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Message: [QUOTE="2TrakR, post: 681902, member: 27322"] Part 2: Back to the trail GPSin project. This is my excuse to ride ORV trail loops. Oh the agony of having to "work". Good thing this is volunteer work. ;-) Honestly it's great to have a reason to ride, something with a useful purpose. Saturday I opted to run the Geels (same link for trail map, see here for area <http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=US&addtohistory=&address=&city=Geels&state=MI&zipcode=&homesubmit=Get+Map>)system. It's a 45 minute drive to the parking lot from home, so it's relatively close. There were a couple vehicles at the staging area. I chatted with a 2 older gents who were suiting up and prepping their 300exc pumpkins. Told them about the GPS project and ended up showing one of them how to use his GPS (well, just one particular feature, he had a general clue on how to use it). They mentioned a group of 6 that were already out on the loop and which direction they were going. That helped me to figure out which way I was going to run. They were the only tracks in front of me, so relatively quiet riding. I've ridden the North loop before, but I was arrowing it for an event and trying to keep up with a couple speed demons. Needless to say, there was a lot of the loop that I didn't remember. It's a nice trail, I'll ride it again some time. Couple long hill climbs, nothing WidowMaker like, but enough sand and rocks to make it fun. There are a couple pine sections that I had to pretty much stop and wait for the GPS, but otherwise it was zip zip fun. The weather was holding nicely, mostly cloudy and low 50s. The ground was wet so even the deep sandy stuff was nice and firm. I made a loop through the parking lot and noticed another 7 or 8 vehicles had joined the collection. Off to the South loop. Funny how the trail always sucks near the parking lots. All those posers screaming off from the truck for a mile, then screaming back. There, done for the day. Trails are always whooped at the beginnings due to this activity. That's what makes those long loops so nice - nobody rides 'em. It didn't take far to get away from the whoops and into nice trail. The trail wound through the usual fair of pine, hardwoods and thick aspen. A few old railroad grades snake through the area and the trail uses spots of them. RR grades are a mixed bag. They are cool, to me just from the history perspective, but tend to whoop out very badly. Some of this trail was no exception. Lots of logs and branches to watch for in the aspen sections, with all those little yellow leaves trying to hide 'em. Keeps you on your toes. I came upon a herd of quads, but they were nice and even knew the trail signals for how many were coming (3 fingers up for 3 more riders, closed fist for last one, etc). About 3/4 the way through this loop I came up on the guys I was chatting with in the morning. I gave 'em both a hard time about the distance they already covered compared to me. Their excuse was one of them smoked like a trailer park granny at Bingo, so they had to stop frequently for his nicotine fix. Right after them, I came upon the group of bikes whose tracks I had been following on the North loop. Bunch of CRs. One of them needed a real tire on the back. Think it was an older CR 500, that thing just trenched the trail where ever it went. I mean like a 3 inch deep trench, enough to make your bike dart around. Was thinking that this dude would be pretty fast if the bike actually hooked up, but maybe that was by design. I finished the loop much quicker than I expected, the top part of the South loop was quite nice and lead to a nice smooth rhythm. The map made that last part look much larger than it was. Felt like it only took 10 minutes to ride. I'm sure it was more than that, hmm, let me check... Yup, GPS says it was 22 minutes to make that 6 mile section of the loop. It was only 3PM now, so I decided to pick up the MCCCT from Geels down to St. Helen. Quite sure I've ridden it before and it didn't seem like it was that long. I had at least 2 hours before dark (pretty cloudy out) so no problem; and it wasn't. There's a bit of road/ORV Route to get back to the parking lot from the South loop and I was a bit chilly, so I opted to re-run part of the North loop to connect up with the Michigan Cross Country Cycle Trail. On the way I pass a group of ATV riders, one on a newer Honda sport quad and two, er, large gents on old Honda 3 Wheelers, one of them was an old 110 ATC with NO suspension. Ah, the good ole days... I waved and putted past them. The MCCCT from Geels to St. Helen <http://www.sthelenchamber.com/> is rarely used, although it must have been an ORV loop at one point in time 'cause it's pretty whooped in sections. Some is fairly new trail and some also shares sections with SMTR. It's fun and worth riding just for the fact that nobody uses it. This is part of the cross state connector for the MCCCT, for those keeping score. I made it down to the St Helen Motorsports area parking lot about 40 minutes later. There were a half dozen vehicles parked there and I took a pit stop and to get my jacket out for the return trip. A brand new Hummer came tooling by, apparently out trying their new vehicles ability to traverse deep sand. Chatted with a couple 2 smokers for a bit, they were adjusting air pressure and what not on their CR/YZ beasts. I had 3 choices to get back to the parking lot: a; 5 miles of pavement (brrr), b; return on the same trail (not bad, but would be getting darker), or c; run the snowmobile trail that takes you right back to where I started. I opted for the SMTR and put my jacket on since the higher speed meant it would be a bit colder. The trail wound through the woods nicely with plenty of directional changes to keep you up on the tank. I kept the speed down a bit since it was getting time for the hunters to be moving about, usually taking up the whole trail in their pickup while putting along looking off into the woods. Good for making hood ornaments if you aren't paying attention. I only caught a couple and they got out of the way quickly (I always beep and wave while putting by). When I arrived back to the parking lot it was down to my rig and the 2 gents I spoke with this morning. They had gotten back not too long ago and were still changing out of their gear. I changed too and shot the bull with them for quite a while. Always fun to chat with other riders. They had just rode the Denton loop, the day before I think, and said it was in great shape. Guess I know where to go next weekend, weather allowing. Then it's time to get the sled ready as the rifle hunters hit the woods for the next few weeks which means no ORV traffic for most of the day. Oh, it was 84 miles for the day. [/QUOTE]

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