jeb

Member
Jul 21, 1999
633
0
As usual, the anual Wudi ride was a hoot. I want to thank everyone who helped put it on, most noteably the Hall's and Jim Cook. It just would not be an event without them.

Here's a link to my picture page:
http://pws.chartermi.net/~jejb2/wrm4_pics.html

Steve V, Pat H and myself took off from SE MN about 8AM Thursday, 2/21. We had a nice tailwind most of the way down and arrived at the Chadwick pavillion just after dark. After playing parking games for awhile with my Class C RV and trailer (thanks for the help Stewart, Randy, Pat and Steve) we got into the cookies, cocktails and SX vids in the camper.

We got up bright and early and hit the trails about 7am so we could arrow some loops. My first getoff was soon to follow but nothing to dramatic. Just the rocks saying hi. We came back to camp and got a group together for a ride. Off into Stewart's playground we went. As usual, we hit a lot of very cool single track mixed in with some cool hills, ledges, RattleSnake cave, up the waterfalls, etc.

The groups and loops changed during the day but the fun meter was pegged all the way. Bently's flying W loop was about midday. I thought he did great for his first "go fast" bike ride for a while. A great 65 mile day.

More and more folks arrived at camp but not as many as I'd thought there might be. Most folks would arrive on Saturday, as it turned out. I dragged up some firewood with my KTM 400EXC Chadwick style and we cut it up for a campfire. Cocktails, or "Treats" as Randy calls them, and a campfire was a great ending to the day.

Pat really outdid himself on groceries and we ate like kings all week. Steaks, chicken, pork tenderloin, pheasant, brats, pancakes, etc. Plus Christine Hall's dinner bell was answered several times for beef tenderloin, chicken noodle stew, sloppy joes and maybe a couple (hunderd) cookies or so. :-)

Saturday again found us on the trail not long after 7AM. The weather was great with sunny skies and temps topping out in the 50's. They'd had some rain earlier in the week so we had great no-dust conditions. The folks starting arriving in numbers by then and it was nice to go around and meet them or reaquaint myself. We had a pool going on Jim's arrival time and Christine won it with a guess of around 11:30, I think. I couldn't have picked a better person to win it.

It was great to meet folks like David Jones, Wade, Louis, Tim V, Liz and what's his name, the guy hanging around with her. :-) Travis and Mike from KC were down just for the day this time but they are just great guys with great attitudes so I'll take what I can get.

On one of the afternoon rides, we got the Texas group in with us and really set a pace. Stewart and Scot left us like we were all planted but they waited for us at the intersections. Somewhere in the single track, I had a small sapling somhow bow over the top of my EE alum BB's and just laid waste to my right pinky. I knew istantly that it was broken.

I don't even remember the tree. It was just like a hunderd other little trees on the trail. It sure got me good, though. I didn't go down or slow down much but I was in a lot of pain for a while. Blood coming out both side of my finger at the next stop and immediate swelling. Oh well, stuff happens. Let's go!! I decided I could live with the pain if I kept the floppy digit pressed up against the BB. It's not like it was going to get more broken and I figured it wouldn't set if I kept riding.

I'm sure we did at least one more quick loop after that one before the rock smashing party but it was just a small group. Everyone was riding pretty well, I thought. I had my usual 1-2 times a day getoffs but nothing major. Rick from KC brought a great young man with them, Chris. He broke his wrist on one of the loops and ended up needing some surgery. Hope you're doing well, Chris.

We got a nice group together for the rock smashing party. This was to go and watch Stewart smash up the "toecutter" rock that cost him two toes last April. Stewart had brought along a sledghammer much to the disappointment of the partial to explosives redneck crowd. Much to the galleries credit, though, not a single "Hey, ya'll watch this!" was heard and Stewart was left to hammer away in peace. Well, the words coming out of Stewart weren't very peaceful but certainly heartfelt and roundly understood.

I carried the sledgehammer in and rocks out in my backpack felling like much the packmule hauling them all up the hill. Hee Haw. I gave $20 to the Rock fund and Stewart autographed and gave me a piece of the bugger. See the picture page. I'm sure Stewart has more chunks looking for good homes. More cocktails and more folks around the fire made for another great ending to a 57 mile day.

Sunday I think we got a little later start but not by much. 800mg of ibuprofen helped my finger but the hand was quite swollen by now. No matter, I took all the loops I could, or I should say, that Stewart was willing to take me on. The Topeka crowd including Mike Kruger showed up for some Sunday riding. Nice to see and ride with Mike again too.

We got a big group ride together later in the day. Something like 17 riders. The group stayed together very well, though. Some fun on a couple of tricky hill climbs but everyone got up eventually. It was a great 3 days and 165 miles at Chadwick but the weather forecast for Monday and Tuesday for that area was pretty bad. Stewart told me that we just need to stay at Chadwick and the weather gods will smile on us.

We drove down to White Rock MT (WRM) late afternoon Sunday. We stopped in Branson for a few supplies, to wash our bikes and have dinner at the Pasta Grill where Christine is a manager. Very good food but no throwed rolls. :-) We dumped the RV tanks and filled the propane in the RV on the way down, too. We'd come to appreciate the full LP tanks!!

Steve, Pat and I got into WRM about midnight and just camped at the trailhead. The next morning in the predicted rain, we moved back down the road to the camp area where the Texas crew had spent the night. Stewart and Christine showed up about 9am. After much procrastination on my part (changed oil, flipped my rear knobby, changed air filter again, etc), the hearty among us took off for a loop.

Stewart sort of knew his way around but only from racing there. Scot, Stewart and I took turns leading on the ATV trails. It was rocky but more the bigger imbedded stuff than the loose rock at Chadwick. Lots of places for the rain to puddle so it was pretty wet but not really muddy per se.

Stewart found some single track and we followed that for a while. We went down Log Slide hill and covered a lot of the north blue loop. We eventually got to a neat overlook but you couldn't see jack with the mist/rain/fog. That's what the picture is of on my webapge above.

Not long after this, I hit the top of my broken finger on a low branch and whined mightily that I had to get back to camp and drink, er, take some pain meds. The group was adamant that I should not head back alone. Thought I had them talked into it at one point but Blair Dack was having none of it. So off we went on the easy trails looking for home. We eventually came upon a hillbilly house up on top of the mountain and Stewart got some good directions back. We thought the guy was going to adopt him for a while. :-)

By this time, the temps were falling and the winds were picking up. It was driving sleet on top and not much better anywhere else. The plus side was that my hand was so cold after a while, I couldn't feel it anymore. Scot started sticking his hands on his radiators as he was cruising along the gravel roads and we all soon followed suit. After a long and cold ride, we were all really happy to see camp. Thanks for the escort guys!!

Jim, Deb and DJ had shown up by then but no one wanted to go back out for another loop. The heat got cranked up in the RV and we got real popular for a while. Dry clothes and cold drinks were the order of the day. Everyone but us decided to split as we were expecting, and got, a record low of 9 and some snow overnight. Good decision.

We didn't get riding until close to Noon on Tuesday. Bundled up under clearing skies and took off. We found some more trail and some more single track. It was nice riding in the single track and the ground wasn't frozen so decent traction. We got off the beaten path and ran into what we called "hell hill". Long and gnarly with a tree down towards the top. I went up first not seeing the tree from way down at the bottom. I got around it but it was a PIA.

Steve was next and we finally got him and his WR250f up. Pat's brand new DRZ400e was a bit more of a struggle but we finally sweated our way up. Didn't go a half mile further to find out the trees completely blocked the trail. Turns out the whole ordeal was a huge waste of time. Sure got us warmed up, though. We found the same overlook and the view was much nicer under sunny skies. We'd dragged the cell phones along and they got good reception up there so that became our phone home spot.

We got back to camp and found some trails right around that area. Even found some single track. We'd explore more the next day as the forecast was imrpoving. Brats, videos and treats closed out the day. Too damn cold for a campfire. Felt kind of whimpy but at least I was warm and whimpy!

Wednesday was warmer and we got a little earlier start. We explored more of the trails around camp and came up with a fun little loop. Across the river, we went up Work Hill and took the B loop. Much fun trail with switchbacks and lots of trail debris, enduro style. Steve went down in there and caught a stump in his right radiator. Bent badly but not leaking after we tightened a hose clamp. We got him back to camp and Pat and I took off to rerun some single track just across the river and south a 100'.

Steve worked hard at the bike and got it looking really good before dark. We all agreed that an early start was appropriate for the last day and given the forecast of highs near 50 with sun. It did warm up early and we were on the trail by 9am. We found the "Falls" and a hill called "Mule Pen" on the blue loop. We ran all the single track we could find and just tried to see all the trail before we left.

We packed it in about 4:30 as we'd decided to start driving home after riding. We'd put on 160 miles at WRM but I'm sure looking forward to riding there again with someone who knows where all the single track is. We took off about 5:30pm for the drive home. We really took our time going home as we had to wash the bikes, dump and winterize the RV, wash the RV and trailer, etc, etc. We rolled into Rochester about 7am. We were also motivated to get home because of a winter storm that was predicted for the midwest. It was nice to beat that home.

All in all, another great trip. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Went to the ER shortly after getting home. Right pinky was broken all the way across just below the knuckle. Kind of an angled break and the finger bone was sort of tucked in underneath. They did what they could, like give me pain pills, and put me in a half plaster, half gauze cast. They referred me to an orthopedic surgeon the following week. So I typed all this with a cast on one hand. Sucked but probably good for ya'll as this would've been even longer otherwise.

Finger update, 3/7/02 Noon. Just saw the orthopedic surgeon. The bone is not healing straight at all and needs some attention. I'm going in for surgery at 3pm today to get it straigtened and have some pins put in. 3-4 week after that. Sucks but it's not a bad time of the year to heal up here, I guess.


Here's a list of the folks, thanks to Stewart and Christine, who signed the roster after the group picture:
John Brunsgaard aka jeb
Steart Hall aka Two Toes Gone
Randy Miller
Pat Hawkins
Scot Sheperd
Louis Ponder
Bob Feurst (spokes)
Layton Erickson
Travis Stillwell
James Adams
Mike Gossard
Steve Vehrenkamp
Jason Stevens
Greg Weirick
Chris Fiurella
Pat Robinson
Wade Wasinger
Tim Vanneman
Don (G?) Neu?
Rick Conyers
Clint McDonald
Sam McDonald
Mike Kruger
Bentley Wolfe
Lynn McEwen
Dave Calligan
Liz Baker
Jeff Neathery
Dirk Wilkinson
Phil "Reptile" Reed
Tim Wise
David Jones
Jon Kemnitz
Blair Dack
Tom Bigalke
Jim Cook
Mike B.
Lloyd Loux
Bob Diffee
Jeremy Erb
Leo Nickel
Andy M. Stevens
Scott "Spodekill" Wilson
 

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Today's Tom Sawyer
Damn Yankees
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Aug 24, 2000
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Sounds like fun!!

That sounds like a blast, man. So what is this ride? Is it a limited attendance thing, or can anyone join in? I'm still stuck here in central IA looking for bigger and better places to ride, as well as meeting some fellow riders, no matter where they are from.
 
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