here is how this little story goes. a bunch of dirtbikers started to plan this thing right after an attempt to ride Kiamichi in April of this year. most folks dont know it but there are hurricanes in oklahoma and there was one on the weekend we tried to ride, swim, float ect. anyway we regrouped and set a date in sept. there was a bunch of "im gonna be theres" and " wouldnt miss it for the worlds". heck there must of been 150 replies in the planning thread and over a thousand hits. after all of the bs , the cream rose to the top.
attendees included enduronut, mudslinger, ghostrider32, JMD, seldon(cant remember your screen name), tx246 (thats me), hlguthery, and a friend of his who we will just call insane for now. as it was, i did not arrive until sat am while a few of them had been in camp on thursday. camp was at the talimena oklahoma state park situated in the kiamichi mountains of south east oklahoma. as i pulled up i noticed harleys bike was up on the stand and it looked as if it needed a front end. turns out all he needed was a new tire. the rocks had worked over his doughnut like a muleskinner on ahhhhh...........mule. i meet insane and he and harley throw food at me in a nice way. aka they offered me breakfast. it wasnt long when JMD, seldon, ghostrider and mudslinger come rolling into camp. seems JMD had to get home so they went for the early morning ride. JMD loads almost as fast as i unload. im kinda thinking that he is avoiding me at this point. harley and insane work on the tire installation while i take out on a quick trailride with mudslinger on point. seldon is one of the few ive ever seen that make the big xr600 seem small. sledon is a tall guy and seems perfectly at home on the thumper. mudslinger takes us in about 7miles before i realize that this trailride might be a bit too long for the amount of gas in my tank. i was trying to burn up the old stuff before topping off. at my request, we turn around and head back to camp.
we sit around and b/s a bit. eugene the park ranger, has left mudslinger a treasure map of trails . seems that there is an old railroad bed that has numerous trails cutting off of it. this has become of intrest to the group. of course we load up and take off without the hand drawn map that had mileages and detailed directions. you see eugene is an avid atv man and has room to carry odometers and paper/pencils unlike us motorcycle guys. we are already down the trail when we realize we left the map at camp. thats when the debbile :p possesses me. i pull out my handy dandy GPS unit with topos for the area and yessiree bob there is the railroad on the GPS. for those of you who think you know...GPS doesnt mean anything about global positioning blah blah blah. it really means Getting People Stranded. as it were, we could see where the railroad bed was on the unit and we decided the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. (a little geometry for those who doubt). of course pro trailriders call this bushwacking but we arent pros but dont tell our bikes. we head down this steep section. well its steep enough that your toes get all wadded up in the tip of your boot. harley is the guinea pig and works his way to the bottom. there is a mostly dry creek bed just as the GPS said there was but damned if that GPS didnt disclose the nice little 7 ft ledge with a barbed wire fence between us and the railroad bed. insane was right behind harley on his xr400 when we decided to turn out and give up on this railroad bed of dreams. harley and insane decided to go up a different way than the way they came down and off they went. i walked back to where the rest of group was when we noticed that mudslinger was a sufferin. seems that this man wasnt going to miss this adventure because of a massive sinus infection. he was on bigtime doc pills and did have a questionable breakfast of nyquil, tacos, and other daytime sniffling, coughing so you can ride medicine. seldon worked his way back up, followed by enduronut and ghostrider. mudslinger was looking whiter than my legs in midjanuary. he was showing signs of heat stress. enduronut walked back down and helped me get 'slingers bike out. we gave him some water and cooled him off a bit before walking up to the top of the ridge.
eventually, we all make the top of the hill except for insane. he has been missing for awhile now. harley pulls off his helmet and ques his nifty walkie. seems insanes clutch gave up 400yrds DOWN the hill. mudslinger is still shaky so we send the group back to camp. i wait with harley on the ridge. seems insane is going to try and disasemble the clutch at the bottom of the mountain and try to get some traction out of those plates. after an hour we get a radio call that is a big NEGATIVE. no go on the clutch rebuild. insane walks up to the trail on the ridge and points to the bottom. we rappel down the side of the mountain until we find the wounded xr. we pick it up and hitch harley the mule on point with the tow strap, insane is holding the bike up and im pushing from the rear. every 10-15 yrds up this hill makes my heart rate jump off the scale. we push, we rest, we push, i clutch my chest, we push, i spit up a lung. really, it wasnt that bad. only 200 yrds straight up to go. this is when i start thinking about taking the bike apart and hauling it piece by piece. the terrain gets a bit easier and harley thinks he can pull it with his bike. insane and i are hoping this is true. harley makes it back with his bike and off we go. basically harley is doing a pretty tough uphill without a trail while dragging a xr. harley is pretty good at it because before long he is going faster than we can run with the xr and we have to let go. yes the xr hits the ground pretty fast. harley pulls it long enough that the handlebar plows a nice row. we make the trail on the ridge. harley motions me to take point as i have the GPS which marks the way home. im thinking man, this is going to take awhile. probably 1st gear for 7 miles. then i hear that 426 thumper behind me. i speed up to an indicated 22 mph and harley is on my tail with an xr 4ft behind him. insane is standing on the rear brake. this is why "jody" is called insane in this story. they go over rocks, logs, uphill and downhill at crazy speed for towing. i decide to follow because im used to everybody else watching me crash and i just know that if one goes down the other will too. a two for one bonus. never happened on 7 miles of trail. they bobbled but never went down.
finally, everybody is in camp and muddslinger is feeling much better. seldon decides to head for home while the rest of us hit the showers. some really great food found its way to my plate and then i washed down that food with a couple of cold beverages. next comes conversation about how much bandwidth costs. i dont know .........you gotta ask ghostrider about it. he seems to know fer sure. sleep comes easy after this hard day.
sunday breaks with harley, me and enduronut going out on the singletrack. it is a bit dusty in the back but it is a really good ride. after trips to moab, the rocks of kiamichi are barley noticeable. harley takes us way past what we had managed on the april trip before turning back to camp. everybody has had enough and nobody has crashed their brains out. we call this trip a success and load up. while riding home i notice something out of the corner of my eye. damn a hanglider cruising the ridges............but that is another story for another time.
a great big thanks to those who attended and for all of the memories.
attendees included enduronut, mudslinger, ghostrider32, JMD, seldon(cant remember your screen name), tx246 (thats me), hlguthery, and a friend of his who we will just call insane for now. as it was, i did not arrive until sat am while a few of them had been in camp on thursday. camp was at the talimena oklahoma state park situated in the kiamichi mountains of south east oklahoma. as i pulled up i noticed harleys bike was up on the stand and it looked as if it needed a front end. turns out all he needed was a new tire. the rocks had worked over his doughnut like a muleskinner on ahhhhh...........mule. i meet insane and he and harley throw food at me in a nice way. aka they offered me breakfast. it wasnt long when JMD, seldon, ghostrider and mudslinger come rolling into camp. seems JMD had to get home so they went for the early morning ride. JMD loads almost as fast as i unload. im kinda thinking that he is avoiding me at this point. harley and insane work on the tire installation while i take out on a quick trailride with mudslinger on point. seldon is one of the few ive ever seen that make the big xr600 seem small. sledon is a tall guy and seems perfectly at home on the thumper. mudslinger takes us in about 7miles before i realize that this trailride might be a bit too long for the amount of gas in my tank. i was trying to burn up the old stuff before topping off. at my request, we turn around and head back to camp.
we sit around and b/s a bit. eugene the park ranger, has left mudslinger a treasure map of trails . seems that there is an old railroad bed that has numerous trails cutting off of it. this has become of intrest to the group. of course we load up and take off without the hand drawn map that had mileages and detailed directions. you see eugene is an avid atv man and has room to carry odometers and paper/pencils unlike us motorcycle guys. we are already down the trail when we realize we left the map at camp. thats when the debbile :p possesses me. i pull out my handy dandy GPS unit with topos for the area and yessiree bob there is the railroad on the GPS. for those of you who think you know...GPS doesnt mean anything about global positioning blah blah blah. it really means Getting People Stranded. as it were, we could see where the railroad bed was on the unit and we decided the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. (a little geometry for those who doubt). of course pro trailriders call this bushwacking but we arent pros but dont tell our bikes. we head down this steep section. well its steep enough that your toes get all wadded up in the tip of your boot. harley is the guinea pig and works his way to the bottom. there is a mostly dry creek bed just as the GPS said there was but damned if that GPS didnt disclose the nice little 7 ft ledge with a barbed wire fence between us and the railroad bed. insane was right behind harley on his xr400 when we decided to turn out and give up on this railroad bed of dreams. harley and insane decided to go up a different way than the way they came down and off they went. i walked back to where the rest of group was when we noticed that mudslinger was a sufferin. seems that this man wasnt going to miss this adventure because of a massive sinus infection. he was on bigtime doc pills and did have a questionable breakfast of nyquil, tacos, and other daytime sniffling, coughing so you can ride medicine. seldon worked his way back up, followed by enduronut and ghostrider. mudslinger was looking whiter than my legs in midjanuary. he was showing signs of heat stress. enduronut walked back down and helped me get 'slingers bike out. we gave him some water and cooled him off a bit before walking up to the top of the ridge.
eventually, we all make the top of the hill except for insane. he has been missing for awhile now. harley pulls off his helmet and ques his nifty walkie. seems insanes clutch gave up 400yrds DOWN the hill. mudslinger is still shaky so we send the group back to camp. i wait with harley on the ridge. seems insane is going to try and disasemble the clutch at the bottom of the mountain and try to get some traction out of those plates. after an hour we get a radio call that is a big NEGATIVE. no go on the clutch rebuild. insane walks up to the trail on the ridge and points to the bottom. we rappel down the side of the mountain until we find the wounded xr. we pick it up and hitch harley the mule on point with the tow strap, insane is holding the bike up and im pushing from the rear. every 10-15 yrds up this hill makes my heart rate jump off the scale. we push, we rest, we push, i clutch my chest, we push, i spit up a lung. really, it wasnt that bad. only 200 yrds straight up to go. this is when i start thinking about taking the bike apart and hauling it piece by piece. the terrain gets a bit easier and harley thinks he can pull it with his bike. insane and i are hoping this is true. harley makes it back with his bike and off we go. basically harley is doing a pretty tough uphill without a trail while dragging a xr. harley is pretty good at it because before long he is going faster than we can run with the xr and we have to let go. yes the xr hits the ground pretty fast. harley pulls it long enough that the handlebar plows a nice row. we make the trail on the ridge. harley motions me to take point as i have the GPS which marks the way home. im thinking man, this is going to take awhile. probably 1st gear for 7 miles. then i hear that 426 thumper behind me. i speed up to an indicated 22 mph and harley is on my tail with an xr 4ft behind him. insane is standing on the rear brake. this is why "jody" is called insane in this story. they go over rocks, logs, uphill and downhill at crazy speed for towing. i decide to follow because im used to everybody else watching me crash and i just know that if one goes down the other will too. a two for one bonus. never happened on 7 miles of trail. they bobbled but never went down.
finally, everybody is in camp and muddslinger is feeling much better. seldon decides to head for home while the rest of us hit the showers. some really great food found its way to my plate and then i washed down that food with a couple of cold beverages. next comes conversation about how much bandwidth costs. i dont know .........you gotta ask ghostrider about it. he seems to know fer sure. sleep comes easy after this hard day.
sunday breaks with harley, me and enduronut going out on the singletrack. it is a bit dusty in the back but it is a really good ride. after trips to moab, the rocks of kiamichi are barley noticeable. harley takes us way past what we had managed on the april trip before turning back to camp. everybody has had enough and nobody has crashed their brains out. we call this trip a success and load up. while riding home i notice something out of the corner of my eye. damn a hanglider cruising the ridges............but that is another story for another time.
a great big thanks to those who attended and for all of the memories.
