- Feb 8, 2000
- 3,133
- 1
Okay, here’s my ride report from this weekend. You’ll have to forgive the bits of whining but hey, it’s a gift I don’t intend to waste. :confused:
Let me just start off by saying I could just kick myself for allowing over a month to pass without riding. I really enjoyed getting to the point in my riding that I wasn’t suffering for nearly week after every time I rode. Now I sit here.... sore from my neck down. My arms are killing me and I could barely lift up my left leg up to get my pants on this morning!
I will say that I had a total blast riding this weekend even though I knew I was gonna pay for it. I had forgotten how much fun it is to ride in the desert.
Chris (dirtjunkie) led us on a fast paced, (for me at least) wide-open, 62-mile ride on Saturday. The destination was an old mining town called Randsberg.
10 riders blazing across the desert, it was awesome! I'm not used to going so fast (most of the time in 5th and 6th gear) for so long that I had a serious death grip going on and my hands were killing me! I could barely peel them off my handlebars. I also decided to finally invest in a kidney belt after this trip. I can only stand up and go through rocks for so long yanno. I thought my back was going to snap.
The first leg of the trip was great. I think I'm getting the hang of the whoops. If you just gun it you can skip or jump them quite smoothly. Of course I'm only talking about the whoops that are of a certain size and spaced just right. I still roll the deeper ones. I had a great time practicing though.
About 20-25 miles in we descended to the valley floor and onto a dry lakebed. What a BLAST! The feeling of sailing along was surreal. I couldn’t help but let out several “whoooo hoooos!” I did learn one lesson though. If you’re cruising along in 6th gear and come to a 2-3 foot drop off…… DON’T try to brake! The term “just gas it” would have been all too appropriate. I dropped down the ledge like a brick. My shoulders felt like they were going to rip out of their sockets. Thank goodness for the softness of the lakebed. No problems with the recovery, I just kept right on truckin’.
Things swiftly began to deteriorate for me after the lakebed though. We crossed the highway and made the mistake of trying to follow dirtjunkie…….well, I don’t know where. After twisting and turning here and there it wasn’t long before our group was strewn about the desert without a clue. 3 of our party threw in the towel and decided to head back to the road! This is when our fearless leader decided to give up trying to find the correct path to lead us to “the tunnel” and catch up with the other 3 riders and head on into Randsburg.
I’m not so sure about following dirtjunkie through the desert anymore. The word "trail" obviously has no meaning to the man. :p For the first time ever (on a ride) I snapped at TTRGuy! I don't have a problem bringing up the rear (as I so often do) if we're on a trail but when 10 people are crossing the wide open desert in the middle of no where and I'm exhausted and waaaaaay behind, NOT on a trail, and severely directionally challenged..... I can tend to get a bit pissy. I could no longer see the other riders, I had NO idea where I was going or if I was even still heading in the right direction. I have a bit of a phobia of being lost so I was just about to freak out as looked around at the vast expanse of desert all around me when I finally spotted the other riders up ahead. No sooner did I pull up they were about to take off again. I don’t know what came over me but before I knew it I belted out “STOP!” to TTRGuy as I watched him prepare to take off again. I guess there must have been some uh, ‘urgency’ in my tone because TTRGuy’s eyes were wide as saucers. He waved me on ahead of him. Ii kinda went downhill from there. I ended up dumping my bike and tumbling backwards down a small, rocky hill, this only added to my frustration and poor TTRGuy caught the brunt of it when he came back to ask if I was alright. Of course I blurted out the ever popular “I’M FINE!! EVERYTHING’S FINE!!” :scream: Finally we made it to a recognizable trail. I resisted the urge to get off my bike, get down on my knees and kiss it!
It was smooth sailing the rest of the way into Randsberg. What an amazing site to pull into this little ramshackle town and find the ‘main’ street lined with dirtbikes! We stopped into the old saloon and had some drinks and a bite to eat before we were on our way back to camp.
Unfortunately since I had forgotten to take a restroom break in town, the trek back proved to be a most uncomfortable one due to my stubborn unwillingness to relieve myself in the wide-open desert! (ya, ya, what can I say, sometimes I’m a fluff poodle) I was blasting down the fire road giving TTRGuy’s TTR-250 everything it had to get back to camp in a hurry! Every bump in the road was excruciating. Every few minutes or so I would look off into the desert and contemplate making in a sharp turn to head straight out into it, throw the bike down and rip off the 15 layers of clothing I had on! (hey, the desert gets cold!) Nope, couldn’t do it, like and idiot I endured the pain and kept my course praying that the hill behind our camp would eventually start too look larger.
Relief at last when I finally reached our camp and flung myself into dirtjunkie’s camper!
Chris, I can’t thank you enough for sharing your camper with us. Had we been in a tent, most likely this ride report would have been filled with all kinds of pissing and moaning about the cold. ;)
Kiwi, it’s too bad we couldn’t go out with you guys on Sunday but be had to get back home. Hope you guys found the sandwiches okay.
TTRGuy, here's my formal apology for biting your head off in the desert. :ugg:
Let me just start off by saying I could just kick myself for allowing over a month to pass without riding. I really enjoyed getting to the point in my riding that I wasn’t suffering for nearly week after every time I rode. Now I sit here.... sore from my neck down. My arms are killing me and I could barely lift up my left leg up to get my pants on this morning!
I will say that I had a total blast riding this weekend even though I knew I was gonna pay for it. I had forgotten how much fun it is to ride in the desert.
Chris (dirtjunkie) led us on a fast paced, (for me at least) wide-open, 62-mile ride on Saturday. The destination was an old mining town called Randsberg.
10 riders blazing across the desert, it was awesome! I'm not used to going so fast (most of the time in 5th and 6th gear) for so long that I had a serious death grip going on and my hands were killing me! I could barely peel them off my handlebars. I also decided to finally invest in a kidney belt after this trip. I can only stand up and go through rocks for so long yanno. I thought my back was going to snap.
The first leg of the trip was great. I think I'm getting the hang of the whoops. If you just gun it you can skip or jump them quite smoothly. Of course I'm only talking about the whoops that are of a certain size and spaced just right. I still roll the deeper ones. I had a great time practicing though.
About 20-25 miles in we descended to the valley floor and onto a dry lakebed. What a BLAST! The feeling of sailing along was surreal. I couldn’t help but let out several “whoooo hoooos!” I did learn one lesson though. If you’re cruising along in 6th gear and come to a 2-3 foot drop off…… DON’T try to brake! The term “just gas it” would have been all too appropriate. I dropped down the ledge like a brick. My shoulders felt like they were going to rip out of their sockets. Thank goodness for the softness of the lakebed. No problems with the recovery, I just kept right on truckin’.
Things swiftly began to deteriorate for me after the lakebed though. We crossed the highway and made the mistake of trying to follow dirtjunkie…….well, I don’t know where. After twisting and turning here and there it wasn’t long before our group was strewn about the desert without a clue. 3 of our party threw in the towel and decided to head back to the road! This is when our fearless leader decided to give up trying to find the correct path to lead us to “the tunnel” and catch up with the other 3 riders and head on into Randsburg.
I’m not so sure about following dirtjunkie through the desert anymore. The word "trail" obviously has no meaning to the man. :p For the first time ever (on a ride) I snapped at TTRGuy! I don't have a problem bringing up the rear (as I so often do) if we're on a trail but when 10 people are crossing the wide open desert in the middle of no where and I'm exhausted and waaaaaay behind, NOT on a trail, and severely directionally challenged..... I can tend to get a bit pissy. I could no longer see the other riders, I had NO idea where I was going or if I was even still heading in the right direction. I have a bit of a phobia of being lost so I was just about to freak out as looked around at the vast expanse of desert all around me when I finally spotted the other riders up ahead. No sooner did I pull up they were about to take off again. I don’t know what came over me but before I knew it I belted out “STOP!” to TTRGuy as I watched him prepare to take off again. I guess there must have been some uh, ‘urgency’ in my tone because TTRGuy’s eyes were wide as saucers. He waved me on ahead of him. Ii kinda went downhill from there. I ended up dumping my bike and tumbling backwards down a small, rocky hill, this only added to my frustration and poor TTRGuy caught the brunt of it when he came back to ask if I was alright. Of course I blurted out the ever popular “I’M FINE!! EVERYTHING’S FINE!!” :scream: Finally we made it to a recognizable trail. I resisted the urge to get off my bike, get down on my knees and kiss it!
It was smooth sailing the rest of the way into Randsberg. What an amazing site to pull into this little ramshackle town and find the ‘main’ street lined with dirtbikes! We stopped into the old saloon and had some drinks and a bite to eat before we were on our way back to camp.
Unfortunately since I had forgotten to take a restroom break in town, the trek back proved to be a most uncomfortable one due to my stubborn unwillingness to relieve myself in the wide-open desert! (ya, ya, what can I say, sometimes I’m a fluff poodle) I was blasting down the fire road giving TTRGuy’s TTR-250 everything it had to get back to camp in a hurry! Every bump in the road was excruciating. Every few minutes or so I would look off into the desert and contemplate making in a sharp turn to head straight out into it, throw the bike down and rip off the 15 layers of clothing I had on! (hey, the desert gets cold!) Nope, couldn’t do it, like and idiot I endured the pain and kept my course praying that the hill behind our camp would eventually start too look larger.
Relief at last when I finally reached our camp and flung myself into dirtjunkie’s camper!
Chris, I can’t thank you enough for sharing your camper with us. Had we been in a tent, most likely this ride report would have been filled with all kinds of pissing and moaning about the cold. ;)
Kiwi, it’s too bad we couldn’t go out with you guys on Sunday but be had to get back home. Hope you guys found the sandwiches okay.
TTRGuy, here's my formal apology for biting your head off in the desert. :ugg:
