Deserves a swear ’cos it’s that good.
I can’t believe I’ve ridden there for so long and completely missed what I actually knew was there ??♀️??♀️. I’ve done thousands of laps of Tempelhofer Feld, on the default boring outer loop, on the inner pavé, all over on the single track, and I knew there was this section around where the old DC-3 is, the north inner field directly down from the north gate, that had some good steep ride-ups / run-ups, and something in a bunch of trees I’d never ventured into, and all that time I’ve been missing the forest around Flughafen Tegel, which is proper, fast up and down slippery technical cyclocross, and who’s a stupid intransigent bitch whose neurofuckery makes her do the same thing over and over?
I needed an easier and entertaining ride today, ’cos my week has been two hard rides and strength work that left me sore, and I didn’t want to go round and round, especially when this storm is moving in and 25km/h winds with gusts around 60km/h wouldn’t make for ‘easier’. And I’ve been enjoying the northern pavé (around the circus tents area) where I can work on sharp turns and hard braking / acceleration. So I decided to make a kind of flip-flop back and forth reverse-c shaped loop (which ended up being around 12km per loop) with some exploring of that bit I have no explanation for why I’ve not ridden it until now.
And fucking fuck yes. Fucking pump track! Small one, tight, better on a BMX or Slopestyle type bike than a cyclocross, proved to me I absolutely do not know how to pump, which is dope as fuck ’cos that means I get to learn something new and I am legit excited as shit by that. And there’s all these other trails I did not ride (so many!) and the ones I did, very fast occasionally technical single track, with sharp ride-ups (run-ups when they’re muddy), plenty of technical turns, the type of clay-y sandy mud that gets greasy and slippery, plenty of changes in terrain, there’s excellent loops of 4–8km, and I will be making that one of my weekly rides. Also slightly ridiculous riding it on 33mm cobble / pavé tires with effectively no tread and hella gripless on anything remotely ‘off-road’ but I don’t have the euros for another set of tires and stupid fun is stupid fun.
