EZ

Member
Jul 18, 2001
24
0
A Perfect Ride

I got a finger all mashed up at work just before my scheduled vacation. Doesn't sound that serious, but it was alomost cut off. The doctors were all afraid I would lose it. Wouldn't ya know it. I was planning on spending a week riding and camping. Oh well. So I was snoozing on the couch, dreaming of riding, when mountainrider called. We schemed and dreamed and finally decided that we could do better than 2 doctors and 1 nurse practitioner with some gauze, latex, and electrical tape. I could ride after all. Drove the 5 minutes to mountainrider's house, spent 15 minutes wrapping and taping, and went riding. M/R took it easy on me for 45 minutes or so close to his home until he was sure I could make it alright. We headed up the mountain toward my favorite drinking spring in the whole world. Had almost made it when we ran across a couple of guys on 4-wheelers, 1 old friend and 1 new one. Bullsh**ed like we had no conception of time, but it was really about 30 minutes. M/R and I left by an easy trail through a 100 year abandoned farm. Then we went past an old hand-worked mine before the trail turned up a cut littered with thousands of boot-sized loose rocks. After a few turns and a couple of straights of that, the hill tops out with a long semi-steep section of washed out roots and very large rocks mixed with a lot of nice slick clay. Things go ez again for a half mile until we hit the ridgeline. Now the dirt turns to that deep black clay-topsoil that you seem to only find above 3500/4000 feet in old woods. Nothing is slicker than that black stuff when it gets wet and greasy, and I believe it's rained here for the last 3 months. At least the black dirt gives you something to ride on besides rock. Rocks are everywhere, in all sizes, from marble to school bus. I slide off a small 1 that puts me into a foot tall, loose one while I've got the throttle pinned back on my CR500. Feels like NASA launched me and forgot to give me landing directions. Luckily, I land mostly on the trail, and that same pinned throttle that got me into trouble pulls me out of it through another nice pile of rocks. M/R missed that 1. Good. He makes the 1st zero forward motion mistake a couple of hundred yards later taking the "A-line" too fast over a huge rock. No laydown though. Good. Another couple hundred yards of slick and un-eventful riding and we top out on a knoll. Probably is 4400 or so feet elevation here, on the edge of a cliff. The valley floor below is about 2200 feet elevation. Half of that is almost straight down, and the other half is steep. 20 or 30 miles away, I can see Flat Top Mt., and everything in-between. Awesome. I have forgotten all about my pain. After M/R tweaks his clickers, we head down the other side of the knob, through the saddle and start up the next mountain. This 1's much tougher and we keep forgetting that we're supposed to be taking it ez on my injury. At times we're both pretty well outta control and trying to go faster. I bobble and M/R pulls away. He bobbles and I almost run over him. This is great. Then I get into my laughing out loud mode, where I'm having such a good time I'm laughing at nothing in particular, just laughing out loud. Everything seems effortless and my mistakes almost disappear. Almost. The last couple of miles are all "A-lines" and M/R's tweaks weren't the right 1's. He's working hard and I'm floating. Then I "float" into 20-inch tree. It turns my barkbuster straight up but doesn't stop me. I think I can save it, but I would risk re-injuring myself, so what the heck. I jump off at the last possible moment and hit the ground running. Somehow, I don't fall, and since the rear wheel is off the ground, the bike doesn't die. Awesome. I'm laughing out loud as I pick the bike back up and head on. We stop on top, and the view is even better than the last one. Amazing. After a short rest, we head back down. M/R tweaks a couple of more times, and I lead him through one of my patented thrill lines and get a front flat. At M/R's shop, we bullsh** for 30 minutes, fix my flat, play with M/R's pup, and reset his sag, front and rear. It's getting up late into the afternoon, but we decide that if we leave right now and make no stops, we might be able to do it again. So we do. As we get back, it's almost too dark to see inside the woods and it's way too dark to rinse our bikes off, but we do any way. Probably just to keep the day from ending. It was an awesome ride. This is why I do it. It's not for little riding trips I take. It's not for the racing. It's d*mn sure not to impress anyone. It's for the good friends and the little adventures that we share on the way to special places. This is what makes it worth all the maintenance, all the money, and even all the injuries. It was another perfect ride.
 

BSWIFT

Sponsoring Member
N. Texas SP
LIFETIME SPONSOR
Nov 25, 1999
7,926
43
Sounds like a cool ride. Hope you heal up quickly. Nothing is better than a good ride with your buds.
 

EZ

Member
Jul 18, 2001
24
0
Thanks,though it's still swollen to 2x it's normal size,I'm starting to get feeling back in the tip.I'm taking that as a sign that I won't lose it,my finger that is.My sanity has been gone a long time.:p
 
Top Bottom