and other irrelevant chit-chat 
[quote user="badguy"]
So I had never really been off road much before Sunday...most of my non-asphalt riding was gravel/dirt roads and a little bit of wandering around in the woods by myself. These trails couldn't be all that hard, right? Cool
Man, right off the bat, as soon as we turned off 33 onto the first trail, shitf says "here we go" and it was on. We started climbing a rocky and rutted trail and I ended up stalling out on a big root on the way up. Then we got to the staircase type rock section and tried building a ramp for it out of big rocks, but the run up was too sketchy, so we had to push our bikes around it. a couple guys (father and son I think) on a pair of little TTRs showed up and helped me get my bike turned around after I got into a tight spot. Well, that was the hardest part, the rest of it should be pretty easy, shift reassured me. It's cool, I was having fun...so what if I had to push the bike a little...I was still fresh. Yes
We get up the mountain and to the trailhead for the ATV section that shift recommended to the guys on the Yammies (bet they were hating him the rest of the day Stick out tongue It starts out easy, then turns into a rocky descent with some mudholes for good measure. A few steep and tight turns here and there to spice it up. We get to the bottom and see the other guys taking a break. Shift apologizes for not knowing how technical it was and the guy says it's no problem...we hadn't thought about it yet, but we still had to get back up the same type of thing we came down Surprise This is pretty much where the pics pick up so I'll stop typing now and let Shift bring the other posts over here Idea
This is the same kind of sign we saw when we went down the first trail once we got up the mountain, but this is after we finished the trail. Apparently "experienced" is some kind of code word for sadistic
No pics from the downhill side, but it was pretty sick. I got it on the video, so I'll have to throw it in the edit. Here's the beginning of the uphill section though...it's the easy part:
All my pics are taken with the camera held horizontally...they still don't really give a good sense of how steep these parts were.
I bet shitf wishes he had two more hands... This section was a biiitch. people had even torn out a few 2x6s from the waterbars and tried making a ramp up it. Nothing to help us though
We got up to the top and chilled for a minute with a nice view
Then went back down and took a leisurely cruise out 33 out to grab some food at a general store back a ways
The store was closed, so I ate some food I had in my bag and watched the sun go down
Before we left we scouted out a campsite for the next time we can get some folks out here. There's a sweet spot down by Switzer Lake that shitf found and it's right next to a creek. Didn't get a shot of the site, but here's one of the creek
Some of the trails were rocky as hell...I could've sworn I bent my front wheel after hitting some of the small boulders, but she's still nice and straight Yes We didn't even touch on all the trails that are out there and it was a hell of a time. I need to move to Harrisonburg or something...this DC thing is way overrated
Here's some raw video - the only clip I have with sound in it since anything from my helmet mount is pretty much silent: http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=sa1Pkbyt-co I'll have something better in a while...
[/quote]
[quote user="shift"]
you know, thinking back about the advanced atv trail, it wasn't THAT bad. we only had this one section that it took 2 people to get a bike through. everything else was ride-able. lose dirt, rocky and steep, but ride-able. i kinda wanna go back and go the opposite direction.
like badguy said, you really don't get a feel for the steepness of grade in these pictures. it's a DAMN good thing we hit this trail first thing in the day while we were still fresh. going up hill was a tough line to hack. go too slow, you get hung up on loose rocks, lose momentum and get stuck. go a little too fast and you pinball off rocks, roots, etc, sending you in a different direction than where you wanna go. the grade was so steep that the front wheel lofted over any medium bumps and had a hard time regaining traction, especially when the bumps send you toward the edge of the trail and you need to adjust quickly.
just after starting the second half of the trail (it's all uphill from here) is where the really hard spot is. judging by the tire marks all around it, boards attempting to make ramps up it and skid marks on the rocks all around, i'd say this section gets just about everyone. this is where having a nice light bike pays off. looking down at badguys bike, i am stuck at the hard part.
we took a break and bs'd for a bit, then got my bike through, then took another break. it was getting pretty hot, so i rode in a t-shirt with a back protector the rest of the day.
a little further down the hill looking up.
some rubbage on the can
chillin
during the shooting of the video badguy posted, my showerbag i used as a tool bag came partially undone from the rack on my bike and was causing it to hit the rear tire off the waterbar jumps. badguy noticed it at the end of the run. so we putted back, scouring the trail for tools. i got a good bit of them back, but i'll have to go get a new socket set and some adapters. time to get a new tool case while i'm at it.
a run in the creek cleaned the bikes up some
being so tired, we laid down on the rocks and reflected on the day as the light faded away. i have no idea what the white mark is high in the center of the picture. the moon was big and to the left, so that's not it. ?
FAWK A BIGFOOT, I HAD A TRON SIGHTING
we left harrisonburg at 11pm. driving up 81 was boring to the point i was wanting to nod off. getting on 66, i hooked the phone up to the truck stereo and turned up some tool. problem solved, wide awake for the rest of the haul.
what was supposed to be a day with 60% chance of showers turned out to be a nice day in the upper 70's and maybe 2 minor sprinkle showers that didn't last longer than 5 minutes. a great day indeed. [/quote]
I should have the video in a couple of days once I get back home.
