What were your three worst winter rides?

Corporatefailure · Apr 10, 2005

this is useless....

DBR X6 RIDER · Apr 10, 2005

Corporatefailure said:
this is useless....

The thread or your post?

Most of my rides (when I've had my mtb running) have been good ones. The only crappy rides are the commutes home in stiff headwinds or any commute TO work that I've had. Nothing like getting warmed-up and having to stop for 8 hours of office-induced bliss.

Corporatefailure · Apr 10, 2005

slow motion endos into mud puddles. and not haveing my shock set up right, and bouncing around like a mad man.

oly · Apr 10, 2005

Corporatefailure said:
this is useless....

yea, your post is......

buildyourown · Apr 10, 2005

Fall Tiger mountain. It was drizzling in the lot. When we got to the top, it started snowing. There were 3 of us. We were all borderline hypothermic. We were riding as hard as we could just to stay warm. Of course we were all under dressed. The only saviour was that the ride is pretty short. Otherwise, we would probably been in trouble.

DBR X6 RIDER · Apr 10, 2005

Borregokid said:
Could be both? For you and CF it might be worst trail construction job over the winter? I didnt know you guys had wind in Seattle?

My trail construction consisted of looking at the mess in Rat Pac working for about 20 minutes and then realizing I would have to spend the rest of Spring straightening out the mess.

It was only a semi-productive winter in the building dept. Someone stole the tools we had stashed, so most of the winter was a waste.
Good thing we were extra-busy during fall!

I wish I lived at least 70 miles closer to Ratpac - I'd offer up tons of my time for trailwork there if I did.

Back on topic - no bad rides overall...just those mini-moments within the rides that I've managed to overcome.

seand · Apr 10, 2005

barely did any riding this winter...i had some bad crashes on cypress and woodlot...but nothing to rank in the bad ride category.

but this winter proved to be one of the worst snow riding winters in history...BLEH!

worst building? we had to re-do (new line) the entire bottom half of the trail setting us back a couple weeks...but we will be better off for it...this way we are on all private land instead of dipping onto dnr land for a few hundred yards. so i guess thats not the worst due to the results...but my muscles would beg to differ.

ive quite enjoyed watching frank eat poo poo every time he tosses a leg over his bighit...thats fun for me!

Bullitrider · Apr 10, 2005

A few years back I took some friends on a ride through Capital Forest. The conditions weren't bad just a little chilly. We were gonna do the same trail as the Gravity Assisted XC race that the Peak runs. I think it's called the Green line. Approximately 13 miles with half of it being downhill. When we got to the top I missed a turn and led everyone into a 24 mile loop. Some of the rookies started cramping up with several miles to go. We all made it out with some cursing and swearing in my direction but we are all still friends.

Dave_Schuldt · Apr 10, 2005

Galbraith with rear shock stuck on full rebound and a preload spring in the front that wasn't stiff enough. I was bouncing and diving all over the place. Suspension now dialed. I could have skied Camp Muir that day, friend said it was awesome.

Skookum · Apr 10, 2005

i come from a perspective that all rides even though they may be negative, are always good simply because you were on the trail riding a bike. The only negative one would be one where you died or something, that would pretty much suck.

But anyways here's one that come to mind.

Me and Bumster22 decide to ride Palisaides before the winter snows in the trails. Well it started raining before the ride, 6.5 miles 3000 feet up that rain is fridid wind and snow. Rain soaked gear we just kept rolling to stay warm, and the snow was fresh to about 4 to 6 inches, not enough to stop our forward progress. Well dropping off Dalles Ridge was fun in a skiing kinda way, as we made our way down snow turned into cold rain and sleet. By the time we got to the log cabin our course was definately changed to riding down Ranger Creek instead. About a mile down i finally noticed i was washing a little, stopped to discover i had fried the bearing on the linkage of my Giant VT. Nothing i could do but ride it down the rest of the way and hope a linkage bolt didn't break and collapse totally, which it luckily never did. Both me and Bum never complained, in fact we both agreed it was a succesful ride and we both had fun. That's what trail riding is all about......

Snacks · Apr 10, 2005

Only one really bad ride comes to mind......

Lk. Saywer with Skookum, pouring down rain on a Monday holiday. The longest, wettest ride I have ever been on. Think we went out for taco's after so the day wasn't a total loss :blah:

DBR X6 RIDER · Apr 10, 2005

Oh yeah...there was that 2 month stretch after the holidays where I was sick. Zero riding. That was real lame. :monkey:

GlennG · Apr 11, 2005

I rode capital forest earlier this winter. The temp was 30 degrees at the bottom and raining. A friend and I pedaled up the road and hit greenline for a 25 mile loop. The rain was freezing to everything. We dropped two miles down the trail and a branch ripped the rear derailleur off. It destroyed the derailleur. We tried to make the bike a single speed but were unsuccessful. I had to walk two miles back uphill. We then coasted back down the road to the truck. I nearly froze to death on the descent. I stopped at the bottom and had to wait 30 minutes for my buddy to ride on out to the truck. I had a 1/2 inch of ice on everything including my raingear. The bike weighed about 70 pounds with all the ice on it. I was blue when he got back to me. I was really glad to see the starbucks sign at top foods by the mall after all of that. We called the ride a success though. If we kept going, we may have froze to death before the 25 miles were up.

olytrayne · Apr 11, 2005

Cap forest in the snow for me. We ended up pushing 90 percent of the way through wet snow just deep enough to keep us from riding. The whole time slush was falling from the trees on us. It was one of the most demoralizing rides I've ever experienced.

RhinofromWA · Apr 11, 2005

Borregokid said:
3. Road ride Cle Elum to Ellensburg- This one you westsiders can come over and duplicate just about anytime. Yesterday I decided to do something different. It was sunny and windy when I left my house for Eburg. I noticed I barely needed to pedal and an hour later I covered 24.5 miles and was in Eburg. The ride back was straight into 30-35 mph winds from Eburg to somewhere past Thorp on the old hwy. It tooks more than 2 hours to ride back. When I got back to Cle Elum I thought that was hard, then I saw three roadies and talked to them and they said they had gone to Vantage and had covered 100 miles, making my 50 seem like nothing.

How about it anyone got any ice or snow rides that were memorable?

Ahh the Kittitas Valley wind.... :mad:

After attending CWU in E-burg for 4 years I curse everytime I have to ride into wind. It seemed like no matter wich way we rode it was always INTO the freak'n wind. :mumble:

I remember riding with a severe side wind from Lions Rock into town and we had to lean excessively (scary far actually) to keep the bikes from being pushed across teh rode into oncoming traffic...wich was very little on the country road.

NOt this winter but back at college I rode from Campus to Kittitas and back in a damn near white out snow storm. First off I wasn't very smart and wore jeans :rolleyes:

Freazing our azz's off some buddies and I took off for Kittitas on our MTB's and droned alongbnasically pacing cars at 5-10mph because they couldn't go much faster due to visability. The part that amazed me is that I rode through town and missed the fact that I had. :eek:

I ended up past main street and caught a glimps of the HUGE Water Tower....wich I knew was after main street from previous trips.

: I looked in amazement as my buddies stopped around me and we discussed where the hell town was.

After backtracking to mainstreet we found the minimart and laundrymat to gather supplies and warm up....we were not very prepared. :rolleyes:

WE filled our camelbacks and started home....cold wet and stuck in Kittitas (A horror movie could be made on such a premis)

Upon our trek back a couple of mile out my right leg gets really cold....not just cold, really cold. Come to find out my camelback bite valve was leaking water onto my jeans :rolleyes:

brrrrrrrrrrrrrr To top it off my GT RTS cable routing was under the BB and my shifting froze up.....stuck in my middle ring I limped back to town. It wasn't a long distance but it felt like it took forever.

oly · Apr 11, 2005

Borregokid said:
I am trolling trying to figure out if there are more than five people who ride cross country in these parts. Last thread I started I think there were four and two were women.

I wasnt meaning your thread was useless.... that CF's post was.

I dont think i could say i had 3 bad winter rides, and i rode alot...... XC/Trail. No DH over the winter.

EDIT:
Ok, after posting i remember'd that one ride on galby that i hated. That was the worst.... Too much climbing, choppy, bad conditions..... It had great parts, it just started bad... Looking forward to hitting in decent conditions.

Heidi · Apr 11, 2005

My worst winter ride was the last day of the Bend Fat Tire tour. I'd already ridden 100 miles of mostly singletrack on Friday, and then 45 more miles of singletrack on Saturday, and then Sunday came. It was pouring hard the whole way to the trailhead and it was muddy as hell. I was wearing everything warm I had and after the first mile of climbing in the pouring rain with mud and puddles and goo everywhere, it started snowing hard...I MEAN HARD. The trail got more and more covered with snow as we gained elevation. The trail was basically a layer of ice, with powder on top of it.

After sliding and slogging to the top of the 5 mile climb, we started the downhill. My hands were completely frozen and ice was forming INSIDE my gloves! I could no longer feel my toes, or my mouth. 22 miles of ice, snow and blizzard later, I finished the ride. Brrrrr.

Serial Midget · Apr 11, 2005

My worst winter ride was in Central Park Washington about 40 miles west of Olympia. I had heard on the news that it was to be the heaviest rain storm in recent memory a buddy and I decided we would be the only idiots around our area with the balls to go riding in such conditions. We did our thing for about 90 minutes and way past the ½ way point when we came to a stop because of some timber thinning that had covered the trail. We could have taken the road back out but we were bad-asses and decided to hike & bike it through the thinning. Thinning in this area means falling the trees all at once and dragging them out later. We spent the most miserable hour or so climbing over hundreds of fallen trees, some areas where clustered so thick you had to walk on top of the logs and avoid slipping off and back to the ground which was about 2 to 3 below. In the pouring rain the green needles were very slick and we often lost out footing and ended up tangled in the limbs with our bikes on top of us. I gave up when I lost my footing and came down hard on my nuts while straddling a log. We turned around after about 20 minutes to find our way back to the road but got lost and spent the better part of an hour getting to a road which wasnt the one we needed but we didnt figure that out until we where at the bottom and at least 10 miles away from our trucks we were out of food, water and where effing cold. That storm did turn out to be the highest 12 hour rainfall ever recorded in our area something like 4.5 inches with some points equaling an inch an hour. The two of us still talk about it since it is the worst weather either of us have ever ridden in.

X-C Phantom · Apr 11, 2005

All my winter rides were good/awesome....Last winter was chemotherapy and a few weeks in the hospital with a couple major surgeries....
:love: :love: :love: :love: :love: :love: :love: :love: :love:

Meat Foot · Apr 12, 2005

Yeah, one or two rides come to mind......

Ride 1) Late 80's in So. Cal. El Moro Canyon area (before any friggin toll roads existed) where we decided to ride road to get to the action. We poached a trail (back then I did not know it was poaching). So we get over the fence and mid way to the goods we were taking the wheels off the mud/clay laden beasts. Proly weighed 50 lbs with all the gooo on the bike. We walked the pieces up to the top (rest break area) and took sticks to get the goo off. That sucked (at least it was sunny). Ah, memories.

Ride 2) November of 2003 early snow and ice out at Dallas Oregon. Made for a nice leisure stroll through the woods. On the way out to the ride in the car the rain and snow were mixed for sure. So the ride was a lot like that. at about 10 miles in coming off Burma Peak on my SS, I realized how I do prefer disc brakes over v-brakes when the melting snow on the rims re-freezes and forms ice. I came around an off camber corner and kinda used most of the singletrack for my path and right of the forking trail down the hillside trying to stop. Most of the actually stopping was done by the vegetation. Thanks plants.

Fond memories of rides....thanks!

ioscope · Apr 14, 2005

Apparently winter has just gathered steam.

What were your three worst winter rides?

Monkey

Monkey

Monkey

Turbo Monkey

Monkey

skin cooker for the hive

Monkey

Monkey

Turbo Monkey

Turbo Monkey

Monkey

Monkey

Monkey

Monkey

bikey's is cool

Turbo Monkey

Turbo Monkey

Chimp

Chimp

Brevity R Us

skin cooker for the hive

Der hund ist laut und braun

Al Bundy

Chimp

Monkey

Turbo Monkey