The (Almost) Perfect trail ride.

A Newbies intro to the Doorbell

I went on a trail ride with a few friends the other day in the El Dorado National Forest.  We rode some of the best off road riding imaginable.

It was a sparsely marked course that required you find it as you rode. If you have never done this before let me tell you it is very easy to ride quicker than you can find the next marker and become completely lost before you know it. What FUN!

But since there were several of us on the ride I figured if we got lost and had to camp out at least I wouldn’t be lonely.

My group had a couple of fairly experienced trail riders and one “trail debutant” that spends most of his time on the mx tracks, along with myself for a total of 4 in our group. There were several other groups trying to find the same markings and it became sort of a team style competition to stay on course. The ride was approximately 38 miles of single-track, fire roads and water crossings.

The experienced riders had a great time and the newbie seemed to enjoy himself, but I am not sure he realized that he provided most of the entertainment in our group.  In the first quarter of a mile we were on a trail with a few downed wet logs on the trail. This provided the first eye opener to a couple of the riders in the group as they found themselves picking up the bike and discovering that wet logs are very slippery. So after the second log I figured we should stop for a minute and have an impromptu class on logs as obstacles and how best to approach them. It worked fairly well until we came to one that was elevated, slanted and wet. 3 of us got over fine but the “TD” (trail debutant) not only stalled but lost his balance and tipped over and slid off the slanted log and off the trail!  It took 3 of us to lift the bike back onto the trail for him to restart it and continue. So now being about 10 minutes into this ride our TD has crashed, picked up the bike and restarted it 3 times that I know of.  I notice he is breathing a bit heavy and observe a little perspiration on the face.

A few miles later we encounter our first really tight wooded section that is about a mile or so long. When I say tight, I mean 1^st gear and using the clutch tight to go slow enough to squeeze through the trees. Since I am leading at this point I don’t get to watch the carnage occurring when TD starts stalling, falling, restarting and overheating himself the clutch and the engine.

I was riding a CRF450X that works great for this type of riding with awesome bottom end grunt and not prone to stalling, while TD was riding an RMZ with a taller 1^st gear and less bottom end. So at the end of this section we decided to switch bikes to see how things would work out. It ended up being a good call because he loved the off road type power and electric start of the CRF450X. I had very little trouble adapting to the quicker power of the RMZ and it worked out great for the remainder of the ride.

TD still crashed a few more times throughout the day but had the time of his life and was grinning from ear to ear at the end of the ride.

We completed the ride after getting lost for a few minutes a couple of times and saw some of the best trail riding I think I have seen in my 38 yrs of riding. It was that good from rains earlier in the week, perfect traction and no dust. You know, one of those days you dream of.

We all said our good byes and headed for home. Later that night I get a text message from TD asking exactly what model my bike was. It seems he was shopping on craigslist and thinking he might have a little trail rider in him!

Now we all know there is nothing wrong with having 2 bikes!

Happy Trail riding,

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