Riding the Big O this Saturday 7/16

[PumpkinHumper]

Anyone interested in joining us?? We will be camping at my cabin in Branch friday night and riding Saturday morning.

You will need to have a platted bike for this one.

Here is the cabin

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v97/yzman400/Misc%20pictures/Bigo_map_0001.jpg

Its on the west side of Landon Road. Its a green trailer park style trailer w/ a white gate at the road.

There is plenty of room to camp out there.

Wolfie how about it. You showed some interest in going up there. Whats the word

I know its short notice to be posting this. But if ya want to ride, we will be there.

[BobbySands]

i don't have a plated bike yet, but when you want to run the trail again please let me know.i'm an old backpacker, have tent, bag, etc and used to it. i rode the rites of spring and did both big and little, pluse a couple detours for fun, and made 90+ miles that day. sheewww. but i liked the trail a great deal and am interested in riding it again.

thanks

matt

[wolf_child]

sorry Don, My ankle is still real shakey. I just started a new job and I hate to have a repeat performance of the one I lost over a year ago for the same reason. I'll just play it safe for once and let this one go. Hope you guys have a great time.

[Rudy]

I will be there Friday night and ride Saturday. Sounds like fun--I have never ridden the Big O.

Wolf--your ankle is shakey? My belly is shakey, but I am still going to ride!

2 to 4 more plated bikes would be lots more fun. WX looks like a chance of rain and T storms today which hopefully wet things down enough to kill the dust and pack the sand. Tomorrow looks good to with scattered T storms also.

[wolf_child]

I will be there Friday night and ride Saturday. Sounds like fun--I have never ridden the Big O.

Wolf--your ankle is shakey? My belly is shakey, but I am still going to ride!

2 to 4 more plated bikes would be lots more fun. WX looks like a chance of rain and T storms today which hopefully wet things down enough to kill the dust and pack the sand. Tomorrow looks good to with scattered T storms also.

I popped a couple tendons in my ankle jumping 10ft waves on Lk. MI with my jetski. the same ankle that I broke a little over a year ago. I'm having a hard time standing on it right now, let alone riding. I'm trying to keep my job this time by staying out of another cast.

[PumpkinHumper]

Man wolf you missed out on an epic ride today. It was sooo sweet. Trail was freshlygroomed. And a monsoon of a thunderstorm that rolled thru on us gave us and the trail a good soaking. It was premo loom all afternoon after that. Of corse I was slightly concerned for my safety when the thunder was boom all around us and a tree fell like 50 feet from us. A BIG tree. I was like SHEETTT!!!!! There were rivers runing down the trail. Bike was so wet that it started to cut out a little and stoped idling for a bit till it dried out some. Man was that fun.

[PumpkinHumper]

Ok got a ride repot for all you slackers that decided to stay home yesterday and do the laundry

I got up to the cabin around 7:00pm Friday night to find Rudy there already with a big batch of BBQ chicken on the grill...Yummy. After a feast of Chicken legs and Corona we settled down around the campfire for a bit before turning in around midnight.

Saturday morning saw is up around 7-7:30am. After sucking down a strong batch of camp coffie we geared up and got ready to head out. Rudy is a very prepaired person. I think he packed every tool gizme and gadget on his body and bike. he is constantly tinkering with his bike tweaking this adjusting that. Me I droped the Yz400 outta my truck, kicked it and was ready to ride

We made it over to Tyndal road were the Big O meets the Little O. This is were the 1st of out mishaps happened. I looked behind us as we aproaced the 2-track were the trail goes in. There was Mwiessen behind us in the truck. We all turned in and headed down the 2-track to the power lines were we would park and ride. Rudy and I get there to see a fella on a KDX200 unloading. Turns out to be 2BIG4AKDX I believe was his screen name. After chatting with him for a few minutes I realized that Mark wasn't coming up the 2-track. I rode back to the road and Mark was no were to be found. turns out that I should of listened to the little voice in the back of my head and stoped at the 2-track and talked to Mark. Turns out that he wasn't sure that we were us and the trail was the right one and he turned around and headed to the 32nd street staging area. Sorry Mark.

So back at the power lines we geared up with 2big and headed into the trail. Tall1 was a no show also. Maybe he had a few too many barly pops around the campfire the night before. Either way we were off.

Trail was pretty nice. We settled into a nice easy pace. The trail was still moist from the morning dew so the dust was nill. But that didn't last long and after a while the others were droping back to stay outa the dust. We made the 32nd staging without incident. We managed to talk 2big to at least ride into Baldwin for lunch with us. The offer of food finially won him over and he headed out with us. we stopped at a little Pizza sub shop next to wesco for the best sub and MT Dew I have had in a long time. Ok maybe I was just starving. Either way it was good. We filled the camelbacks with ice from the pop machine and then off to the gas station to top off. And we were off again. We managed to talk out riding buddy on the KDX into riding a bit farther with the promise of being able to get him out and back to his truck if he wanted an out. Begining to sound like a woodsy adventure aint it.

Here is when the real adventure begins. When in the sub shop it started to drizzle a little. We were all pretty happy for that but it wasn't going ot be enough to keep the dust down. Well we headed acros 52nd street and blew right past the 1st trail on Acorn street I think it is. I think we stopped at Jenks road to look at the map. Determining that we lost the trail we headed south down Jenks till we found it again. Once on the trail again it started to rain.

We got back onto 56th street heading east and it was really raining. I was wearing safety glasses and they were fogged solid. I was riding with them slid down on the tip of my nose so I could see. The rain was coming down so hard that I had to ride one handed with the other covering my face to keep the rain from stinging so bad. Because of the limited visability I completely missed the trail again and blew right past it. Then suddenly I saw a shadow dive off the road to my left. Once a little closer I see that it is a trail. We dive in and right away I know that we missed something because we were heading east again. But who cares were were riding. Also that shadow I saw diving in the trail ahead of me. At 1st I thought it was a quad rider. I thought I seen a headlight ahead of me. We all put our heads down and tried to catch them but it was gone. The rain and thunder were absolutely amazing. I dont think I have ever rode in conditions like that. It was a little scarry actually. I pulled up to a trail crosing, looked to the left to see the top of a tree break off like 50 feet up and fall down on the road. This was like 50 feet down the road from us. I was like SHEETTT!!!!! Lets get out of here. back on the trail there were rivers of water running down the trail. The puddles were huge.

We follow the trail back to 56th street. Turns out this is were we were supposed to turn in origionaly. The rain was easing up a little. So we stayed there for a few minutes to get our wits about us. I looked across the street and there was a campground. I squint thru the rain and what do I see but a white RV towhauler, tan extended cab truck and a KTM450. Turns out that the shadow I seen diving into the trail was Mark. What are the odds.

I considered stopping at Marks as I saw he had the awning down on his RV and the thought of getting outta the rain was looking mighty apealing. But we soldered on. Taking the road west to Evergreen road we headed down there and dove into the trail. The trail here was a trench from all the watter draining down it. At the bottom was a pool of white foamy spooge. Some of these depressions in the trail were the water was collecting was an absolute quagmire. The harder I twisted the throttle on the 400 the more I would sink. The sand was so saturated with water that it was almost turning into quicksand. Very interesting. My 400 was getting so wet that it would hardly idle. Thoughts of conserving my bike started to go thru my head. Your bike as well as your body are consumable items out on the trail. There is only so much abose they can take. And the YZ was reaching the limit of how much water it would consume so I had to start trying to skirt the puddles instead of blitzing thru the middle of them.

Once down to the turnoff for the Whitecloud trail the rain had finially started to ease up a little and I could almost see again thru my safety glasses. From here on out the riding was the absolute best I have ever seen. I hate to say this as others will flock to the Big O, but the trail was freshly groomed. Add to that all the rain and it was incredible. It was amazing how fast the pools of water soaked into the ground. Within 15 minutes of the rain stoping there was almost no standing water in the trail. We found ourselfs in dirtbiking nirvana. It was nice and cool from the rain (and maybe because we were soaked to the bone) and the trail was dust free. We settled into a rythm and started covering a lot of ground.

It is a good thing that I have ridden sections of this trail in the past as there is no way I could of found all of the turns and cuttoffs otherwise. The trail marking on the road sections was absolutely horrible. Rudy commented that there was no way he could of got around there on his own. The marking was that bad. The marks were there but a lot of them were overgrown by trees and not visable. There were no white arrows at all on the road sections. I dont know if they never existed or if locals have been taking them down. But either way it sucked. Thank goodness my fuzzy memory of the trail was in tact and we were able to get thru it without getting too lost.

We made it to the bottom of Whiskey Creek and headed in. For the most part we had been keeping pretty closly together and not pushing too much in the trail. On a 100 mile trail I cant just blitz the entire thing. I would be mush. I have to pace myself. I learned this riding with Woodsy and his Monday riders. But once in Whiskey creek that all went out the window. I quickly turned it up and was having a blast. I looked back and the others must of been sharing my feelings as the were right there with me. It was an amazing section of trail. Once at Hawley road I stopped and dumped in some gas that I had stashed in the woods Friday night and we were off once again. I was not looking forward to this last section of trail as its miles and miles of sand woops. But amazingly they wern't as bad as they had been in the past. We made one big push from Hawley road back to Landon road and the end of our trail.

We sat there for a little chatting with Our westside rider on the KDX for a bit. I gave him directions back to his truck and we parted ways.

Going into this ride I was not really looking forward to this ride. I remember the miles and miles of woops from the ROS and was not looking forward to a repeat performance. But I am so glad I managed to pull it together and get a bike runing for this ride as it was the one of the best rides I have been on all summer