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Who to Ride With, Where to Ride
DAKAR Oklahoma
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[QUOTE="tx246, post: 1274010, member: 23127"] STORY CONTINUED........... SUNDAY (DRAPER LAKE OKC) I open my bedroom door Sunday morning with three fingers held out. I have now had three flats on this adventure. Sure, they thought it was funny but surely it was someone elses turn. Damn Flatmonster. We grabbed a quick breakfast at CarlsJr and made our way over to OKC for the days ride. We took the scenic route, got gas, paid at the marina and found a bored looking Lorin and Butch in the parking lot. They gave us the “where in the hell have you been?” look. I haven’t seen these guys in awhile but they were crackin on us in no time. Again I forgot to introduce Mike. Sorry dude. Draper is a great city run facility. It looks like the Parks and Rec have gotten behind it and provided a nice local place to ride. I never rode the original trail system which was huge and I am sorry I missed it. Seems golf is more important than trail. The price is right and there is a lake with full amenities. Lorin has it good as he lives just a few miles away for now. We gear up and its now around noon. The parking lot is fairly crowded on this beautiful day. In the morning it was downright miserable. Cloudy, very cold and very windy when we got up but by the time we hit the trail it was sunshine and daffodils. Lorin leads our group of me, Mike, Jeff, Derek, Butch, and another local that I cant remember. Draper trails are sweet but because they haven’t had rain recently, they were a bit dusty. The first part of the trail had some hack to it and my arms pumped a bit but it wasn’t long before I loosened up. I hate dust so I fell back a bit until I could see everything my front tire was going to hit. We stopped several times and switched line ups. I had a really good time following Butch in the tighter single track. I still don’t know how he keeps that blinged out YZ looking so good. It is motocross factory quality. He must replace the plastic every other ride. We finish the loop and head over to the trailer. Lunch is on my mind and we brought our left over pizza. There was enough for everybody to get one last slice of Hideaway. It is here that several of our group decided to kick back for the rest of the afternoon. Lineup for the second lap was Lorin, Derek, Mike, and I. We needed another loop to get our 50 miles in. Off we go. It is more familiar on the second run and therefore faster. We make good time but I still hang back to stay out of the dust. Next is my favorite part of the loop. There are a series of washes that run perpendicular to the trail. This leaves flats of 15-30 feet between them. Whoo hoo!! Tabletop jumps are fun. On the first lap, I was cautious because I couldn’t see the landings. Now I knew what to do. I wicked it up and way overjumped the first one. Then settled down and neatly cleared the rest. We get to the grass track that we bypassed last time and decided to try it out. Not much grass but what a neat GP style motocross track. It was 3 miles long and I was in top gear most of the time. Fast and fun. We then entered the tighter single track and played chase. Mike took off first and then me followed up a min. later by fast guy Derek. It was big fun as I tried to run down Mike and still keep Derek at bay. We did this several times on the way back. It made for a dust free ride and it pushed the pace. We end up at the truck late in the afternoon worn down but not out. The odometer had us at 59 miles with a 17mph average. Bottom line is that Draper’s corners flow faster than the tighter 500. Draper is a bit more open too. We loaded up and made the short journey over to Lorins house where some two day chili was waiting on us. We noticed a nice house on the way to Lorins with an even nicer backyard. It had a full size arenacross track. Turns out it was one of Oklahomas finest Robbie Reynard. We arrive at Lorins and I hand out beers. Mike and I had been talking about setting the sag on his bike. His 03 KTM 300 was new to him and he had only 4 rides on it. Three of those were in the last 3 days. Set the sag before we eat or it wont get done ……again. Jeff and Derek grabbed bowls of the meaty goodness while Mike and I set the sag. Mike noticed that he wasn’t getting good brake action at the end of the trail and it was because he was on the steel backing. We both brought front/rear brakes and wheel bearings for just such a failure. Problem was the brakes were wrong. Turns out the mailorder outfit had the wrong pad listed for his application. We finished up about the time Derek and Jeff were through eating. Both had to be at work Monday morning and needed to hit the road. Handshakes all around and then they were gone. I then attended an awesome garage sale tucked away in Lorins garage and bought me a nice Acerbis jacket for my dualsport rides. An aluminum bike stand for Mike also was purchased. Mike and I found our way to the crockpot of awesome chili and helped ourselves. Another two or four beers later, I was starting to wind down. A shower sounded good. I spent the rest of the night drinking rum and 7 while Lorin and his soon to be bride sipped on something equally containing alcohol. I remember Mike had a good looking margarita. Catching up with Lorin and getting to meet Elanor was a great time. Travel, house buying and relationships were highlighted. It was agreed that all was good with our lives. We checked on the weather and it didn’t look good and we still had a KTM with no rear brakes. Tonight we turned in rather early for this trip at 11:00pm. MONDAY (CROSSBAR) I woke up glad I bummed some ear plugs from Mike as he can rattle the windows with his lungs. Apparently, I can too but I cant comment because Im asleep when it happens. I can tell you that I have seen Mike wake himself up with his snoring. I hobbled down the stairs to find breakfast being made by the very talented Kyra. This 14 yr old cooking phenom wants to be a chef. She will be a good one. We ate EVERYTHING!! Lorin warned us that bike shops in OKC would be closed on a Monday but we called anyway. He was right as nobody answered the phone. I am spoiled as my shop is open on Mondays for parts and sales. We did find a CycleGear that was open and they said they would have to call us back. I gawked at the radar on the internet. This part of Oklahoma was scheduled for 90% and thunderstorms. I watched the weather west and south of Davis (Crossbar) and it looked doable. We were still without pads. I was bummed because there was a good chance that we would end short of my original goal despite our best efforts. Mike made another call to CycleGear and he talked to somebody else and we got the news we were looking for. Lorin shuttled us across the city to CycleGear. It was a fairly quick stop as we were looking for brake pads and some new grips as Mikes grips were blistering his hands. Out the door and back to Lorins we go. Brakes went on in a snap while Mike installed grips. A quick hook up of the trailer and lots of thank yous to Lorin and his family that so graciously stepped up to host us. We hit the road at 2:30pm with an hour and a half drive ahead of us. We hit the turn off at Davis around 4:00. Weather to the south looked ominous, while the stuff to the west looked good. We might get wet, we might not. Its now 4:30 and we have unloaded and geared up. There hasn’t been a drop of rain here for the last several days. That’s too bad because we had some folks that had planned on coming up but wisely chose to skip. This was just plain bad luck for them as most of the area had been covered with storm activity all day. We fired em up and headed to the long north loop. Im following Mike and we are quickly into the groove. Miles pile up and we take turns leading. He insists the rear feels noticeably better since we set the sag. We keep looking up and it stays blue. The water crossings are perfect. They have a good amount of water in them but they aren’t cold and the air temp makes the water refreshing. We are flying pretty good and only a mile or so from the trailer when the Flatmonster picks on somebody else for a change. Mike nurses his bike to the trailer via shortcut while I finish the loop. We both get back at the trailer at the same time. I know I don’t have a tube so I have to patch one before throwing it on. It is now 6:45 and we only have a little daylight left to finish the south loop on. The south loop is only 13 miles or so and I figure that we might be able to squeeze it in before its too dark to see. Mike throws in his flamethrower of a helmet light into his backpack and away we go. Both of our bikes are EXCs but neither has a functional light. Neither one of us have had our bikes for very long and I haven’t stopped riding long enough to figure it out. Seven miles in and im just winging it as far as where the trail is. I finally just stop and Mike gets the helmet light powered up. We get moving and find that it works best if he is behind me. True dat I have a big shadow in front of me for the first 15-20ft but it works well if you keep your speed down. To be honest, I was more afraid of wrecking my pipe on an odd rock than crashing my brains out. We finish off the ride and Mike is really happy with the performance of the light. We high five and start to load the bikes up for the long haul home. We pull out onto the highway around 9:00 and head for food at one of Oklahomas homegrown stores known as Braums. Ill take a hamburger and a shake please. I drive and we go over what happened over the course of the last four days. We pull up to my drive at 12:00 and do the unload thing so Mike can make the final run to Dallas. I am whooped but happy. Im due at work at 6AM but I don’t care. I take a nice long hot shower and crash. EPILOGUE The final mileage for the four days came to 213. Not quite IDSE daily totals but still significant nonetheless. Mike and I met my goal despite some hardships. I would like to thank him for sticking it out on the last day because most would of called it good with the three day total. He knew it was important to me and did everything possible to pull it off. We rode a variety of terrain in a variety of conditions. The more I ride this little bike the more I like it. The best aspect of this ride is that I got to ride with a bunch of great friends and eat all I wanted. I want to thank all that rode with me on this quest and a big thanks to Derek and Lorin for taking us in while we were on this journey [/QUOTE]
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