Wilsons Sandbox

On Mon, 26 Jun 2000 14:06:47 +0100, Mark wrote: Wow Karl, Too bad it was a downer. You would have LOVED yesterday's Seven Mountains Ride down here. The route and terrain are just your style. Pix and damage report to follow.... Mark B2 A2 ____________________________________________________ I can attest the fun that was called the 7 Mountains ride. I had a blast. Met two listers, Mark and Gary (next time I hope you can ride with us Gary), and found out some of the capabilities of both myself and my machine. There was a lot of really rocky stuff on the alternate routes for this ride. A little bit of sand and a whole lot of mud. My favorite part was the water crossings though. Mark and I stopped in one of them and I took the opportunity to douse myself in the refreshingly cool water. He used it to get rid of the mud build-up on his grips. The last water crossing had a pretty steep embankment on the exit side and a fallen tree hanging over the right half of the trail. I gunned it to get up the embankment and popped the front wheel a little too hard...couldn't get it down in time to avoid the tree. The tree nailed the front of my fairing, just missing the headlight and bent it up pretty good. I was able to pull out of that one solo. Unfortunately on some off-camber single track (more like half-track) I couldn't get the bike back up after sliding the rear wheel off the edge. Waited for help (Mark was ahead and as I found out later, had lodged his bike between 2 large rocks and popped the chain off the sprocket). A couple riders came up behind me and helped me get Maximus back on track. While awaiting the return of normal breathing, the sweep crew arrived from the rear and Mark from the front (on foot). The sweepers were like, "Uh-oh, what's a 650 doing back here?" Mark quickly replied, "Proving that it can be done." Once I got to the point where Mark's bike was wedged I had the opportunity to watch the sweepers and the other 2 riders navigating the rocks...didn't look like the bikes were making that much of a difference after all. All 5 riders dismounted at least twice on the way up. They then passed us by and we worked on getting Mark's bike back up and running. It took a little longer than we expected and after getting it fixed, we decided to call it a day (chain was already stressed, didn't want to risk a break in the woods with the sweep team ahead of us). I only wish we had been able to finish the ride cuz apparently there were a lot of comments at the lunch we never made about the 2 KLR's. I can't wait to ride some more out in PA. And, thanks for hospitality Mark. dat brooklyn bum _______________________________________________________ Get 100% FREE Internet Access powered by Excite Visit http://freelane.excite.com/freeisp