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busyfixin
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« on: July 12, 2010, 02:06:53 PM » |
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Clay and I loaded up our bikes last tuesday morning and headed up to Marquette for some dirt biking. We had a good time and I improved a lot.
Tuesday we got up there late. We met with my sister and our friends Amanda and Brad for dinner. Tuesday night we stayed in my sisters old apartment (most disgusting college kid apartment I've ever been in). Wednesday we slept in, did some shopping around for misc stuff I was looking for, and talked quite a bit with the owner of the local KTM shop. He invited us out to ride with his club on Thursday and I picked up a few things i needed. He told us about a pretty nice 26.5 mile loop about 40 minutes south of town. We met with Amanda and Brad for lunch at B-dubs, and headed south to ride the loop we were told about. We found it and had a real nice ride and met three others that were doing the same loop.
The loop was pretty cool. I'm pretty new to this whole dirt bike thing, and it offered quite a few challenges that built my confidence. I was a little worried as I headed into the woods being the first time on my bike since I layed it down and severely sprained my ankle a few months ago. It wasn't long (about 40') and I forgot about my foot and was entirely concentrating on getting through the trees and rocks and such. It started off pretty tight through a swampy area with lots of trees to weasel in and out of. About two miles in, it changed to damp sandy trails but still pretty tight. Two or three miles later it changed again into damp dirt/big rocks/moss/mud. Again, just a few miles and it changed into loose sandy trails but with super course gravel mixed in, making the climbs a bit more interesting. A few more miles and back to damp sand/dirt, but with Huge boulders all over and more ups and downs, and of course still pretty tight. It continued changing every little bit the whole way. It was good to have so many different types of terrain as it taught me quite a bit rather quickly.
We loaded up and headed back to town and had dinner with Amanda, Brad, Kelly, and Kate. We finished off the night at Amanda and Brads place and crashed there.
Thursday we slept in and hit up the honda/ski-doo/polaris shop, and picked up some KLIM gear since it was 30% off and I "needed" some. Their sled gear is absolutely top notch, and their new mx and street gear seems just as good. They make Gor-tex riding socks! They didn't have any though. i had to ask, who needs waterproof socks!?!?!?! Way cool stuff.
Two hours later, while blowing through some two foot deep water, I decided it was me who needed those waterproof socks!!! Too bad they didn't have any in stock. Ill be ordering some for sure! We unloaded at a gravel pit area we ran across last winter on sleds, and rode all over seeing some stuff I saw in the winter that I really wanted to see in the summer as well. We came across a pretty sweet enduro track in the middle of no-where tagged with orange ribbons. We rode a few miles of that. It was ultra tight and was a major major workout. Pretty much the whole trail I had to dodge dip duck dive and dodge trees with the bars, all the while trying to motor through rock crevices and mud. We did a little bit more exploring and headed back to the truck.
We were about to call it a day, when I had the bright idea to go see the guys from the dirtbike club. Genius. We run down the road and meet up with them but they werent ready to go yet, so we tooled down some single tracks for a while and when we got back they were ready to go. Clay, the KTM shop owner, myself and another guy headed out. Apparently they didn't entirely grasp that this was only my fifth day on a dirt bike, (or maybe they did) so we headed down a high difficulty level trail. It was a bad ass trail, and a ton of fun, but probably would have been more ideal, had we not already been riding for four hours. The trail was fairly tight, but not too tough, the the tough part was that there were HUGE rock outcroppings about every 500 feet. They were very technical and lots of steep rock climbs going nearly straight up, and massive drop offs going down the other sides. about an hour and a half into it Clay and I were both pretty well spent, and I started making mistakes and crashing more. It was decided to play it safe and just head in. We cruised across a field and picked up a much less difficult trail that wound its way back towards the beginning. There were still a few big rock sections, but not as technical. We made it back in one piece, and relaxed for a few with the rest of the club. We met some of them for dinner and crashed at Amanda and Brads again.
Friday, we headed home around noon and made it home around 7ish after a few stops.
All in all, a fantastic trip, and I learned a bunch.
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