We started out with twelve guys for this ride,and Jim splits us up into two groups. There was supposed to be the fast group and the not so fast group. After riding behind Norman DeLamar and BMWZilla for two day I was beginning to think maybe I was in the wrong group. For a 71 year old guy he's faster than greased lightening!
Anyway.....here's Norman's take on the ride. No picture just some good verbiage.
The Clarksville ride was one of the best ever and this is the way I saw it.
I got there Wednesday night and took a 62 mile ride Thursday morning and got back in time for an afternoon ride with some of the late arrivals.
This was my first long shakeout ride since the shift problem repair. The bike shifted and rode fine but had a intermittent starter problem so I bypassed the afternoon ride to try and solve the problem. With help from Bill, Chuck and Bruce it was better and worked so-so for Friday and Saturday.
Friday we had 12 riders and split into 2 groups of 6 riders, the super hero defenders of truth and justice , and the never a dull moment gang.
The super heroes were Marquis de Zippy, Mustard Jack, One thumb Jack, Big Iron William, trail finder John, and OB Norm,( OB = overly brilliant, not old bass turd.)
John led us to a lot of fun stuff I had not ridden before, easy trails with lots of mud holes from rain the week before. Chicken hill was fun. We saved 2 puppies and got a woman's cat out of a tree before pig out time at Oark. The pie was real good as usual.
The 'dullards' were there with spotless bikes, hmm.
We left Oark and rode some good stuff and then we came to a water crossing, it looked bad but we found an easy line and had no problem. Zippy showed off and went across and back, it was deep but he did a nice wheelie, made the last crossing styling,atta boy Zippy.
Then we got into a pattern, deep water creek crossings that took a lot of exploring to find a good line followed by big mud holes one after another, and ups and downs with lots of rocks. I'm sure it was over 10 serious creek crossings and I was sick of them.
John took us to some trails that had not been ridden in a long time, very enjoyable.
We got back to the motel a little past 5 and most were tired, Mexican foot was good, pain pill was great.
The dull gang told us all the exciting things they did, we just rolled our eyes back because there was no way they did half as much as the heroes.
Saturday the dullards lost one but had a local replacement, there is an endless supply of their kind.
The heroes followed John to some great trails with no creek crossings, we had all had our fill Friday. Blueberry pie and ice cream was fantastic at Oark.
After lunch we rode all really good stuff and I think we had only 1 easy creek crossing, I had a good time, the hydrocodone 10's erased Fridays aches and pains.
One thumb Jack had some misfortune on a long steep rocky downhill, He had 2 thumbs at the top and only 1 working when he got to the bottom.
Except for a backwards u-turn gone bad I had no witnessed issues. It was a safe ride for all except for One Thumb.
We got to the motel a little before the dullards, apparently we had shamed them into doing more water crossings, 3 out of six went under water, pretty much normal for their kind.
What do you expect when their leader carries his tools inside the front tire.
The totals were 2horses, 4 dogs,1 nun, 3 girl scouts and 1 very big king snake saved by the super heroes.
The dullards were ,,well, amusing,, yeah, amusing, we'll give them that.
That's all I got, ....OB