Tonya and PQBON's WebLog
Sunday I got up at the butt crack of the butt crack of dawn to make coffee and get to Doc Wong's house by 5:30am (we were car pooling). We drove half way (just below Hollister on 25 in Tres Pinos) for Breakfast at Flap Jacks. There we met up with a large handfull of people who were joining us. Breakfast was good. I had corned beef hash. It was not what I was used to. It was LARGE chunks of corned beef with potatoe chunks and onions. I heartily recommend Flap Jacks if you are in the area. We had them so full they were turning people away at the door. It was litterally standing room only at 6:30am.
When we left Flap Jacks we headed down highway 25 to Clear Creek. We past the main Clear Creek entrance to the Salinas Ramblers property. The Salinas Ramblers allow Doc to hold the Clinics on their property so he doesn't need BLM permits for Clear Creek proper. Now would be a good time to point out that Clear Creek is in danger of being Shutdown. It is one of a VERY few places left in the country that allow all forms of recreation. The Salinas ramblers are fighting to keep Clear Creek open to offroad recreation which is being threatened at every turn. 
So that I don't get kicked off of the movabletypo main page I'll continue this in the extended...
After getting dressed to ride and saying hi to everyone it was time for the riders meeting. At this point I discovered that while yesterday the 525s battery was bad today it was HORRIABLE!. It really barely started the bike while warm forget while cold. Definately time for a new battery. After riding around to let people know that they were needed for the riders meeting, now not in 10 or 20 minutes I busted out my Rebel XT and wide angle lens (Tokina 12-24F4) for some shooting. I have pictures from everything but the group ride. That I was too busy riding myself. As the riders meeting ended we organized for a group shot. I used my superwide lens to get everyone in the shot. We had about 60 riders total. I'm in the process of processing the shots I took so that I can post and distribute them. The shot turned out pretty good for the available light.
After the meeting and group photo we rode over to the drill padock. I rode over with my full camera bag to shoot the drills. The drills are fun to watch. There were about 60 riders on everything from Yamaha TTR125s to BMW R1200GSs. It makes for a great sight, large lumbering bikes and small bikes zipping around. The most notable thing for me this year was the lack of two strokes. In years past (I've been doing these clinics for 3 or 4 years now, I've just neve actually blogged them before) there have been a large contingent of two strokes. This year two strokes were VASTLY out numbered by four strokes. Even if you take out the large dualsport bikes the two strokes were still only a handfull out of 40 or 50 bikes. I would estimate less then 20, probably around 10. It made me wish I had brought my 125SX to help the population! The drills went by quickly. I shot as much as I could without being in the way. As the drills broke up we tried to devide people into skills groups. Then we broke for lunch.
I wolfed down lunch while trying to get the 525 ready to go. I had extra gas so I topped off Phil from Aftershocks tank on his new Husqvarna TC250, then I had Phil help me get the rear shock on my 525 under control. This caused me to miss the group I was going to ride with. Originally, I was going to ride with Kari and help out managing the Cal BMW dual sport group. I have experiance with the big bikes and have helped people get out of bad situations in the past. Instead I tagged allong with Phil from After Shocks and John from Zoom Cycles. It was a mixed group with beginers and intermediates. We started out and everything was fine. We had to stop to adjust a few bikes and tweak a few things. I rode in the middle of the pack but probably shouldn't have. I was held up by beginers but I was having fun.
After a while we hit our first "rest" stop. The stops to this point had been to regroup. There we decided to break into two groups for a short while. One group would go with Phil as the intermediates the other with John as the beginers. This is where things went wrong.
We started on some single track up hill in the mud. It was actually pretty easy but slow. Lucky for me the 525 is great at slow hills if you can keep the rear from breaking loose. We get to the top of the hill to discover a HUGE mud hole to ride around. A few people got stuck. Then I got stuck and passed by the 1 person behind me. Once I got over the slippery tree root I was stuck on (for all of 30 seconds) I was all alone. I hit an intersection and no one was there to tell me whch way to go. I started making a few quick scouting loops just to see if anyone was around. I found other groups but not mine. On one of these scouting loops I was in 3rd gear ripping along over some LARGE wide woops and I cross rutted and crashed. This is where I tore the rear blinker off the left side of my bike :-(. I was lost and I crashed. I was getting unhappy. After about 10 minutes 2 other riders from my group bumped into me asking where to go. 1 was on a black XR650R the other a large Kawasaki (KLX650?). We did some further scouting to try to find the group. Eventually John roared up on his CR250R to take us back.
The way to the group was an AWESOME mix of single track and trails. We roared along to the area known as the playground. I was mostly able to keep up with John with the other two pulling up the rear. (I was on a much lighter bike!)
We got to the playground to find Phil and a large chunk of the group we not there yet. A KTM 640 Adventure crashed cracking his HUGE fuel tanks and loosing gas quickly. Lucky the crack was fairly high on the tank so once the level was below the crack it stopped leaking. With the huge size of the tank of the 640 he still had more then enough to do the rest of the ride.
We hung out at the playground a bit doing some of the big hill climbs. The 525EXC is a cheater bike for hill climbs. It has SO much power and torque that I just point it up anyhill and climb. We did this for a while.
Eventually Phil decided to take the intermediates on anouther loop. John rode sweep and the beginers stayed at the playground to recoup and play.
The trail loop was great. We got stuck a few times as some of the younger members of the party had some issues on the really hard parts but all in all it was a blast. We went up a few steep hills, one of which I had to abort and start over as the hill was too steep and the ground too soft to get traction on the big 525 after stopping for the young ones in front that had a problem. With a clear path it was a cake walk with the giant thumper under me. The other bit of real excitement was the downhill that was so steep. We took it at a diagnal and went accross and down. I actually turned off the motor and just used the front brake to descend because we were moving so slowly. This is where I experianced the wonderfull twostroke oil effect on my 4stroke 525. The hill was so steep that oil went up the crank case breather hose, back around to the air intake and was sucked into the motor with the air and gas. When I started the 525 it smoked this wonderfull white smoke as the esters and ethers in my synthetic oil burned up in the motor. FUN STUFF! When we got back to the playground we were already starting to loose light so we headed back to camp.
The trip back was a fun mix of trails and fire roads. Nothing particularly exciting with the exception of the 3 foot drop that stopped most of the small bikes in their path. The small bikes wound up being walked/caried down the drop. We kind of thinned out toward the bottom as people knew where we were and how to get back.
When we got back it was more socializing and relaxing. I ate a bit more and visited with friends. I got to ride a new R1200GS HP2 and an old R80GS back to back. It was interesting. They each have an interesting and fun roll. I would love to add either to my collection as long as I didn't have to give anything up!
As the sun went down we loaded up the truck and drove home. The ride home was sedate as we were both tired from a long day having fun.
Posted by pqbon at January 18, 2006 12:35 PM | TrackBack