As a tribute to all my brothers and sisters on bikes that sent me well wishes on that longgggggg Woodsy thread, sent cards, loaned tapes (yea, I know Napper – I still got em and have tried to return them several times but every time I do I end up watching them again – soon brother – REAL SOON!!), loaned magazines, prayed for me, made me cakes, visited me in the hospital, sent pictures, made plaques, sent flowers, mailed letters, made phone calls, visited me to keep me on my feet and so on and so forth for the past year and three months I dedicate this official - Woodsy Ride Report.. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE OF YOU – YOU FOLKS ARE BY FAR THE GREATEST FAMILY THERE IS!!! I am proud to be your friend!! Now on to my trail report..
Trying to protect myself from doing something stupid, I missed last Saturdays “Snow Chicken”. Of course, I made up for it by going out Sunday afternoon for a Chicken of my own.. It all started with me putting on my Arctic Cat suit, sled helmet and sled gloves and going out into the garage to fire up Blipy.. Little did I know that Blipy had a dead battery cause someone left her key on ( I hate when that happens) so I took off the hat and gloves and gave her a quick jump start off a car battery.. While Blipy was warming up I fed the dogs and put some tools away - I shut her off after a few minutes of running and restarted her just to make sure that her battery was charging – she did fine so away we went…
My personal shortcut thru the woods has been impassable for some time now so I am now forced to use our gravel roads to get to the sled trail.. With spring being at the doorstep, our roads are almost as impassable as my trail so Blipy and I meandered our way thru the mud and slop for the 2 miles to the sled trail entrance…
As I approached the sled trail I noticed an old beater truck (can anyone say a “Woodsy Truck) and an old dilapidated trailer made from a truck box parked on the left hand side of the entrance into the state land hunting area.. I also noticed a truck coming down the road in the opposite direction.. I turned into the trail and started my adventure just as I noticed something odd about the truck coming down the road… I noticed there was a “go-cart” being pulled behind the truck.. I thought to myself “now Woodsy, there is something you don’t see every sloppy winter day – a go-cart being pulled behind a truck thru a foot and a half of mud”.
I was compelled to turn around in the trail and see exactly what was going on..
During the summer up here it is not at all uncommon for people to bring their “toys” up and ride.. Even though it is not “legal” the DNR usually allows it as long as folks have ORV stickers and they don’t get complaints about noise or trespassing.. I have many times ridden quads, go-carts, dune buggies, bikes, snowmobiles, junk cars, four wheel drive toys and anything else you can imagine thru this section of trail so it wasn’t really odd to see this cart being there but there was something really strange about this one that I couldn’t put my finger on so I went back….
The truck that was pulling the cart had stopped in the roadway and the four gentlemen who were riding in the truck were now outside standing in the road discussing something. There was another feller sitting in the cart with a pair of plastic shop goggles on and mud all over his face and chest.. I shut my bike off (with the key!!) and said “hey guys, nice day to play aint it!!” The guys from the truck scarcely even acknowledged my existence but the guy riding in the cart climbed out, pulled up his waders (yea, I did say waders), wiped his goggles off and then removed them and smiled a toothless grin and said “ohhh yea, dis is fun, I homebuilt this hotrod and she is fun to drive”..
As I was standing there chatting with my partner in grime I started noticing things about his handy work that needs to be reviewed here..
First of all there was a piece of 2 inch well pipe about 10 feet long that had a female ball connecter attached to it with hose clamps and then attached to the ball on the back of the truck. The Pipe was then connected to the front of the cart at the steering stem by another gathering of hose clamps in the quantity that any hardware store would be jealous of.. The steering mechanism on the cart was a “T” handle that had been constructed out of a piece of pipe that was bent in an “L” shape and then smashed flat in an area so it could be attached to the steering column via more hose clamps.. There was no floor board or windshield of any sort so the driver had to hold his feet up on the front homemade steering geometry in order to keep his legs from getting ripped off.. Of course, this meant that waders were DEFINTITLY mandatory as a constant flow of mud, snow, water and gas fumes from the tow vehicle was immanent!!
After the driver got the mud spit out of his mouth his language became a little understandable (well, kinda, but only if you are an old school backyard mechanic) and he started sharing with me some of the finer points of his proud creation.. He said that this was the initial tester of this “much-ean” and that he was tinkin of putting a snow much-ean motor in it… I assume that he wanted to get the frame tweaked before starting on actually motorizing it.
As stated, at this time his “cart” had not motor and it was obvious that he was totally dependent upon the skill of his friends in the truck to keep him out of deep water or – worse yet – deep muck.. I inquired about that and was amazed to hear him say that the thing handled pretty well all the way to “50 mile taaa hour”…. It didn’t occur to me until later that speed wasn’t really his worst nightmare in driving his contraption – the pipe that they were using to tow with was aimed right at his chest and I am not so sure that I would have trusted those hose clamps to capture that pipe good enough to keep it in place if my buddies decided to make a quick stop to pick up road kill or something…
I notice that the seat design that he had chosen was somewhat interesting too.. He had attached a couple of boards across the bottom rails of his cart with bent over nails and then neatly placed a piece of old foam inside of a plastic Wal-Mart bag – I KNEW someone would find a way to use those plastic bags – why didn’t I think of that!! There was no back on the seat to lean against so any forward thrust had to be countered with the drivers hands on the T-bar or your back would be ground up by the spinning sprocket still attached to the axel from the old three wheeler swing arm the engineer had chosen to use for a rear end.. Speaking of that, herein lies another subject of interest to yours truly..
I have sold MANY quad rear ends for projects similar to this one over the years.. I have always wondered what happened to those rear ends and was glad to see someone was actually making use or one… I was intrigued at this persons method of attachment to his cart frame of the swing arm.. Instead of using the swing arm in the traditional way (as suspension with a shock) this guy came up with the brilliant idea to attach it as he said “riggedly” with the biggest “U” bolt that I have ever seen! He said, no, he BRAGGED that the “U” bolt was off from a 78 Chebby pickemup that his Daddy once owned (I am really not sure if this meant that he thought because his dad once owned it that he could just go over to the new owners house and help himself to the parts or what..) and he thought it was perfect for the job at hand.. The threads on the ends of the “U” weren’t quite long enough to allow the mechanic to run nuts all the way down to the holes in the cart frame that he had pounded thru the steal so he had used a conglomeration of everything from table leg mounts to old wash machine parts to get the nuts up high enough to allow them to tighten the swing arm to the frame… What an ingenious person this gentlemen was!!!
He told me that he had chosen to use the “rear side” axel holes for the axel to give it more length.. I think he understood from the look on my face that I was lost on that comment… He then bent down and pointed to the mount holes on the swing arm that had attached the arm to a ATV frame many years ago.. He said that those were the ‘riginal axel holes but his worked better….
About this time the guy that was driven the truck made a comment to him about having to go.. He said that they needed to go get a radiator for the tow truck as they were out of aunt’ freeze and they hadda go home..
Well, I told them all to have a great day and to be careful out there with their cart!!
Blipy and I took off down the trail with a little more understanding into the wealth of human knowledge that we had just encountered..
As I continued on in my journey my mind flipped back over the many interesting souls I have encountered thru my years of riding adventures.. I scarcely got those thoughts out of mind and rounded a corner on the sled trail.. This particular spot is well known by all of use locals as “the mud hole”.. Of course, at this time of year it should be renamed as the “water hole” because it is about the size of Lake Michigan and all most as deep..
I noticed as I approached the “hole” that there was a set of truck tracks that I had been following full length of the trail with a set of smaller tracks directly in between the truck tracks.. I pulled up to the hole, thinking about picking a way thru the deep snow on the sides of the trail to avoid going thru it.. Then it occurred to me that if my co-hart on his go-cart could make it through, certainly a seasoned dirt rider such as I could too!!
Blipy crawled thru that mucky water with ease and it wasn’t until the water approached my side covers that I began to wonder if I had made the right choice in leaving my waders at home…
When I got to the other side of the hole I stopped in between the cart tracks and noticed that someone had dumped a whole bunch of muddy water onto the white snow on the side of the trail.. I laughed as I pictured my cart riding buddy going under in 2 feet of water while his buddies laughed at him while they were drinking there Milwaukee’s Best inside of that warm truck.. I am sure they would have let him inside for a warm up if trucks could only hold more then four people…. Then again, maybe people like ol’ toothless don’t wanna ride in no cab of a truck – maybe they prefer to take advantage of the situation to get the cart figured out so a “snow much-ean” motor can be safely attached and he wont need his buddies no more…
The ride home from there was uneventful but still it was great to get out and enjoy the “spring” weather a little.. A word of advice from ol Woodsy folks - If you want exciting times like I have ya gotta get out and find them.. You cant expect people like that cart builder to just come knocking at your door you know!!!!
Later
Woodsy
Trying to protect myself from doing something stupid, I missed last Saturdays “Snow Chicken”. Of course, I made up for it by going out Sunday afternoon for a Chicken of my own.. It all started with me putting on my Arctic Cat suit, sled helmet and sled gloves and going out into the garage to fire up Blipy.. Little did I know that Blipy had a dead battery cause someone left her key on ( I hate when that happens) so I took off the hat and gloves and gave her a quick jump start off a car battery.. While Blipy was warming up I fed the dogs and put some tools away - I shut her off after a few minutes of running and restarted her just to make sure that her battery was charging – she did fine so away we went…
My personal shortcut thru the woods has been impassable for some time now so I am now forced to use our gravel roads to get to the sled trail.. With spring being at the doorstep, our roads are almost as impassable as my trail so Blipy and I meandered our way thru the mud and slop for the 2 miles to the sled trail entrance…
As I approached the sled trail I noticed an old beater truck (can anyone say a “Woodsy Truck) and an old dilapidated trailer made from a truck box parked on the left hand side of the entrance into the state land hunting area.. I also noticed a truck coming down the road in the opposite direction.. I turned into the trail and started my adventure just as I noticed something odd about the truck coming down the road… I noticed there was a “go-cart” being pulled behind the truck.. I thought to myself “now Woodsy, there is something you don’t see every sloppy winter day – a go-cart being pulled behind a truck thru a foot and a half of mud”.
I was compelled to turn around in the trail and see exactly what was going on..
During the summer up here it is not at all uncommon for people to bring their “toys” up and ride.. Even though it is not “legal” the DNR usually allows it as long as folks have ORV stickers and they don’t get complaints about noise or trespassing.. I have many times ridden quads, go-carts, dune buggies, bikes, snowmobiles, junk cars, four wheel drive toys and anything else you can imagine thru this section of trail so it wasn’t really odd to see this cart being there but there was something really strange about this one that I couldn’t put my finger on so I went back….
The truck that was pulling the cart had stopped in the roadway and the four gentlemen who were riding in the truck were now outside standing in the road discussing something. There was another feller sitting in the cart with a pair of plastic shop goggles on and mud all over his face and chest.. I shut my bike off (with the key!!) and said “hey guys, nice day to play aint it!!” The guys from the truck scarcely even acknowledged my existence but the guy riding in the cart climbed out, pulled up his waders (yea, I did say waders), wiped his goggles off and then removed them and smiled a toothless grin and said “ohhh yea, dis is fun, I homebuilt this hotrod and she is fun to drive”..
As I was standing there chatting with my partner in grime I started noticing things about his handy work that needs to be reviewed here..
First of all there was a piece of 2 inch well pipe about 10 feet long that had a female ball connecter attached to it with hose clamps and then attached to the ball on the back of the truck. The Pipe was then connected to the front of the cart at the steering stem by another gathering of hose clamps in the quantity that any hardware store would be jealous of.. The steering mechanism on the cart was a “T” handle that had been constructed out of a piece of pipe that was bent in an “L” shape and then smashed flat in an area so it could be attached to the steering column via more hose clamps.. There was no floor board or windshield of any sort so the driver had to hold his feet up on the front homemade steering geometry in order to keep his legs from getting ripped off.. Of course, this meant that waders were DEFINTITLY mandatory as a constant flow of mud, snow, water and gas fumes from the tow vehicle was immanent!!
After the driver got the mud spit out of his mouth his language became a little understandable (well, kinda, but only if you are an old school backyard mechanic) and he started sharing with me some of the finer points of his proud creation.. He said that this was the initial tester of this “much-ean” and that he was tinkin of putting a snow much-ean motor in it… I assume that he wanted to get the frame tweaked before starting on actually motorizing it.
As stated, at this time his “cart” had not motor and it was obvious that he was totally dependent upon the skill of his friends in the truck to keep him out of deep water or – worse yet – deep muck.. I inquired about that and was amazed to hear him say that the thing handled pretty well all the way to “50 mile taaa hour”…. It didn’t occur to me until later that speed wasn’t really his worst nightmare in driving his contraption – the pipe that they were using to tow with was aimed right at his chest and I am not so sure that I would have trusted those hose clamps to capture that pipe good enough to keep it in place if my buddies decided to make a quick stop to pick up road kill or something…
I notice that the seat design that he had chosen was somewhat interesting too.. He had attached a couple of boards across the bottom rails of his cart with bent over nails and then neatly placed a piece of old foam inside of a plastic Wal-Mart bag – I KNEW someone would find a way to use those plastic bags – why didn’t I think of that!! There was no back on the seat to lean against so any forward thrust had to be countered with the drivers hands on the T-bar or your back would be ground up by the spinning sprocket still attached to the axel from the old three wheeler swing arm the engineer had chosen to use for a rear end.. Speaking of that, herein lies another subject of interest to yours truly..
I have sold MANY quad rear ends for projects similar to this one over the years.. I have always wondered what happened to those rear ends and was glad to see someone was actually making use or one… I was intrigued at this persons method of attachment to his cart frame of the swing arm.. Instead of using the swing arm in the traditional way (as suspension with a shock) this guy came up with the brilliant idea to attach it as he said “riggedly” with the biggest “U” bolt that I have ever seen! He said, no, he BRAGGED that the “U” bolt was off from a 78 Chebby pickemup that his Daddy once owned (I am really not sure if this meant that he thought because his dad once owned it that he could just go over to the new owners house and help himself to the parts or what..) and he thought it was perfect for the job at hand.. The threads on the ends of the “U” weren’t quite long enough to allow the mechanic to run nuts all the way down to the holes in the cart frame that he had pounded thru the steal so he had used a conglomeration of everything from table leg mounts to old wash machine parts to get the nuts up high enough to allow them to tighten the swing arm to the frame… What an ingenious person this gentlemen was!!!
He told me that he had chosen to use the “rear side” axel holes for the axel to give it more length.. I think he understood from the look on my face that I was lost on that comment… He then bent down and pointed to the mount holes on the swing arm that had attached the arm to a ATV frame many years ago.. He said that those were the ‘riginal axel holes but his worked better….
About this time the guy that was driven the truck made a comment to him about having to go.. He said that they needed to go get a radiator for the tow truck as they were out of aunt’ freeze and they hadda go home..
Well, I told them all to have a great day and to be careful out there with their cart!!
Blipy and I took off down the trail with a little more understanding into the wealth of human knowledge that we had just encountered..
As I continued on in my journey my mind flipped back over the many interesting souls I have encountered thru my years of riding adventures.. I scarcely got those thoughts out of mind and rounded a corner on the sled trail.. This particular spot is well known by all of use locals as “the mud hole”.. Of course, at this time of year it should be renamed as the “water hole” because it is about the size of Lake Michigan and all most as deep..
I noticed as I approached the “hole” that there was a set of truck tracks that I had been following full length of the trail with a set of smaller tracks directly in between the truck tracks.. I pulled up to the hole, thinking about picking a way thru the deep snow on the sides of the trail to avoid going thru it.. Then it occurred to me that if my co-hart on his go-cart could make it through, certainly a seasoned dirt rider such as I could too!!
Blipy crawled thru that mucky water with ease and it wasn’t until the water approached my side covers that I began to wonder if I had made the right choice in leaving my waders at home…
When I got to the other side of the hole I stopped in between the cart tracks and noticed that someone had dumped a whole bunch of muddy water onto the white snow on the side of the trail.. I laughed as I pictured my cart riding buddy going under in 2 feet of water while his buddies laughed at him while they were drinking there Milwaukee’s Best inside of that warm truck.. I am sure they would have let him inside for a warm up if trucks could only hold more then four people…. Then again, maybe people like ol’ toothless don’t wanna ride in no cab of a truck – maybe they prefer to take advantage of the situation to get the cart figured out so a “snow much-ean” motor can be safely attached and he wont need his buddies no more…
The ride home from there was uneventful but still it was great to get out and enjoy the “spring” weather a little.. A word of advice from ol Woodsy folks - If you want exciting times like I have ya gotta get out and find them.. You cant expect people like that cart builder to just come knocking at your door you know!!!!
Later
Woodsy