Girlrider put's Leapinlisa to ultimate test and .

Girlrider

Member
Sep 1, 2000
313
0
SHE PASSES!

Okay I have a confession. Since I have always lived in Colorado I am kind of naive thinking every state has mountains to ride on. Well apparently not because Leapinlisa told me they don't in North Dakota. So I guess if you live in a state without mountains you probably don't really know how to ride them either right.:) This past weekend Lisa and her husband drove from North Dakota to Steamboat Springs Colorado to join me and several other riders for a weekend of riding. Steamboat has several mountains and also has a lot of rocky terrain (Apparently they don't have too much of that in North Dakota either). I have never ridden with Lisa before so I didn't know what to expect and I certainly did not want to limit her. Day one went like this. First Lisa and her husband did the 10 mile circle bar basin loop while I was out practicing for the ISDE. Then at 10:30 we all set out to cross King Solomon creek, ride up Mansinaress trail, then across to the Hare trail and over to look at the "Blow down". Some of you may have seen it on the news. About 3 years ago a Micro Burst of wind came out of the East and in about 3 seconds leveled huge pine trees over hundreds of acres. It is amazing to see how many trees blew over. Lisa is doing really great but thinking this is the hardest stuff she has ever ridden (little did she know we planned to do Nipple Peak the next day). You could tell her time and money spent at the Trails Training Center was worth it because she was riding standing up and hardly ever crashing. I was impressed. After looking at the blow down we rode over Farwell trail and back down Mansinaress to camp. At camp she told me she had never ridden more than 30 miles at one time and we had just finished close to 50. I jumped on my trials bike and did a loop with some other riders. When I got back I could not find either her or her husband until I saw only feet sticking out of the tent. After a nap she woke but looked really out of it. I asked her if she was ready for another ride and she said "sure:( ". Little did she know we planned to go up to the top of Hahn's Peak which is very rocky and about 10,000 feet high. Again she rode really well but never managed to look at the scenery unless I would pull up alongside her and tell her to look. At the top you have to hike about 200 yards to reach the very top of the peak so with all of our gear on we hiked up. Living at Sea Level must suck!:think When we got down we headed down the Hahn's Peak trail (very steep switch backs) and then back up the road to camp. This added about another 20 miles. She was tired but since I let her take a nice hot shower in my travel trailer she was happy and feeling better. She called it a day a little earlier than the rest but because of her time difference I won't give her too much of a hard time.

Day 2. So Lisa where do you want to ride? How about Nipple Peak? (anytime there is a trail with a name like Nipple Peak you wonder if you have any business being there) She was beginning to puke as she said sure. (I guess we should not have told her all the horror stories on the first day because it only made her nervous enough to get sick, well not really but she did comment that she felt like she should throw up.) Of we went across the water bars, down the Elk trail and then over to Nipple Peak. (Oh and yes, Nipple Peak does look like a big boob from a distance but not when you are on it) If you are afraid of heights or narrow shelf trails with rocks and tree roots I recommend you not ride the Nipple Peak trail. Lisa just seemed as if she had a determined personality that liked a challenge. I was actually ahead of her riding fast with another girl for training but I would stop every 5 or ten miles and wait and every time she would be coming. My husband was in front of her and he would wait at any nasty sections to show her which way to go and he said she didn't hesitate at all and would make it over just fine. About 3/4 of the way we stop on what we call the pass because there is an awesome view of the valley and she showed me her hands from her death grip and they looked sore. Her calluses are not quite as hard as mine yet and I am sure those blisters hurt but she was actually have fun, I think:D . While we were stopped I had to laugh because we all took our helmets off and she looked over at me and said "Do you ever sweat?" I was sure she had talked with my Hero Kerrie Brokaw because she always gives me crap about not sweating. I do sweat just not really bad. We completed the loop but not without helping a lady going the opposite direction who had fallen off the trail and was struggling to keep her bike from flipping down the hill. We offered to take them up the Hahn's peak trail but since they came down it the day before they decided to pass and take the rode it. We took the trail and met them back at camp.

The weekend ended all too soon and we had to go our separate ways. (Lisa probably being glad to get off the motorcycle and bike into a truck to rest her muscles). Too many miles separate us from riding more often but hopefully she will make it a point of coming back every year. She will be in Sturgess the rest of the week.

Thanks for a great time Lisa!
 

LoriKTM

Super Power AssClown
Oct 4, 1999
2,218
6
New Mexico
Nice report, Nicole! And I hope we hear from Lisa for the real story! ;)

There's no mountains or rocks in Illinois, Wisconsin or Indiana, either. It was pretty damn obvious to me when I moved to NY that I didn't know squat about riding the rocks or the hills! (Ok, they're not really mountains here, but compared to the midwest they are!)

Lisa, sounds like you did a great job!
 

Layton

~SPONSOR~
Aug 2, 2000
896
0
KoriKTM,
You are right about no mountains or rocks in Illinois, BUT have you forgotten the mud and V ditches. You slide down into those ditches on a muddy enduro and the trip out of it will seem as high as a mountain.:)

Don't forget, this is the home of the infamous "Moose Run".:p
 

MXbabe

Member
Oct 9, 2000
153
0
SHE PASSES!

CONGRATULATIONS LISA. . . I've ridden with Nicole before and it's not easy! ;) I am not big on trails so that didn't help either. Spill the beans on how it really went!! :p

Nicole, when I talk to you remind me to tell you about my hell trail ride I did last week! :scream:
 

Leapin Lisa

LIFETIME SPONSOR
Mar 30, 2001
83
0
What a way to be welcomed back home from my Hero Girlrider, saying that I passed! And what a grueling, yet exciting ride it was for me in Steamboat Springs.

As Dave and I are driving to this campground area last weekend to meet with Nicole and her husband, we both look at one another and say, "We'd better be very careful riders this weekend because if we get hurt, we will die before getting back to civilization." :eek:

Colorado is a beautiful state, I have to admit I wish I lived there so I could ride the awesome terrain that Nicole has the opportunity to ride each and every day. Perhaps if I did I wouldn't freak out at the height of the mountains, the size of the rocks, and how high some of those big old tree roots stick out on the trail.

The closest I have ever been exposed to trails that Nicole shared with me was at the Trials Training Center in Tennessee. I took the course the weekend of July 7 and 8, 2001. I remember the second day of the course Tony, the instructor, looking me straight in the eye and telling me when I get home not to avoid the "difficult trails." I think Nicole can attest for me that I didn't avoid much of anything while in Steamboat. I was willing to attempt nearly anything that was presented to me, and I survived. I didn't ride nearly as fast as Nicole and the others that were in the group, but I did ride over the same stuff as they did (I think.)

I really like the fact that everyone in the group was so patient and didn't push me to go faster than what I was comfortable riding. Nicole and this other lady, Caitlin were riding pretty fast on the trails--and I'm glad I didn't hold up Nicole's training for the ISDE. I got a charge out of the comment, though, when I did finally catch up with them, "we just got here," yet both Nicole and Caitlin and the others all had their helmets off. Yeah, right :D

Another thing I am grateful for was the fact that Nicole waited to tell me that we were going to ride Nipple Peak until the moment before we left the campsite. Just ten minutes before we were sitting in her travel trailer eating breakfast when another fellow, Devon, comes over and asks Nicole if this gal in their group could handle Nipple Peak. Nicole goes into this little talk about how Devon and this gal better start the trail now, because it would take them all day to go up and get back because Nipple Peak is the most difficult trail in the area and you need to be a good rider to do it. I'm thinking to myself that there's no way I could do it then, either, because I'm not that good of a rider. Good thing Nicole felt I could handle it, because I did go and I discovered that it was beautiful and I would have been disappointed to miss it. There was areas where I was scared clean out of my mind, especially the sharp turn on a rocky mountain side where the drop off was endless and the turn was sharp.

Another area of fear for me was the tree roots coming out of the trail. I've never ridden over those before and didn't know what to expect. I got so bounced around that I had to stop just to rest my body from the banging and pounding of the bumps. I told my husband I just had to stop and catch my breath for a minute. (I think he was grateful for the little break, too).

All in all, as fearful and stressful as it was for me, it was a spectacular experience. I thank Nicole for the tips she shared with me and for introducing me to her riding pals. I have never had the experience to ride with other women, so this was a very special experience for me.

Thanks, Nicole, for a fun weekend and allowing me to face my fears head on, even though I still want to puke when I think about what I endured!

Leapin Lisa

00 GasGas 200 EC
00 GasGas 280 Trials
99 KTM 200 Exc - ( now just a spare bike )
 

CJ Rider

~SPONSOR~
Apr 3, 2000
699
0
Great story folks! Girlrider- You wouldn't happend to want to ride the trails in the Steamboat-Hahn's Peak area again on the weekend of August 25th and 26th, would you? Will and I are headed there for an extended weekend (25th through the 28th) just because we heard it was a great place to ride and hadn't been there yet. 'Sounds like fun from the stories here!

I would also like to ask you lots of questions about your Gas Gas. After this past weekend at Taylor Park, I'm a lot more curious about these bikes!
 
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