I don’t remember the date or time, but we were working on a pitcher of beer in a roadhouse rehashing the better part of our ride. It was a great place to throw down a few cold beers to wash away the dust, and a timeout to give our sore butts a rest before heading home on the slab. While we waited for the second pitcher I asked Renn and Matt what they thought of the ride.
“It was great until we followed Matt down that goat path covered in ball bearings.” Renn said, “And Dale was in way over his head. I was glad I was able to turn him around before he got in too deep.”
“Ya,” I said, “It was a little to steep for everyone except Mark. He’s the amateur and he went down the slope like he owned it. I guess I didn’t make myself clear when I told Matt we were only going to the pass not over it.”
Matt took the ribbing in stride and said. “It looked good to me until I fell over and realized how steep the slope was and how heavy my GS is. It’s a good thing you idiots followed me so you could help me pick it up.”
“Ya. The tough part was finding a place on the wall to park our bikes so we could help you. As it turned out I’m glad we went down that way. Now we know everything the ride has to offer if we reschedule it.” Our overall assessment was; it’s a select-a-rut, dodge-a-boulder ride, with a few good water crossings, excellent terrain in beautiful country with a nice twisty pavement finish. Dale said it was the best ride he’s ever been on. It’s everything a GS ride should be. Challenging dirt, and excellent slab with lots of twisties.
We want to schedule more shop rides, but our best participation comes from our GS riders, and there’s been very little enthusiasm for our road rides. I suggested we do what we do best and concentrate on the GS rides but make an effort to schedule a couple of slab rides for our street riding friends. To this end, we are working on it. By the time summer gets here we should have a good idea of where and when our rides will take place.
