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Reno Ride Report
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[QUOTE="bbbom, post: 542783, member: 16301"] Bbbom & Karl’s Reno Adventure We arrived in Reno just in time to hit the Mexican Restaurant as most everyone was leaving Friday evening. Fortunately, the 14 hour drive down was uneventful except Karl was not feeling well and slept the whole way while I drove, (funny how quick someone wakes up when you test out the rumble strips.) ;) We said some quick hello’s and goodbyes to the new and previous attendees that were heading out for some after dinner entertainment. We had a quick bite to eat then Strick and Mimi escorted us over to the warehouse where we unloaded the bikes and misc. supplies. We headed to the Peppermill, checked in and finally found our building. Standing at the elevator, I heard someone call my name. It was Pegasus and Marshal. Guess the enduro jackets gave us away!! We discussed plans for meeting up the next morning and headed to our rooms. We met up with Pegasus & Marshal at breakfast just as they were finishing. After quickly eating we all headed over to the warehouse to load up & head out. Strick lead the way out to Moonrocks where we hooked up with the rest of the riders. After unloading and listening to Strick’s description of ride groups we were inclined to follow Bobby but CJ Rider proceeded to twist my arm and convince me that she couldn’t be the only female in the group following Strick. So off we went following Strick’s group of about 14 riders including myself and Karl, CJ Rider, CSL, Strick, TTRguy, NVR Finish, Ret Senior, Thumbs, and Farmer John (I never did figure out who else was with us). At the first sandy hill I realized that we were indeed in the desert again. I stalled out about half way up as Karl zipped by me – something about more speed! I turned the bike around and saw CJ Rider on her KX100 getting set up for another shot at the hill. I could hear CSL at the top of the hill “coaching” her to go to the line at the far right but CJ was working under normal operating procedure when riding with your SO and not listening to a word he said. Since CSL was not my SO, it was acceptable for me to take that line. (I don’t think CJ could hear him and there was a left turn at the top that looked tougher than it was so she was being encouraged to take the straighter line – either by NVR Finish or Farmer John I’m not sure who was working as her non SO coach.) We all made it up the hill, caught up to the group and headed onward through the whoops. Whoops are by no means my favorite type of riding. I get tired of rolling them and beating myself to death so I try to hit them a little harder until my front end dives. Then I go back to rolling over them. I finally decided that it was much easier to bypass them as much as possible. We hit some open desert, a nice wash, some small drops (I think they were waterless waterfalls) and had a great ride. There were some problems keeping everyone together as not everyone had the same idea of what constituted waiting or intersections. Apparently CJ managed to pull of a nice stoppie which I missed. Ret Senior’s rebuttle when accused of standing on some of the whoops was classic something like “I did not! A rock bumped me off the chair!” Hmmm, I can certainly relate to that! We returned to the parking lot for some well deserved lunch. Pegasus was not feeling well at all so Karl and I invited Marshal to join us to explore the mountains to the West of the parking area. From Pegasus’ descriptions of her rides with Marshal, I knew that he favored the same riding as Karl does so I figured that this would certainly be an adventure. We headed out to the big sandhill west of the parking lot. Karl zipped up it as I stopped at the bottom to see what I was getting into. Marshal stopped next to me and encouraged me to give it a shot. Off I went with the glare of the sun blinding me. I made it about a quarter of the way and stalled. Slid my bike around and coasted back down. As I was regrouping, Marshal headed up the hill making it look easy. Okay, here I go! I made it past my first stall scene and as the sun relented for a minute I saw Karl on the side of the trail. I tried to steer the bike past him, hit a bump and stalled. I turned it around again and coasted back down after Karl gave me some helpful hints – MORE SPEED being the main topic!!! Okay, okay I hit the bottom of the hill in 3rd, bounced up the first part, still somewhat under control, stabbed it into second and twisted the throttle even harder, cursed the sun in my eyes made it past Karl, almost there and blubbbbbbbbb, I stalled. Marshal & Karl decided we would head back down & explore some other areas. Following Karl is always challenging. He took us through a couple gullies where you drop down one bank and pop back up the other bank. The first two weren’t too bad but on about the third one, I watched from the bank as Karl dropped down, gassed it and popped up the other side. I thought, hmmm that looked easy but it sure looks like a tight spot to get my front tire back up. Oh well, down I went and just as I hit the bottom I stuffed the front tire into the sandy bank on the other side. I teetered back & forth a couple times and finally got a foot onto the ground below. Looked up to see Karl quite amused on top of the other bank. Then I looked down the gully and saw that if I pointed my bike down the gully there was a milder bank to climb out on so off I went. We toured around in the boulder sprinkled mountaintops, finding animal trails to follow. Finally about 4:30 pm Karl & Marshal decided we better start trying to get back to the parking lot since there was only about an hour of light left. We followed several tracks, none of which were made by humans or knobby tires. Finally after several attempts to drop down into a draw each of which were thwarted by the inevitable cliffs, we found what appeared to be a knobby tire track. Off we went down, down, down into the wash. We soon found what appeared to be a trail although not one of the more frequently ridden trails. We dropped down a couple waterless waterfalls. I walked my bike across a couple narrow rocky sections, let it park itself on it’s side for one section (it’s more comfortable that way I think) and almost choked poor Marshal to death with 2 Stroke fumes as I gathered courage to let my bike continue down one section that was a bit questionable. Part way down the wash, Karl commented that once we dropped in there we were committed. I had to agree that he should be committed and so should I just for following him all the time! We made it out of the wash and back up onto a trail that looked pretty well traveled. We stopped at the top of one of the mountains to check out the rising moon and to see where the parking lot was. I wish we had snapped a photo because it was an awesome sight. We made it back to the parking lot just at dusk, as everyone was loading up and getting ready to head in for dinner. This is when we met Big Lou! He was taking pictures and meeting everyone he could. We warmed up by the campfire for a couple minutes and headed to the warehouse where Strick so kindly waited for us to unload bikes. Dinner was delicious and we were starving. We met more of the new attendees including Fe_Princess and SFO! We made after dinner plans to meet at the Peppermill’s Fireside Lounge for “a drink”. It was an entertaining evening at the Fireside Lounge with a few of the other attendees. SFO I hope you got that Bark Buster dilemma worked out! Sunday we again met up with Pegasus & Marshal at breakfast. Poor Pegasus was still not feeling too well so they decided they were heading home after picking up bikes at the warehouse. We loaded up our bikes from the warehouse and headed out to Moonrocks. Firecracker told me that dbkovett was leading a group on a ride with singletrack and Pod Racing. The group consisted of about 14 riders this time and as usual dbkolvet did a great job of leading us on a fun ride. We started out with a nice sandy hill. I missed the first turn so went to blast up the side of the hill and figured I’d pop onto the trail at the top BUT just as I hit the crest of the hill, I saw Karl out of the corner of my eye riding the same line but at a greater rate of speed. Somehow, I managed to drop my front tire off the downhill side of the crest of the hill. My bike was now running parallel to the crest of the hill and we were losing ground. I figured this wasn’t going to work out too well for me so I stopped and drug the front end back downhill, finally quite laughing and coasted to the bottom where I headed back up it as I had intended to do the first time. Apparently CJ-Rider and FE_Princess caught a glimpse of me disappearing back over the side as they went by. I caught up to the group again and we were hitting some nice snowy singletrack. As I headed up one hill, I saw Karl stop at the top, then I saw someone else up there with him. Karl disappeared to the side of the trail so I popped up the hill. Apparently there was a small amount of carnage on the downhill side so I followed Karl’s tracks down to the bottom as everyone got settled back in. We dropped down a snowy singletrack hill and headed over some more sandy hills and really fun trails without too many whoops. Soon we arrived at the Pod Racing wash – too much fun. I noticed that there weren’t many tracks on the high mark areas where the snow had hidden some of the obstacles. I couldn’t resist making the first marks in the new snow wherever I could. Sometimes that meant going just a little higher than I would have normally but there’s just something irresistible about putting knobby tracks on white snow. We all hung out at the end of the Pod Wash as the rest of the group continued to pop out intermittently. FireLily made a very impressive exit from the wash, nailing the whoops at the end like an expert! Way to go Mini!! Everyone regrouped and headed back up the wash. Once we all got back to the other end we again waited for all the riders to come out of the wash. There was a great hill beckoning Karl at the end of the wash so he had to heed it’s calling. A couple other riders went up it making it look like a fun hill. Karl came back down and told me I should try it out, okey dokey off I went – he was right, it was a nice hill. Once everyone was together again there was talk of heading back but CSL mentioned some more good trails so most everyone agreed we needed more riding. Off we all went over the not so huge of whoops whoopy road. We cruised on the road for a bit then hit some more singletrack. We arrived at the intersection of the trail back to camp and the trail to the Boulder Mountains and most everyone was ready to take the loop back to the parking lot. Karl, Kiwi, Dave186 and myself decided we’d like to see what we could find on the Boulder Mountains. I made that name up for them because they are infested with boulders in sand. We headed up the sandy boulder infested hills with no trails, not even animal trails on most of it. Dodging boulders, stickerbushes and sagebrush we went up one hill, back down, too slow got stuck, turned around, here’s Kiwi “this trail doesn’t go anywhere” decide to head back to another trail, round & round exploring the open desert mountains. At the top of a couple of the mountains the wind was blowing so hard that the fresh snow was flying around and you had to work to keep the bike upright from the wind. We crested one hill and saw 4 wild horses running through the draw at the bottom. “If horses can make it, we can make it right?” was Kiwi’s comment. We all agreed so down the hill we went. We ended up dropping back into the wash that Karl, Marshal and myself had taken on our late Saturday ride. When we hit the really rocky section where you had to almost walk the bike Kiwi commented that we must feel at home finally – Karl admitted that yes, this is more like home. Then he told Kiwi that we were here last night as it was getting dark. Kiwi made some comment about us being even dumber than he thought but, hey, we survived didn’t we?!!! Out of the wash, we headed back on one of the high trails that we’d taken the night before. Karl and Kiwi decided that we should be able to just drop down off of the mountain via one of the ravines because Kiwi had quesadilla duty calling. Kiwi and I walked down a bit to see what it looked like and it looked like it might be doable, no serious cliffs or anything, from what we could tell. We fired up the bikes and proceeded down the mountain. Ooops, Kiwi & Karl decided it looked a bit more questionable down lower. We turned around. Karl & Kiwi took off up the hill, Dave186 and I took off up the hill but apparently not at quite the speed needed. We both buried our bikes about halfway up the hill. Karl returned as we were both getting turned around to try it again. Kiwi was heading over to see if there was another trail while we worked on getting up the hill. Karl gave me his usual advice “MORE SPEED!” plus something about weighting the backtire (I understand the concepts, it’s the application that I have problems with.) I looked up the hill, determined to just let it rip. I think I may have scared poor Dave as only a woman possessed can. He was waiting for me to come back up the hill and I was going as fast as I could get my mind to allow my hand to twist. Bouncing over things and yelling “waaaaaaaahhhhhhhoooooooooooooo!!!!” then BOUNCE and kerplunk. Karl looked at me with “that look” as he came down to assist me with me next take off. I commented “hmm I think I lost control of it there.” “Ya think?” was his reply. We decided I could probably make it from that point. Off I went, picking up speed and not totally in control but we (the bike and I) managed to make it to the top together. Dave made it up after me. We saw two bikes heading our way and waited as they stopped to see what we had found. It was CSL and someone (can’t remember who it was with him). Kiwi returned and said he found a “trail” that looked like it would take us down to the parking lot. Off we went. It was a nice shortcut trail that meandered it’s way down the mountainside. On one particularly soft corner my front end started to washout and I fell over on the uphill side landing in a stickerbush. I smacked my head a bit on the sand, said “ouch” and started to get up. Just then, I noticed a pile of horse poo just inches from my helmet! I moved quicker. Of course Karl was right behind snickering at the whole scene – just glad I could provide the entertainment for you honey! We arrived back at camp and Kiwi cooked up some awesome quesadillas while the Canadians cooked up another batch of slushies. After a bite to eat, Karl and I decided we needed one more ride before we could call it a day. There weren’t too many takers on this journey (I think too many people have heard of the rides Karl leads). One of the newest DRN’ers was happy to join us (or so he thought at the beginning). Pete was the only willing victim, er uh, participant. We headed out west of the parking lot to the sandhill that I still needed to conquer. Karl cruised up the hill as I stopped at the bottom to warn Pete not to follow me until he saw me make it – I hate being the cause of someone not making it up a hill and I usually take the whole trail when I wipe out. I took off, hit 3rd gear, felt good bounced up & over the spot I stalled in on my very first try yesterday, past the second spot I made it to, stabbed it into 2nd, passed my highest mark yet, bounced past Karl almost there, just a little more……. BOUNCE splat, foot down and we’re stalled! Darn, I almost had it! Stupid rocks! I decided that I’d given the hill enough tries and we didn’t have much time left in the day so we turned around and headed back down to hook up with Pete. I think he was starting to wonder what he’d gotten himself into by now. We went through my stoppie gully again and I repeated my earlier procedure of stuffing my front tire into the bank, teetering on the seat and finally getting the bike pointed down the wash again. (I’m going to practice those somehow!) We hit the rocky trail and as I came around a corner on a familiar section, I remembered that there was only one good line through the boulders and I was definitely not on it. I stopped before slamming my front tire into the rocks. Backed up and stopped to catch my breath. I saw Pete behind me waiting for me to get going. As I waited for my breath to find me again, I asked Pete if he was enjoying the ride. He said he was but that it was not quite what he was used to (funny most people tell me that when following Karl). I told him that that was probably the main reason why we don’t have many riders that join us for repeat rides. I finally felt like I could breath again so I took off up the rocks and past Karl snapping pictures of us as we went by. We cruised on some less rocky trails for a bit, climbed one last sandy hill and decided we better head back down. We hit the K-K (Kiwi-Karl) trail that we had ridden down earlier. I managed to make it past the crappy sticker bush without falling into it this time but Karl had to stop and take a picture of my sand impression next to the poo & stickers. Then we took off through the sandy wash back to the parking lot. I was glad Pete enjoyed the ride, I almost felt guilty taking one of the new DRN members on a Karl Ride. I doubt he had ever had a chance to hear about the Karl Adventures so there was no way he could have known just what he was getting himself into. But, he had an excellent attitude and was willing to follow us – he even said he’d ride with us again next time!!! Strick and Mimi, thanks so much for a wonderful weekend!! It was great to see everyone again and to meet all the new people. Natalie and CJ, I’ll have the pretty pink bike there next year again and we’ll make the time for you both to try him out! BTW, Firelily, you weren't the only one that had to figure out how to pronounce bbbom - I wasn't sure how it was pronounced either but CJ decided that b-boom was easy enough to say so I'll go with it! :) [/QUOTE]
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