Since Friday, the St. John's Metro region has received over 135mm of rain. While we didn't endure a deluge of rain, it was consistent and persistent every day for 5 straight days. Combined with winter snowmelt it should make for an interesting ride! As the trails are mostly free of ice I decided to save wear on my studded tires and swapped back to my newer (2019) ITP Mud Lite XTR radials and ITP delta steel wheels on Project Foreman.

For those new to the site, Project Foreman is my 1998 Honda Foreman 450s which I've owned since new and built over the years to be the baddest Foreman on the trails today. It features a long list of modifications including custom front & rear bumpers, front disc brake conversion, full floor board conversion, Warn 2wd to 4wd shifter, front differential spool locker, heated grips, snorkel, Perfex lift kit, 27" tires, a custom black camo wrap and more. Check out the full step by step build on the Projects in the Shed page.

I was not wrong in my prediction, most trails were flooded, many with sketchy unknown water depth. More sections of trail are super water logged, partly due to recent snow melt as well as the high water table which causes a tire to drop into quicksand on what looks like solid gravel trail.

There are still some lingering remnants of winter, especially in thicker woods where snow is shaded from the sun and protected from warm spring winds. Trail conditions are still one heck of a lot better than this same time last year, take a look back at my pics from mid April 2020 for a comparison of spring riding conditions after our snowmageddon winter!

Some trails which usually have a trickle of water running through them were a full-on brook today.

Trying to avoid a solo run through a severely flooded puddle which would have required my tall snorkel, I backed up and turned around in what ended up being another spring sinkhole! Not able to carry momentum due to turning around, I had to break out the WARN ProVantage 2500 for a quick easy self extraction using the airport fence pole as an anchor!

Today only a bike length separated perfectly solid ground from an ATV trail turned river on one end and sinkhole on the other!

The most snow I found today was on the path skirting the fields on Indian Meal Line where winter winds drifted snow extremely high all winter long.

Many trails are now brooks!

When I got to Forest Landing I was really surprised to see the monster bog hole drained!

Someone went in with a piece of heavy equipment and drained the hole which now makes the area easily traversable straight down the middle of the trail.

It's still boggy but only a couple feet deep with a solid rocky bottom.

All in all it was another excellent 5 hour run. I managed to hit just about every trail I normally ride when leaving the house and was happy to not get tangled up off camber in very deep spring snow like I did this time last year!

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2011 Michael Smith