

I called Wakefield today; they say they never close the park. Rider's discretion. As opposed to F-Head, which on the call line records open or closed for riders.

Sorry to ask a dumb q here but is Wakefield legally ridable now during day or is it a judgment call? Also is there a tel # for updated determinations?

Thanks

[Dirt]

Wakefield is legal to ride now, but when it is this wet, the trail damage that is done takes a lot longer to fix... think weeks. You can tell when a lot of people ride wakefield when it is wet. It stays unridable for weeks at a time.

The only reason we were able to ride this week was that people stayed away when it was wet for the most part.

By day, accotink is a much better choice since the upper part of Accotink really sheds water much better than Wakefield. It also gets a lot less traffic now that we're not riding there at night. If you're going out by day, I'd say head to Accotink. Just stay out of the low-laying areas.

Peter

[jks9199]

It's not always a question of whether it's legal to ride...

It's often about whether riding is a good idea... We've all probably ridden trails that have been damaged or destroyed by other mountain bikers or by horses who just had to get out there on the first sunny day after a spell of rain... They leave hoof prints and tire tracks, churn a small puddle into a mud bog or make a rideable creek crossing into a serious drop off, and more...

MORE is about riding responsibly, not just riding. It's my understanding that MORE sanctioned/official rides won't (and shouldn't) be held when, in the opinion of the ride leader, the trail is likely to be damaged. It makes sense to me (and that's even though it seems I can predict now which rides will be cancelled in the next few weeks -- EVERY SINGLE ONE THAT I MIGHT BE ABLE TO MAKE!!!); too many people want to fight us about riding almost anywhere. Why should we give them ammunition by damaging a trail?

Jim

[dmofot]

While the data would suggest that we only had 3 months with more precipitation, it's also a matter of when we had the precipitation. If we got rain on a Monday, it's possible we could ride on Tuesday, depending on how much rain was dropped, but there's the chance it would cancel Monday and Tuesday night rides. If it rained on Tuesday, then it might only cancel the Tuesday ride and not Thursday, so on and so on.

The bigger deal though is when you get your normal rainfall, but it happens on back to back days, like raining Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. No way we could ride on Thursday after that and quite possibly the weekend could be somewhat shot. I think we had this happen a few times where we received a massive amount of rain over a couple of days, people stayed off the trails for a bit, but probably not long enough.

Also, what about the air being saturated? If there is a ton of moisture in the air, but it's not raining, that wouldn't count as precipitation right? But wouldn't that slow how fast the water in the soil is absorbed or burned off?

DT

[Balto Charlie]

Because there is more mnt biking the trails have a harder time draining. I've gone to low use trails when they were wshortly after a rain and they were fine to ride. High use trails often take longer to dry. Avalon is a fine example. Back in the day late 80's early 90's you could often ride 1 day after a rain. Not the case anymore. It usually take 3 days before you can ride. Charlie