Wicked Bird Enduro, November 20th

[2strok4fun]

Greg, your semi fast is faster than me. :) Im sure there will be a few lines to choose from.

Ill be in a F-250 crew short, dark greyish tan (dark stone according to ford) with a nice ding in the right rear. :bang:

 

[2strok4fun]

Kelso, you in or not?

 

[kelsorat]

Yep Chris I'm all in. Heading out Sunday AM.

 

[2strok4fun]

Cool, see you there.

 

[PhastPhart]

Thanks to Tony, Eric and the rest of theTW crew for a fun filled four loops of the best Lucerne can hand out.

Greg McGrath and I were guests today on a great little enduro. We both had a great time and would like to come back in the future.

2stroke & Kelso, sorry I didn't get to say bye. I'm ready for a whirlpool and a 8 o'clock bedtime

Thanks guys

 

[Boodac]

OK, lets hear the details. How did everyone do and how was the enduro? :ride:

 

[2strok4fun]

The Wicked Bird "family friendly" enduro cooked my goose. I had a good time, liked the course, marking was good concidering it overlaped some checkpoints upcoming trail. I managed to finish 3 full loops before flatting the rear, I must have hit the only rock on the trail :roll eyes:, the same rock that flatted Tony. The start being .8 away from my truck threw me off on the first break and I left the start of the second loop 1.7 minutes late. I did make it up before the first check getting me there at 55 seconds into my minute. The loose hill got the best of me and I got later and later thru that loop. The harder I tried the worse I got. I did get spaghetti legs at times and could tell I need more conditioning, my butt hurts from sitting too much. I guess I did OK concidering my last ride was in July, but Im dern sore today.

A big DNF, flat tire, leaking gas tank, sore muscles, a cool drink mug, and another good day riding.

ps. Greg, you must have left in a hurry for the 4th loop because you left your truck door open. After mining for loose change, I shut the door. ;)

 

[thumbs]

Got a front flat 3 miles into loop 2. I was home by 2pm drinking a cold beer.

 

[holeshot]

I stopped after check 1 because I could see the trend for this enduro (rocky and a litte technical). My right arm has enough strength to handle sand now, but it still gets a bit sketchy on rocky stuff, so I quit while I was still in one piece.

When I got back to the truck, I could see that someone had run into the left rear with a quad or mini (just guessing from the height of the handlebar marks) and smashed the taillight and gouged the side panel. Damn, that was an expensive enduro. :bang: Hope someone steps up.

 

[the Eel]

Good times. :)

Definitely another in the long line of rocky Wicked Birds. The race flyer said it was going to be a family enduro this year but we all thought they might be bluffing. We were right. The course was a 13.7 mile loop consisting of a handful of pretty tough rock-infested silty hillclimbs, some tight sand washes and a few open washes, sections of hardpack rollers, more silt, and just sharp edged rocks everywhere. I really had a great time - I think this was my 1st TWMC race since the February event ! Thank god the Gas Gas is up and running again.

An especially sadistic master / expert special split was also laid out for the end of the master / expert loop. There was one hillclimb on that split that was by far the hardest part of the whole race for me … BARELY made it to the top. My clutch hand was like a dead man's hand after that hill. Other than that the split was basically ribbon placed randomly through a rock field … it wasn't even a trail. But as Gregg pointed out - it is now !

It was great to see so many Crew members and knuckleheads present, and it was also cool to meet Greg and Gregg. Thanks for coming out guys … glad you had a good time ! The more the merrier we always say. Maybe we'll see you on December 11th out by Slash X.

 

[Boodac]

Sounded like a fun one rocks, silt, washes, flat tires and all. Chris as often as you get flats Im thinking you should just about own the Bridgestone Tire Tube factory. :laugh:

 

[nonickname]

This race was too much work to throw it all away 2 tenths from the finish. :pissed:
This was the first race this year where my conditioning was close to where it was a year ago. It paid off too, since the course dished out a beating if you tried to keep up with the speeds they picked. Unfortunately I went cheap (lazy is more accurate) and rode the race with a pretty worn out rear tire. That had me sliding all over the place, and ended up costing me in the end. Even with that, I had dropped zero points going into the final split. I think I managed a fairly good pace through the final special, until my rear end swapped around on me 2/3's of the way up a hill shortly before the finish. Between bulldogging the bike to the top of the hill, and crashing on the other side when I tried to hop on the bike, I managed to drop 5 points at a check where the top guys dropped only 1. But all of them had burned a check earlier, so all I needed was a 2 for the win. Like they say, if IFs and Buts were candy and nuts.... :ahhh:

Someone once told me that the most cost-effective performance mod you can make to a bike is to keep fresh tires on it. I should've listened to that guy.

 

[the Eel]

Results are up !

http://mysite.verizon.net/sorudne/ghost.htm

 

[2strok4fun]

I really dont get that many flats, I'm just a complainer :blah: The last flat I got on the trail was the one I got up at Kennedy 2 years ago.

Im still sore today. :ahhh:

 

[the Eel]

ummm, well they were up for a second there ...

 

[2strok4fun]

It worked for me,

Great job Eric! 2nd place Expert

 

[the Eel]

Thanks ... somehow pulled that one out of my @$&.

 

[the Eel]

yup, they are up now

 

[nonickname]

Argh... I had only dropped 48 seconds going into the final special. :bang:

And Eric, how did you go from 2 minutes down at Phil's last check, to the best time through the special???

 

[2strok4fun]

I just counted, 46 entries, 20 DNF's

 

[the Eel]

andy - you had this race wrapped up until that last check ! ... you must have been flying to zero the 2 checks prior .. nice race.

re: the last check ... i was wondering that myself ! was there free time there like on the other loops ? i think there was and i probably rode right through it.

 

[the Eel]

Well it wasn't the "riding through the free time" reason, 'cause I just checked the route sheet and there wasn't any on the 4th loop … so:

A. I was faster than everyone else
B. I missed some course (possible since there was basically no trail)
C. There was a scoring error (possible)

Which do you think it might be ? Hmmmmm.

I'll have Tim check my score again.

 

[nonickname]

You could have been faster than Billy Fullmer and the guy who just rode the ISDE, but I'd probably guess at choice C. I don't think there was anywhere you could have cut and made up that much time. I wouldn't worry about it though. I doubt it would change the results much. And since we don't use chain checks at club races, there's not really anything they can do if the card was marked wrong. Not really your job to worry about it, and congrats on the good race regardless.

 

[the Eel]

I guessed choice 'C' as well.

... it might possibly screw up Jeff Browne's season ... that would be a bummer.

 

[nonickname]

I haven't seen a year-end points update yet, but I thought Jeff was doing pretty good. Besides, the award for winning the Expert class is to get bumped to the land of no-trophies... the Masters class. I'm sure it'll get worked out.