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11-19-02, 10:18 AM
Saturday, November 16:
Woke up abruptly at about 3:30 a.m. to the sound of our two canopies flapping wildly in the wind. The front came through and was blowing hard and scattering everything that wasn’t tied down. We adjusted the canopy over the tent and took down the one over the picnic table and secured it to keep everything on the table under wraps. Twenty minutes after we got back into the sleeping bags, the rain started.
Woke up to the continual sound of rain hitting the canopy. Fortunately, we covered out tent since it’s a cheap tent and about 7 years old. It normally leaks like a sieve, but the extra cover kept everything dry. We made out better than most of our fellow campers. We heard stories of tents with 2” of water in them. We determined to persevere and not let a little water ruin our fun.
Breakfast was ready and included some fresh fruit, bagels w/cream cheese and hot oatmeal, weak coffee and watered down Gatorade if you wanted. At least the banana’s and bagels were good. I passed on the oatmeal, and had too much cream and sugar to make the coffee drinkable.
We decided to forego the morning group ride since I had to break out the tools and do some tuning to Scott’s bike. I adjusted his front shifter and aired up his shocks. We knew today’s ride would be interesting since it had now been raining steady for about 6 hours, and Scott had some tires with very small knobbies and widely spaced, (read good dry condition hardpack tires), not slushy mud caked condition tires. We got ready to go and met two other guys heading out at the same time. We peeled off from the other two riders as they seemed more concerned with going “hard and fast” and Scott and I were in a “Slow and low” mode. We got to the “Playground” met Mark (a guy I knew from the shop), who was there with his daughter and girlfriend. I was egging Mark to try it, and he said, “You go first, I’ll watch your line.” My answer was, “I have a 5” travel fork, I don’t have a line, I just roll over things in my way!” He wouldn’t go, so I dropped in, hit the first bump, picked my line to the right for the next, and hit a root that paralleled the trail. Well, I hit that root wrong it shot me up and left, and ended up way left in the bushes. Got back on and finished the small loop. I had to try it again! This time, I picked a line to the left that would put me in a more perpendicular angle to the root. Wrong! This time I slammed the tree adjacent to the trail! I got up, back around and was contemplating a third go around.
We took off again and found the new trail that was to be officially opened this weekend. The new trail is called “Dangerous” and it was. Especially in wet conditions. Add to this, that the trail needed to be ridden a bit more to pack it down and get the dirt a little harder. We ended up walking more than we rode. There were a lot of quick up and downs and some pretty good drops with a good rollout at the bottom. You had to keep you speed up at the bottom to make it up the next quick climb. Riding through slop didn’t help. I crashed about 4 times! Nothing major. I will tell you though; some of the sections would be very difficult to ride when it was dry! I’ll definitely be back to try this trail again!
We finished our ride and made it back to the dining tent completely covered in mud. We got a plate full of sandwiches and a couple more bananas. Those sandwiches were either really good, or we were really hungry. My guess is “Both”.
We washed off and headed back to our tent for a little early afternoon siesta. We contemplated packing up, but decided since everything was already wet; it’d be a pain and a huge mess to give up at this point. Plus, we each had a “honey-do” list at home that we were happy to avoid. We crashed for about 2 hours and woke to the sound of “No Rain!” We decided to pick up the campsite a little and make a quick run to Wally World for some more bug spray!
We got back from our errands just as they began serving dinner. We thought lunch was good. Dinner was delicious! It included, BBQ Chicken, smoked pulled pork, and BBQ pork, garlic red potatoes, some incredible yellow rice, red beans and black beans. I opted out on the red beans and put the black beans over my rice. I had a plateful, and was stuffed! As we ate, the entertainment arrived and started setting up. By mere luck, we were sitting at the table directly in front. The entertainment consisted of a Swamp club member, his guitar, a background music machine and a microphone for his backup singer/girlfriend or wife (???). The guy’s name was Romy (sp?) and he is Phillipino. Spoke in broken English and I could hardly understand him. I thought, “Great, this should be interesting.” It was. When he sang, he had no accent. He played all the songs I love and we had a great big sing-a-long. I think I was probably the loudest and the most off key of everyone in the crowd. (Heineken induced singing ability of course!)
Hung out for a while and were invited to join some new friends (Todd, Anne and Jeff) back at their campsite for another campfire hangout! Stayed there drinking beers and eating junk food till about midnight and decided to head back to crash for the night! A whole lotta fun!
L8R
Woke up abruptly at about 3:30 a.m. to the sound of our two canopies flapping wildly in the wind. The front came through and was blowing hard and scattering everything that wasn’t tied down. We adjusted the canopy over the tent and took down the one over the picnic table and secured it to keep everything on the table under wraps. Twenty minutes after we got back into the sleeping bags, the rain started.
Woke up to the continual sound of rain hitting the canopy. Fortunately, we covered out tent since it’s a cheap tent and about 7 years old. It normally leaks like a sieve, but the extra cover kept everything dry. We made out better than most of our fellow campers. We heard stories of tents with 2” of water in them. We determined to persevere and not let a little water ruin our fun.
Breakfast was ready and included some fresh fruit, bagels w/cream cheese and hot oatmeal, weak coffee and watered down Gatorade if you wanted. At least the banana’s and bagels were good. I passed on the oatmeal, and had too much cream and sugar to make the coffee drinkable.
We decided to forego the morning group ride since I had to break out the tools and do some tuning to Scott’s bike. I adjusted his front shifter and aired up his shocks. We knew today’s ride would be interesting since it had now been raining steady for about 6 hours, and Scott had some tires with very small knobbies and widely spaced, (read good dry condition hardpack tires), not slushy mud caked condition tires. We got ready to go and met two other guys heading out at the same time. We peeled off from the other two riders as they seemed more concerned with going “hard and fast” and Scott and I were in a “Slow and low” mode. We got to the “Playground” met Mark (a guy I knew from the shop), who was there with his daughter and girlfriend. I was egging Mark to try it, and he said, “You go first, I’ll watch your line.” My answer was, “I have a 5” travel fork, I don’t have a line, I just roll over things in my way!” He wouldn’t go, so I dropped in, hit the first bump, picked my line to the right for the next, and hit a root that paralleled the trail. Well, I hit that root wrong it shot me up and left, and ended up way left in the bushes. Got back on and finished the small loop. I had to try it again! This time, I picked a line to the left that would put me in a more perpendicular angle to the root. Wrong! This time I slammed the tree adjacent to the trail! I got up, back around and was contemplating a third go around.
We took off again and found the new trail that was to be officially opened this weekend. The new trail is called “Dangerous” and it was. Especially in wet conditions. Add to this, that the trail needed to be ridden a bit more to pack it down and get the dirt a little harder. We ended up walking more than we rode. There were a lot of quick up and downs and some pretty good drops with a good rollout at the bottom. You had to keep you speed up at the bottom to make it up the next quick climb. Riding through slop didn’t help. I crashed about 4 times! Nothing major. I will tell you though; some of the sections would be very difficult to ride when it was dry! I’ll definitely be back to try this trail again!
We finished our ride and made it back to the dining tent completely covered in mud. We got a plate full of sandwiches and a couple more bananas. Those sandwiches were either really good, or we were really hungry. My guess is “Both”.
We washed off and headed back to our tent for a little early afternoon siesta. We contemplated packing up, but decided since everything was already wet; it’d be a pain and a huge mess to give up at this point. Plus, we each had a “honey-do” list at home that we were happy to avoid. We crashed for about 2 hours and woke to the sound of “No Rain!” We decided to pick up the campsite a little and make a quick run to Wally World for some more bug spray!
We got back from our errands just as they began serving dinner. We thought lunch was good. Dinner was delicious! It included, BBQ Chicken, smoked pulled pork, and BBQ pork, garlic red potatoes, some incredible yellow rice, red beans and black beans. I opted out on the red beans and put the black beans over my rice. I had a plateful, and was stuffed! As we ate, the entertainment arrived and started setting up. By mere luck, we were sitting at the table directly in front. The entertainment consisted of a Swamp club member, his guitar, a background music machine and a microphone for his backup singer/girlfriend or wife (???). The guy’s name was Romy (sp?) and he is Phillipino. Spoke in broken English and I could hardly understand him. I thought, “Great, this should be interesting.” It was. When he sang, he had no accent. He played all the songs I love and we had a great big sing-a-long. I think I was probably the loudest and the most off key of everyone in the crowd. (Heineken induced singing ability of course!)
Hung out for a while and were invited to join some new friends (Todd, Anne and Jeff) back at their campsite for another campfire hangout! Stayed there drinking beers and eating junk food till about midnight and decided to head back to crash for the night! A whole lotta fun!
L8R