yeesh.

 

My boss just called and said even though I'm on PTO until 7/23, my company has a short term disability program that, after I take 5 days of PTO, will pay me 100% for four weeks

I just got cleared off work till August at the earliest

 

I'm ok for either day this weekend Mike. So just pick which ever works best for you.

 

So, with me off the bike, who is going to be the camera guy and post up pictures for me to look at while I recover?

 

I just got my GPS back (Garmin just sent me a brand new one ), so I'll be the temporary Motionbased guy.

 

Garmin customer service is #1!!!

the wife is talking about getting a Digital SLR soon (yes.), if so i def want to get some of my trail photography on!

 

I'll start taking the S-30 with me. I guess we need to start going to some new places since you've seen every inch of FHC and Loop many times.

Pozzi, don't even think about taking a digital SLR on a MTB ride. Way to fragile and heavy. I've got a Canon 10D that sometimes goes on hikes and snowshoe trips, but never, never, never on a MTB ride.

 

Northstar was fun...more to follow.

 

If I can find it, I'll also loan out my S50 if someone comes and gets it (cuz I can't really drive).

 

Soooo where to start…1st off I didn’t sleep well the night before in anticipation of the days events and fear of the unknown (that and the kid woke up at 4:30am). Larry and I got to Norhstar way early, like 8:30. We found out the lifts didn’t start until 10:am and that the bike shop and tickets sales didn’t open until 9:30am. So we ended up getting some Starbucks and just kickn’ it for awhile.

After the Starbucks set in it was time to hit the bathroom …wait, wait, wait…okay here we go…So we head back to the truck to get on the gear (knee & elbow pads, chest & shoulder protection, gloves, full-face) and then we head back to the ticket counter to get the ball rolling. Finally we get to the lift line (gondola) and still have to wait like 20min. By this time the line is beginning to form behind us with all the DH fools and 8” travel bikes for the most part. We get up to Mid-Mountain and I pick up the rental bike (Giant Faith 2, [20”-L]) but I have them switch the peddles to my Crankbro 5050xx for better grip.

1st run of the day – Flameout (black-diamond) to Dog Bone (double-black)…what a way to start out the day. Flameout was not too bad, but riding an 8” travel bike is just plain weird (at 1st). The hardest thing was figuring out that in order for the front tire to track in the loose, deep, fine dirt (and not wash out) you have to “get back” to the rear just the right amount (which I figured out just after lunch). Anyway, once we got to Dog Bone I promptly loose it and try to stop myself from getting banged up…put the left hand down and my thumb goes directly into a rock. This bent my thumb-nail back (which was to long in the 1st place, lesson learned) causing immediate pain. So the thumb was bothering me pretty much the rest of the day (I did happen to find a guy with fingernail clipper on the hill).

Once we made it thru Dog Bone and back to the lift I had to make some adjustments to the bike. The shifters and brake levers needed to get moved in toward the stem. I kept making the bike shift automatically just by holding onto the bars (stuff 2 close 2 the grips). After that we headed back up and hit Big Trees/Little Trees…that’s the one that takes you to that wood plank trail in the photo I posted before. The plank trail was about 18” wide and really easy to ride (this was the most fun part of the BT/LT trail). It emptied out at this “Skills Development Area” that had a bunch of plank & logs you could ride that were pretty close to the ground. That way if you fell off (which we did) you wouldn’t get killed like on the other man-made terrain.

So anyway, we did a bunch more runs on Gypsy, Live Wire, Pho Dog, and Karpiel…ohhhhh Karpiel…you want to talk about double-black-diamond run…steep, big rocks, loose dirt, ruts, you name it, and it had it! That was the most technical run I’ve even been on. Needless to say we didn’t bomb this run.

Last run of the day we took Flameout to Dog Bone and then took the Village Run and Woods (blue run) back to the base lodge. My triceps, quads, and hands are still sore as hell from the day of crazyness!

Well, I must say in conclusion that I’d go back, but I’d rather have my own DH bike or ride the Nomad and see how that works out. I think the Nomad would do really well for the most part. Some of the DBD’s might be a bit harder with only 6.5” of travel, but most of the trails are very rideable. There are also a bunch of blue and green runs, along with major fireroads that you guys would love for XC style riding (and your can throw in some tech. single track DH stuff to boot).

Here are some photos...

 

Sweet, dude, I'm glad you guys had fun. It looks like N* doesn't have much XC type stuff, is that true?

When I hit the ER in Tahoe on Sunday the guy in the bed next to me had come from N* after 30 seconds in to his day. He fell and something punctured his leg really bad. He got up and didn't know it yet, till all of a sudden he saw a huge blood spurt from his leg . He was a nice guy and was outta there pretty quickly.

 

Saturday works best.

What time and what trail?

 

not true at all. they have a bunch of stuff you'd like and then you can also hit some of the singletrack.

 

Sweet. Maybe next summer we can do it. I'm not going to be jumping anymore so I'll stay off that balance beam stuff if we ride that way

 

So what day are we riding this weekend, where and who?