The ride from Woodsy's perspective:
Surprises in life come in many different forms and are not always singular in number. Sequential surprises do happen at times. One of lifes sequential surprise days happened to me today at our “70Marlin Cedar Creek ride”…
The first surprise was that I was 15 minutes late for the suggested 10 am arrival time and I was FIRST for a change – FELT GOOD!! Next surprise came when a group of 3 riders, 2 of which were KTM riders, come pulling in about 10 minutes after I did. I thought they were probably guys from Traverse City so I greeted them with a friendly wave, like I knew them, and wondered over to their trailer as they jumped out of their rig. I said “Glad you guys could make it!” the driver said “well thanks”. I said “how was the drive down from T.C.?” driver said “we’re not from T.C.” I said, are you guys DRN riders he said “huhhhh”. I said are you guys here to ride with 70Marlin and I, he said “no, we just came to ride the trail”. I said “ohhhhhh’ and then crawled back to my van.
About 20 minutes later 70Marlin showed up and we started unloading his bike. Then another rider with a KTM shows up and parks out on the roadway. Woodsy, being not one to go full out right after a spill, “sauntered” over to inquire of this new riders origin. Come to find out he was from Detroit and waiting for one of his buds.. I was able to abstract this from him and still be able to walk back to Marlins van without dirt on my face :) …
The next huge surprise that came to me was that my local riding buddie Larry still wasn’t there and he NEVER misses a ride opportunity, especially when I have his bike!!!
Marlin and I waited the required 5 minutes after getting our gear on. Marlin did roll call (he said Woodsy lets ride) and away we went..
I told Marlin that I hadn’t ridden the South side yet this year and he said lets go get that one first, so we did! We rode the South east side and found the trail to be EXCELLENT with a surprising (another surprise) amount of actual DIRT!! I think he will agree with me that it was at 75% ready for NO screws! In reality, the snow/slush that was left was really not scathed much by our screws anyway, the stuff was like cat poop!
We went back to the van after finishing the South east side and there was another rider there. This time I let Marlin ask while I went and called Larry. Got back and SURPRISE SURPRISE, found 3 more of our guys there with Marlin!!
Napper, Fred T. and the son part of Fatherandson were there!! A great reunion took place with pics and all and then we hit the DIRT!!! Come to find out the “3 east siders” had already ridden the North loop so we went and did the entire South side. The south west side was in about the same condition with the “cat poop” being present at times. Fred T. demonstrated for Mike and I his stealth mode of rapid traverse down a steep slushy hill – VERY IMPRESSIVE MOVE!! Mweissen, if your reading this, you really need to ask Freddy what he uses for packing in his spark arrestor, DEAD QUIET!!
We finished the South loop and decided to rerun the North side counter clockwise. Napper was moaning about hunger (sheesh, he IS always hungry) but decided he thought he could make it again. Mike led off from Ryerson Road with Fred T. in tow followed by yours truly then Napper and then Marlin on his AWESOME Husey. We rode a pretty good clip finding the trail to be in very good shape. We got a short ways from the second bridge over Cedar Creek and stopped for a break. I was suppose to come up behind Fred but wound up coming in behind Napper (another surprise). Now, usually when someone goes by you, you at least get to see him… Napper is either REALLLLL FASSTTTT or he is some kind of prankster.. I think he is both.. Actually, I think he was thinking food and beverage and just "morphed" (sp) thru the woods..
Either way, we all made it back to the Trailhead and had a GREAT ride!!
Thanks you guys for coming over and enjoying the day with us westerners!! Marlin and I appreciated the company, not that we wouldn’t have ridden anyway (right Mar?) but, like my sig says, TO RIDE WITH MY BROTHERS…….
Woodsy
Surprises in life come in many different forms and are not always singular in number. Sequential surprises do happen at times. One of lifes sequential surprise days happened to me today at our “70Marlin Cedar Creek ride”…
The first surprise was that I was 15 minutes late for the suggested 10 am arrival time and I was FIRST for a change – FELT GOOD!! Next surprise came when a group of 3 riders, 2 of which were KTM riders, come pulling in about 10 minutes after I did. I thought they were probably guys from Traverse City so I greeted them with a friendly wave, like I knew them, and wondered over to their trailer as they jumped out of their rig. I said “Glad you guys could make it!” the driver said “well thanks”. I said “how was the drive down from T.C.?” driver said “we’re not from T.C.” I said, are you guys DRN riders he said “huhhhh”. I said are you guys here to ride with 70Marlin and I, he said “no, we just came to ride the trail”. I said “ohhhhhh’ and then crawled back to my van.
About 20 minutes later 70Marlin showed up and we started unloading his bike. Then another rider with a KTM shows up and parks out on the roadway. Woodsy, being not one to go full out right after a spill, “sauntered” over to inquire of this new riders origin. Come to find out he was from Detroit and waiting for one of his buds.. I was able to abstract this from him and still be able to walk back to Marlins van without dirt on my face :) …
The next huge surprise that came to me was that my local riding buddie Larry still wasn’t there and he NEVER misses a ride opportunity, especially when I have his bike!!!
Marlin and I waited the required 5 minutes after getting our gear on. Marlin did roll call (he said Woodsy lets ride) and away we went..
I told Marlin that I hadn’t ridden the South side yet this year and he said lets go get that one first, so we did! We rode the South east side and found the trail to be EXCELLENT with a surprising (another surprise) amount of actual DIRT!! I think he will agree with me that it was at 75% ready for NO screws! In reality, the snow/slush that was left was really not scathed much by our screws anyway, the stuff was like cat poop!
We went back to the van after finishing the South east side and there was another rider there. This time I let Marlin ask while I went and called Larry. Got back and SURPRISE SURPRISE, found 3 more of our guys there with Marlin!!
Napper, Fred T. and the son part of Fatherandson were there!! A great reunion took place with pics and all and then we hit the DIRT!!! Come to find out the “3 east siders” had already ridden the North loop so we went and did the entire South side. The south west side was in about the same condition with the “cat poop” being present at times. Fred T. demonstrated for Mike and I his stealth mode of rapid traverse down a steep slushy hill – VERY IMPRESSIVE MOVE!! Mweissen, if your reading this, you really need to ask Freddy what he uses for packing in his spark arrestor, DEAD QUIET!!
We finished the South loop and decided to rerun the North side counter clockwise. Napper was moaning about hunger (sheesh, he IS always hungry) but decided he thought he could make it again. Mike led off from Ryerson Road with Fred T. in tow followed by yours truly then Napper and then Marlin on his AWESOME Husey. We rode a pretty good clip finding the trail to be in very good shape. We got a short ways from the second bridge over Cedar Creek and stopped for a break. I was suppose to come up behind Fred but wound up coming in behind Napper (another surprise). Now, usually when someone goes by you, you at least get to see him… Napper is either REALLLLL FASSTTTT or he is some kind of prankster.. I think he is both.. Actually, I think he was thinking food and beverage and just "morphed" (sp) thru the woods..
Either way, we all made it back to the Trailhead and had a GREAT ride!!
Thanks you guys for coming over and enjoying the day with us westerners!! Marlin and I appreciated the company, not that we wouldn’t have ridden anyway (right Mar?) but, like my sig says, TO RIDE WITH MY BROTHERS…….
Woodsy
