Sam Houston National Forest - The Report(s)

[Hemibee]

As I promised a couple of folks, I've obtained the blessings from Myosin and Proxy over on KTMTalk to post their ride reports from the ride in Sam Houston National Forest the weekend of January 11/12/13, 2008. Due to the amount of photos involved it will take a post or two or three to get their ride reports moved over here so bare with me on this. So without further delay, here is the first of Myosin's report.

This ride was two years in the making. I tried to host my KTMTALK brothers last year but the weather was no good. People were coming from Oklahoma and Arkansas last year so at the last minute I had to divert them up to Munster.

As many of you know Lifeisgoo0d lost his fight to stay in the great USA. LIG is an awesome guy and a master woodcarver having trained in Austria. He comes from a great line of woodworkers. And to top it off, he rides orange!!! It is a crappy deal for sure, a hard working guy, follows all the rules, pays taxes....etc Never have I heard Lifeisgoo0D talk bad about America. He loves America for all the opportunities it has given him.

Before LIG goes back to Austria he is having a farewell tour and going to ride with his KTMTALK brothers. He had never been to the Sam Houston National Forest. I was on a time crunch as I was having my ACL surgery on Jan 18th.

So LIG and I talked and we came up with a game plane to ride for 3 days before my surgery. So the Great Sam Houston National Forest Ride take two was on. There was lots of talk about it in the Texas regional section.

It was going to be a great time because local KTMTALKers I had never meet were going to show up and KTMTALKers I have rode with from Dallas and Oklahoma were coming.

Now we had some interlopers in the Texas section and my good friend Mojave Man decided to post a little warning about me. Funny how you can consider a KTMTALKer a good friend and have never meet the person face to face. Me and Mojave Man PM all the time. He is a little bit older than me!!! :gap: And gives me good advice as he has already been there done that.


So here is Mojave Mans post that I copied out of the Texas section.

Warning! Warning! Warning!
________________________________________________________________

This is an absolutely un-official warning that is not published by the United States Forest Service.
________________________________________________________________

This warning is published for the Sam Houston National Forrest and surrounding areas. Visitors to the Forrest are warned that an escaped mental patient has been sighted within the boundaries of the Forrest and as of Thursday January 10, 2008 remains at large.

Mike "The Psycho Crown Builder" A.K.A "Disco Doc" AKA "The Night stalker" escaped from a Texas Institution for mentally unstable and potentially violent serial killers earlier this month. He is not armed and really kind of harmless but he needs to be back at the home before his warm milk sours and his binkey is taken by another patient. He often can be seen in his silver under-roos and may rattle off in poorly enunciated German even though he is of Polish decent. At time he thinks he is a Dentist.

Here is a picture of our suspect as he disassembles an unsuspecting victims motorcycle last year prior to his arrest and subsequent commitment(please note is is wearing his usual silver under-roos):

He often attacks at night and is known to wear a disguise that hides his face:

Visitors to the Forrest are warned and it is advised to lock up animals and small children at night. If you encounter this critter do not provoke him. Maintain eye contact and back slowly away while whistling show tunes. He really likes show tunes.

Texas law Enforcement Officials are advised to shoot to kill and rid the Forrest of this unholy menace.

So this city boy is all packed up for a 3 day camping trip. I had cut down a tree in my back yard 2 years ago and still have lots of firewood. So packed all the firewood and other camping crap. Pretty soon the truck and truck bed got filled up so I had to use my Moto Jack Rack. 99.9% of the time I load the bike in the back of the truck.

I get up to the camp grounds and one of my best friends from Dental School is already unloaded. He has an 07 250sx (with spark arrestor). I have not rode with Frevent in about a year. So it was going to be fun to get a little ride in just the two of us before everyone shows up.

We hit the trails and do about 17 miles of trails and come back to the campsite as MikeC and Swall are pulling up. They have 4 KTMs in tow. Hey, got to have a spare bike right?

We help them unload as MikeC is our breakfast guy (more on this latter). MikeC has to run into Houston for some business and will be back latter that evening.

LifeisGoo0d (that zero in his name is because he has fat fingers and when he was signing up at KTMTALK he accidentally hit the zero key and submitted his username. He can't type but he is one heck of a good guy) and Photojo arrive into camp.

SRVpoet arrives late afternoon. I tell him to get geared up and we go for a little loop. We fend for ourselves for dinner. SRVpoet brings out a TV and we watch dirt bike moves at the campfire. Then things get out of control as he puts in a Def Leopard DVD and we all Jam out.

LIG has a laptop and wireless card so I log onto KTMTALK. Hey a moderators job is never done!!!! That was Xanadu for me, good friends sitting around the campfire, watching dirt bike movies and surfing KTMTALK!!!!!

The Dallas KTMTALKers left their mapquest direction on the printer. So they had some adventures finding the campsite late Friday night. But they made it, set up camp, partied and were still ready to go Saturday morning. now there was a story of a drunk fat girl at a gas station that I will let them tell!

MikeC is the operational manager for Day Light Dough-nuts. He always volunteers to make breakfast for EVERYONE!!!!!! He gets up first and has breakfast ready for you in the morning. If MikeC was running for president he would get my vote. You can not describe how good fresh scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy taste for hungry riders. Plus he has water and orange juice to wash it down with. You know that cliché it is better to give than to receive, well it is true for MikeC. Saturday and Sunday morning as MikeC is feeding us you can see him smiling the entire time.

 

[Hemibee]

Saturday morning and LIG and I have a quick riders meeting. I split the riders into 3 groups of 7 riders. I give SRVPoet a map and show him a good 30 miles loop for the A riders. We get the B riders going and I volunteer to take out the C riders.

In the C rider group it was me, Proxy, CodyY, Eric727, X1glider, BigMaico and BigMaico's friend who had not been on a dirtbike for 35 years, just had a hip replacement and was riding a 80's husky.

We head off and stop at trail crossings. I get a nice compliment from CodyY saying how I have really picked up my speed. The last couple of rides I have been in "the groove". My asterisk knee braces hold my bad knee in place and I have been ripping it up. So it is bitter sweet that in a couple of days I will have surgery and be off the bike for so long.

Finally BigMaico and friend catch up. BM's friend had a crash and his left sided kick husky is puking gas from the carb. We are only about 2 miles outside camp so BM and Friend head back.

So I have my GPS on my bike and I have home field advantage. So I take off at full speed and the ole 450 exc is just perfect. Soaking up roots and the MONSTER whooops. I know we are on some more open trails so I really wack the throttle open and pull away from Proxy. We get to the one hill in the National Forest. Well more like 8 foot incline that has a couple wicked tree roots on the incline. I go up in no problem. Codyy takes a bad line and fails to make it!! :gap: And he trains at Munester!!! :wedgie: He will not let that incline make him a "female dog" so he goes back and dominates the incline. I know right after this incline the trail is STRAIGHT and Wide Open. I hit the gas hard and click all the way up to 4th gear leaving them behind. Then the trail gets tighter and I hear that ring-a-ding-ding of proxy and his 200. And so that was how it was. On the straight stuff I could pull away but when it got tight Proxy would be on my rear wheel.

Honda going down!!!!!!!! X1glider brought a red bike to an orange ride!! :wedgie: He was taking the alternate line to the incline and tipped over. It would not be the last "problem" for glider.

Pic of CodyY finally getting that incline! :hihi: On another note. CodyY and Proxy sure do like to get the front end of the bike up.

Myosin and Codyy

Eric727. Now it is extremely RARE to see Eric at the National Forest. He rides at a private riding area near the National Forest. But he wanted to come out and hang with his KTMTALK brothers. He is VERY active in Riderdown.org and all around good guy.

Proxy and his mighty 200.

We get going and I, eric727, codyy and proxy are stopped at a trail crossing for glider to catch up. We have our helmets off chilling and taking a break. Eagle eye Codyy (hey that rhymes) says hey I see fluid coming from your bike glider. Upon further review Glider had poked a hole in his clutch cover. I have my GPS and do a little recon. It is going to suck if we have to tow him out through the trails with all the sand, roots and whoops. But luckily, he broke down close to a dirt road. We were able to town him directly to camp via the dirt road then a paved road.

So of course I get the camera our to take pictures of the Honda being pulled out by a KTM!!!

Took the cover off, saw the chunk of metal from the clutch cover and removed it. Cleaned the cover, JB weld and glider is ready to go.

Congo line

Never did get the entire story but Swall pulled a nice 12 o'clock wheelie that turned into a 10 o'clock wheelie and looped out his BRAND new bike.

Myosin and MikeC. It is a lame running joke, but when I take a picture with MikeC I bend over so we are the same height.

More damage from the looped out wheelie.

 

[Hemibee]

We head out Saturday for a PHOTO shoot ride. PhotoJo is a professional photographer and loads up his big camera. We try to find a sandy berm so he can get us blasting the turn.

We find a spot. Some people are getting antsy to pound out some miles so a group splinters off to go ride. The rest of us go for more photo opportunities.

While looking for spots to take pictures we came to a section where there is a gas line cut through the forest. There are water retention bars that make perfect little jumps. Although there are no signs saying stay out I should of known better to get off trail. We were only off the main trail for 5 minutes while we took pictures. I know I should of known better and not gone off the trail. I was irresponsible.

Me taking a picture of Proxy and Proxy taking a picture of me!

Lifeisgoo0d is a master wood worker. He brought wood scapes of high quality wood. We would put some ash, maple or oak on the fire and that stuff would burn crazy fast and hot.

I had a bottle of Jaeger sitting in my freezer for 2 years. I brought it up for the wild Dallas KTMTALKers. They made short work of it and then we gave the German liquor a Viking death pyre.

LIG's window on his van.

Saturday's dinner was provided by me and LIG. I bought 72 bratwursts and LIG bought all the potato salad, cole slaw, bread, chips, plates, pickles and condiments.

When I cook on the grill while riding I always make Bratwurst. They taste great, are easy to do and satisfy the German in me.

So Sunday morning I get up early. MikeC is slowly getting breakfast started. I get some trash bags and clean up camp. I take the trash to the trash bins and I find Swalls broken fender. So I take the broken plastic out of the trash and place it right in front of his tent as a reminder of his great wheelie!!!

My favorite picture of the entire trip. You can see MikeC (on the left) with a big smile under his helmet and SRVPoet with a huge smile. To me this picture is what "IT IS ALL ABOUT". Good friends and good riding.

Sunday morning I take out a group for a 30 mile loop. I lead until we get to a section where there is probably 17 miles and no turns. I let SRVPoet go out front and let the fast guys chase him. I am going pretty good until I hit a major wash out. The trail is washed out 2 feet deep AND there are roots over the washed out area. People have made a new trail on the edge of the wash out.

Well I am hauling butt and turn the corner and fall into the wash out. The dang roots are destroying me. I get all sideways but am determined to hang on. I go side to side but keep on the throttle. The 450 torque will save me, when in doubt gas it right? Well I get all settled in and onto the the new trail and out of danger. But that lasts for .2 seconds because my front tire slips into the washout and I am going down. I hang on and come to a QUICK stop on the left side of my bike. Dang tree root ate my front fender and tire. The front plastic was bent all the way back and was kissing my lower triple clamp. Finally busted my original plastic :frustrated: :frustrated: Had to get Proxy and Photojojo to help me drag my bike from under the tree root. Now I did not get hurt on the crash but it was somewhat violent crash. It gets in my head and I ride like a spode for the next 10 miles.

 

[Hemibee]

I come around a corner and see Proxy off his bike and his bike laying on a log???

Proxy showing how he FLEW over the handle bars!!! Proxy has his account of this mis-adventure latter in the RR.

Why is Proxy stealing Myosin's kickstart?????

So we get going. Probably 5-8 miles after the log/kickstart incident I am following Proxy. He slows down, puts his hand down and comes to a stop. I ask him "is everything OK?" Proxy says "I need a rest, I am wore out!".

My job as host is done. I gave him all the trails he could handle. Well I guess Myosin not drinking and going to be early helps. And Proxy staying up with Jager and Captain Morgan did not do Proxy any favors.

SO we took a little break then caught up with the faster riders. Come Sunday this 30 mile loops was taking its toll. We were all beat up from the roots, roots, roots, roots, sand, sand, roots, whoops, whoops, sand, roots, whoops in the middle of turns, roots, roots, whoops in turns, roots in sandy whoops, roots, roots, roots, roots, sand, sand, roots, whoops, whoops, sand, roots, whoops in the middle of turns, roots, roots, whoops in turns, and roots in sandy whoops.

** The following photos are the work of Photojojo

Ahh the life of a dentist. Roaring fires, dirt bike videos, and internet all in camp.

Thanks to Mike C. for breakfast

Brian working on his exhaust. can you see the arm pump?

10-4 roger, roger, mother hen. We's a goin ridin!!

So Elsie won't start? We can fix it!!

What color is that bike laying on the ground? If we didn't make fun of your or give you a hard time, it would mean we didn't like you.

It's hammer time!!

More pictures on my smugmug page

http://chrisjennings.smugmug.com/gallery/4...878/2/243381838

**Back to the normal ie non-professional photos or at least I don't think these are from Chris.

 

[Hemibee]

I also wanted to include the photos from Lifeisgoo0d so here is a copy of his photos...

Finally uploaded my pics so everyone can see them...here is the complete albumhttp://profile.imageshack.us/user/lifeisgoo0d/images
and here are a couple of pictures

 

[Hemibee]

Here is the Proxy report

Ok, here's my first big chunk. This leads us in to Saturday night. I think I can have the rest by tonight.

Thursday:
For some reason, my body decided it was time to get sick today. I lost my voice and had a bit of a cough. Oh crap, I hope this clears up in the next 24 hours. I have a lot to do before I’m ready to head out tomorrow. I was getting a bit anxious about the ride and I didn’t want to even entertain the thought of not going. I went ahead and took the day off work to rest up. Luckily, I’d planned for Friday off anyway, so it really just turned my trip into a 4-day weekend.

Friday:
Things are looking up. My voice came back slightly, but I feel pretty good. I start getting in touch with my passengers to figure out when the Proxy bus can leave.

10:45a – Lust450 calls. “Hey man, I’m already off work, I just have to get a few things together and I’ll be ready to go.” Awesome.

12:30p – Brian250 was scheduled to work from 3-7pm on Friday which made our arrival time at SHNF less than ideal, but we couldn’t leave a man behind. While in Wal Mart (approx 2pm), I call Brian 250 to get his status. Turns out he doesn’t have an OHV decal so I direct him to a moto shop and he gets THE LAST ONE they have. Whew. I ask if there’s any chance of him leaving work early, he says he’ll call back later and advise.

12:40p – I go to Wal Mart to stock up on a few things and I get a text message from CodyY: “Precise eta @ extraction point is non essential to mission success. Exfiltration to base is at your discretion, foxtrot. Charlie unit will exfiltrate whiskey point asap. Little resistance has been encountered.” Since most of you probably aren’t familiar with our obvious expertise in military gobbledygook, that means that CodyY was able to take off work a bit earlier than scheduled (before 4pm). Cool, things are looking good.

2:40p – Brian250 calls. He’s unable to leave work earlier than 7pm. Rats. That’s ok though… for reasons that will be obvious later.

4p – I’m packed and ready to go, make a quick call to Lust450 and Cody to say I’m hitting the road. Dang, 4pm sure came early. I pick up Lust and we head to Cody’s place.

5p – We arrive at Cody’s, get my bike out of the truck, and put my bike and Cody’s bike on the trailer and start packing the truck with supplies. Cody is wrapping up a few things on his bike and realizes he’s lost his squirrel cage for the air filter. Crap. We look around and finally find it inside a bundle of cardboard stuff intended for recycling. Weird.

6:40p – Its 6:40 already? Jeeeeeez. We finish packing ¾ of our stuff and Brian250 calls to say he was able to leave work a few minutes early. Woo hoo!!

7:30p – Brian250 rolls in and we load the truck with his stuff and put his bike on the 3-rail. Remember how I was griping about our late departure? Turns out it didn’t matter that Brian would be late because we used every minute of our time packing and spent 0 time waiting around twiddling our thumbs. I guess it took longer than expected to get everything packed for a weekend trip w/4 people.

8:30p – We hit the road. SHNF, here we come! ETA: 12am (pffffffffft, maybe if we had directions!!!)

Shortly after departing Cody’s house, we realize that the directions were left on the printer. I figure no big deal, as long as I can get to 45, I remember the roads to get to the campsite since I’ve been studying Google maps for at least a week by this point. Onward!!

We stop at a gas station to put go-juice in our tanks and pose for some shenanigans:

12am – Oh no, which exit was it off of 45? We take the first SHNF exit in New Waverly (1374) and head East, hoping for the best. I remember that the road crosses Lake Conroe and then there is a left turn after the lake crossing. We drive… and drive… and drive. I watch the northern tip of the lake go by on the GPS and notice we’re heading back north. This can’t be right. Let’s turn around.

We head 5 miles back to the freeway and go 1 exit further south to 1375 and head East from there. A few miles later, we cross the lake. Excellent, we’re on the right road. We find the entrance to Kelly’s Pond (or so we thought) and head south… and keep heading south… and further south until we eventually hit the lake. Dammit, what now?! Did we somehow miss the blatantly obvious sign directing us to the campground? In a word, yes.

We finally roll in close to 1am and setup camp while everyone else is asleep (slackers). They’d covered the fire with dirt, but after uncovering a bit of it, we easily got it back to life with a few leaves and pine needles. The tent is up, so we all have a drink of our favorite poison and call it a night.

Saturday:
I wake up to the sound of flatulence… I mean birds and squirrels singing in the trees to announce the arrival of a glorious day. Sure feels early, but that’s ok. Mike C cooked up a heckuva breakfast and its time to gorge myself with biscuit and gravy greatness. What better way to condition yourself for riding than to eat too much. I guess I could eat bananas and fruit for breakfast, but I’m no A rider and I see no reason to pretend to be.

After a little bench racing around the morning fire, someone got the bright idea to go riding. I guess that is what we came here to do. There are about 12-15 people on bikes and Myosin decides to take charge and form 3 riding groups based on speed. Myself, Cody, Erik727, Bigmaico, X1Glider, and a guy on an ’83 Husky go in the last group with Myosin.

As we’re heading out, I’m wondering at what point Myosin started riding faster because I’m pretty sure I didn’t get slower. My theory: Homefield advantage.

We get a few miles in and I’m feeling pretty good. Me, Cody, and Myosin stop to wait on the other riders. Turns out the guy on the Husky hat a bit of a get-off and messed up his carb. He rolls up and the thing is just pouring fuel so him and Bigmaico head back to camp. The group thins.

Mysoin tells us that he’s going to lead us up THE hill at SHNF so we eagerly head back out on the trail. We come to the “hill” and Mikey cleans it. I pause and take a look. Hmmm, there are two pretty nasty roots going across on the way up… gonna have to stay REAL light on the front wheel. I go, and all is well at the top. CodyY makes an attempt but is unsuccessful. Not to be outdone, he follows it up with 2 successful runs. Nice.

We hit more wide-open trail and that darn dentist-driven 450 leaves me. Yes, you heard right… the dentist outran me. That’s ok though, tighter woods are ahead. Hurry up Mike, my 2-hunny is eating your rear wheel!!!

After our little soiree, we come to the next resting point to regroup. Shortly after we stop, X1Glider (a.k.a. Honda bob) rolls in and we notice some liquid dripping from near his rear brake lever. After close inspection, it appears that the lever punched a hole in his clutch cover. Doh! Cody gets out the tow rope and hauls X1Glider back to camp. We follow suit.

Back at camp, we decide its lunchtime and also decided that JB weld is the recipe for a holey clutch cover. A little bit more BS-ing around camp and Cagiva from ADVrider shows up on his 950. After the drool subsided and the epoxy had dried, we went out on another ride as a larger group.

I don’t remember much from that ride other than the fun of being in a long line of riders weaving through whoops, and sand, and pine trees. Did I mention there are lots of whoops down there?

I do remember that we lost about half the group at one point (it wouldn’t be a ride report if that didn’t happen) and I was riding with Terry (SRVpoet), Mike Carpenter, Chris (photojojo), and I believe Shannon (Hodee). After we wrapped up that ride, we went back to camp and had second lunch. At about that time, the fast group got back from their ride. They only had 1 bike casualty, involving a rear fender meeting its demise with the ground due to a case of whiskey throttle.

Insert another hour or two of BS-ing around camp here.

At about 3pm, we got the urge to go do a photo ride, leaving Chris (photojojo) with the task of making a bunch of amateurs look like pros. Might I add, he did a great job. He did lend me his camera so I could snap this pic of him.

About ¾ of the way through that ride, we were all playing around and about to hit the trail again, when a strange wet substance began falling from the heavens. It sprinkled at first and we figured no big deal, but by the time we got back to camp, it was a full out downpour. We rushed to get the EZ-up… up and huddled under it until the rain rain went away and didn’t come back that day. Most of us shared the same concern “I hope this doesn’t screw up our night ride plans”.

In the midst of lots of wet gear, night fell and another adventure was about to unfold...

Saturday night:

With the arrival of rain earlier, we were worried about the trail, but it was not closed and darkness had fallen. Night riding is different from daytime riding for many reasons other than the lack of giant ball of hydrogen in the sky. I had to swap my goggle lens for a clear one, figure out a way to route the wiring for the Trailtech HID helmet light, check the batteries in the GPS, and gear up for wet trails.

When I was almost ready, I noticed most (about 10 riders) were already at the trailhead about 30 yards away. Just before I was about to hop on the bike, they all took off. Where are you guys going?!!! Its dark, if I lose them I won’t be able to catch up, CRAP!! I haul **** over to the trailhead and luckily I caught them at the first Y in the trail. It appears that 3 riders who were not part of our group took off on their own ride and someone (as in EVERYONE) took the bait. Just as the group figured that out and took off, I looked around to see who was with us and noticed 1 person missing. Myosin. Oh no. Did anyone with us really know the trail as well as he did? At our next stop, I informed the group we had 1 person MIA, but we were so far into the ride, there wasn’t much to do about it.

As we rode the trails, it wasn’t too difficult to stay on course as you could always see the distant lights of other bikes if you got too far behind… unless the bike you are following was Hodee (Shannon). He had hardly any light and was depending on Peter (lifeisgoo0d) and Racerrob to supply his light. Hodee expressed some discontent, and rightfully so, about the lack of fun in riding without adequate light, but persevered. Not too much later than that, we would have another rider without light.

We continued following a trail (no one knew if it was the intended trail) and at the next stop, Brian250 noticed that his giant trailtech HID helmet light was dead. We intended on doing a loop, but at this point, it was clear that we missed a turn somewhere and needed to find a quicker way back while the majority of us still had light. I could use my Acerbis headlight if my HID helmet light went south, but I really would rather ride with the bright HID.

I checked my GPS and noticed that we were on a trail I’d ridden earlier that day. We had in fact missed a turn… which is an easy thing to do at night when you almost never see the sides of the trail.

I led the group back to camp on some of the sloppiest stuff I’ve ever ridden on. It must’ve been hard clay earlier in the day because by now, it was like riding on ice with supermoto wheels.

Turns out we’d only done a 10 mile loop but it was one of the best rides I’ve ever been on. Night riding really requires a whole new level of focus on the trail and if you are ill prepared, it can be more adventurous than maybe you intended. Knowing how reliant we were on GPS to get us back, I would definitely take at least 2 sets of spare batteries next time, and an extra flashlight. Without those things, there is almost no way of getting back if you were to get lost or break down. Of course, all of that may seem like overkill if you know the trails well, but that was only the 2nd time I’d been on those trails ever.

Saturday night… night:
Now that we’d all been accounted for back at camp, it was time for some R&R around the fire. Shorty after being seated, Myosin passed out “awards” and gave us a bottle of Jager to pass around. Woo hoo!!! This would compliment my Cap’n Morgan nicely. This is actually one of the first trips I hadn’t brought a single brew and instead stuck to Cap’n and DP. I won’t say it was more satisfying than a nice cold Shiner, but I wasn’t left with a feeling of being overstuffed.

Anyway, back to the campfire… it probably took about 45 minutes for the Jager to to vanish and someone had the idea to put it on a wooden plank on top of the fire. A few pics were snapped and all of us were looking at the green bottled wonder when POP!! The bottle shattered. It was a valiant death to a bottle of joy.

More scandalosity ensued when I happened to look over and see our host counting teeth (I know, weird):

Shortly after the pic was taken, Myosin woke up and reviewed the evidence on my camera. Unfortunately, he also figured out how to take the camera out of review mode and attempted to desecrate the memory card by shooting a pic “down south”. Luckily, his aim was way off and my camera lived to shoot another day.

I guess by this time, it was about 11:30 and several of us needed a liquor sponge. I looked over at the table from dinner and noticed piles and piles of food still unopened. This included loaves of bread, cole slaw, potato salad, etc. I decided to make a pulled pork sandwich, sans the pork. I call it “the cole slaw sandwich”. It was edible, but was a little dry. Maybe not as dry as a bread sandwich or Dorito sandwich though.

After our midnight snack, we raked some dirt over the fire and prepared to rest up for day 2. With any luck, the trails would be open when we woke up.

Getting back to camp was a good feeling and it wasn’t until then that I really let myself enjoy the fun of the night ride. Luckily, there are fire roads out there to assist in navigation, but there’s a lot of forest too and most of those trees look the same.

With the bike parked and muddy, it was time to get scandalous around the campfire…

 

[Hemibee]

Sunday Sunday Sunday!!! (or Sunday, bloody Sunday if you’re a U2 fan):
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

Runnnnnnananananananaaaannnnnnnn!!! Runnnnnanananananananaannnnnnn!!!! ***, over?! That sounds like a 2-stroke. Is it 7am yet? Crap, its 8am. I guess I better get up.

Who was making all of that noise anyway? Oh, its Terry. Man, he must be ready to go.

As usual, Cody is first out of the tent. **** overachiever. Bring me my breakfast while you’re out there.

I get up and once again, we are all treated to biscuit and gravy greatness. Mike Carpenter is in fact not a carpenter, but a gift from above, sent here to make sure a bunch of undeserving, ungrateful loudmouths on dirtbikes are well-fed. Without this man, many of us would starve and go into a complete state of discombobulation. Thanks Mike, for once again making sure we all eat to live another day.

SWALL still wasn't up so Terry proceeded to do a few laps around his tent. I guess it worked, but he sure did look confused when he came out of the tent!

Breakfast was settled by 9am and I got to thinking about the riding I wanted to do today. I knew that we had a 3.5 hour drive home and that it would probably take us 2 hours to load up at a pace that would be determined by our diminished energy levels.

The trails are open, Myosin once again takes the lead and we all head out, minus a few A & B riders who apparently either rode too much, or drank too much, or maybe both, the previous night.

It was 10am. I figured this would probably be a good 15 or so mile ride and we’d be back at camp by 11:30 or so ready to pack up. I was half right.

Myosin was leading a good pace today and on a few sections of trail, let the faster people lead where there were no intersections. The first 10 or so miles of this loop were spectacular. Chris and I did have to hop off and help Myosin pull his bike out of a root that reached out and grabbed his front wheel, but neither of us was phased and trudged onward.

I was feeling good, not overdoing it, and was holding a good pace when…

“OK, throttle up. Sharp left turn, here I come. Alright, give it a little more gas to bring the back wheel around. Ok, we’re through the turn. Throttle up to exit the turn. Woo hoo, we’re hauling now, better look up. Oh ****!!! TREEE!!!!”

I swear the thing jumped out in front of me. The irony here is that the day before, I was practicing a few log crossings since those are very abundant in SHNF. I even heard someone say “You made that log your *****!” Well, the first thing Myosin said when he rolled up on my vertically challenged bike was “That log made you its *****”. I guess you can’t win them all.

It may not look like it in that pic, but it was just high enough to not be able to clear when you’re going… ohhh, about 20mph. All I could do is stand on the rear brake and brace for impact. The front wheel hit HARD and I jumped as high as I could off of the bike and landed on the other side of the log. I landed on my right side in the fetal position and came away with just a good-sized scrape. Elbow pads are next for me.

To add insult to injury, as soon as I tried to start the bike, the kickstarter lever broke, OFF. Ugh. Luckily, those 4 stroke bikes don't need kickstart levers and I just borrowed Myosin's for the remainder of the loop.

Surprisingly, that was my first taste of humble pie this weekend and unfortunately, it got in my head. The remaining 20 miles (wait, wasn’t this a “small” ride?) were a little rough for me. I slowed way down, and I was riding waaaaay too sloppy. I knew part of that was fatigue though.

We made it back to camp at about 12:30 after a 30 mile loop. It was a GREAT ride but man was I beat. At Muenster, we ride about the same amount per day, but go for several 10 or 15 mile loops vs. 2 or 3 giant loops.

I got off the bike and it was obvious my stomach needed refueling. Cody, Brian, and James (lust450) were already in street clothes and ready to pack up.

Sunday evening:
My least favorite part about any trip is packing up. There’s almost nothing to look forward to at that point and if it rained, your tent, tarp, and EZ up are all wet. Hooray. I need to get one of those portable-living-area-on-wheels contraptions at some point.

What made it worse is that Brain decided to blast some Right Said Fred - I'm Too Sexy while we were packing. He's lucky my stereo didn't break, it doesn't like crappy music.

After helping Mike C and SWALL get their bikes loaded, we were the last ones to roll out of camp at about 4pm. We managed to fill all of the trash bins at the campsite. If anyone rolled up that night, it would be obvious that many people just had a helluva weekend there.

A few miles north of Huntsville, the silhouette of the truck and the 3-rail trailer liberated the reflection of the sunset on the trees. It was a fitting end to an epic weekend.

A HUGE thanks to all who made it happen. It was great seeing everyone and I know this ride meant a lot to a lot of people.

 

[Hemibee]

I didn't get to ride with this bunch this time but I've ridden with almost all of them (75%) at least twice and some of them more times than I can remember. What a great bunch of people. Due to my work schedule I was only able to go out to the forest and eat some of their food and let me tell you, they ate pretty dern good that weekend.

If you ever get the chance to make one of these rides I highly recommend it as you will come away from a ride to remember. I look forward to sharing future campfires and the trails with this bunch. I can also promise you that on the big group weekends, you won't go hungry. We always seem to eat real good... now I just need to learn how to cook a pie in my dutchoven so we can make it a pie run also!

 

[X1Glider]

If you ever get the chance to make one of these rides I highly recommend it as you will come away from a ride to remember.

They're pretty darn quick on them orange thingies. So many B racers and plenty that could be. But they'll wait for you at trail intersections and road crossings. What was scary was Ed (Ponie)...some call him "AA from PA"... He was waiting 5 minutes for the A racers to catch up. Well, not quite, but you get my drift.

If you ever get the chance to make one of these rides I highly recommend it as you will come away from a ride to remember. I look forward to sharing future campfires and the trails with this bunch.:

Mucho fun...some would say Scandalous. I was spretty sore for a few days afterwards. Usually 4 hours is tops out the for me. I'll definitely hang with them again. Yes, Mike Carpenter fed everyone quite well. Same with Myosin and the brats.