July was a ROUGH month… So I’m still working to get caught up on all the posts.
Currently there are two Tiger Troops, the original one in Oregon and the one here in NM. Brian and Kate worked out a weekend to get the two troops together so we could put names with faces. I, of course was in as soon as I found out where… Bear Lake. This being just a couple hours north of SLC, meant I could go up early and see Mike & Kristy maybe ride some single track up there.. Yeah!
So I decided to take the toyhauler up rather than camp out of a tent for 6 days. That also allowed me to take both bikes up and gear.. Can’t forget the gear, it takes up too much space. Here’s everything loaded up and ready to hit the road.
I just love this trailer, I can load both bikes, a tool box, all my gear and still use the bed, shower and kitchen. It really is perfect for what I do, most of the time… This was the first time I’ve hauled this trailer up to SLC. I was wondering how the mileage and time were going to compare with the small cargo trailer. Turns out, it took me 2 hours more time wise and the mileage wasn’t quite the same, but it wasn’t as bad I thought it was going to be. Driving slower saves gas? No, really, go figure. lol.
I arrived in time for some early dinner, and for Mike to work his magic on some of the things I needed fixed. Just some of the many reasons I love that guy. He and I discussed the single track plan for the next day. I was really looking forward to it. We loaded up my bike in back of my truck, since their van isn’t set up for hauling 3 bikes yet. Mike, being the great guy he is loaded my bike in the truck for me. I think it was really that it scared him to watch me do it. 😀 It’s note worthy that he commented that my clutch on that bike didn’t behave normal. I’ve had that complaint about that bike from everyone, including me.. It has a friction zone that is about 2 mm in size. I stall the damn thing way too much and that’s when I get myself into trouble with it.
The area we went to was called Tibble Fork, very nice single track, just pretty rocky in spots. This would have been more fun for me if I hadn’t been stalling the bike in the rocks sections. I struggled with each stall, since it was never in a great spot, at least I didn’t drop the bike and have to pick it up with every stall. Nice to know that’s improved over the years.
I really was having fun right up to the moment that I stalled the bike, fell over and rolled down off the trail… at which point my face slammed into a log, and when I say slammed, I’m not being dramatic. I caught the cut edge of the log with my goggles down on the bottom edge, the force slid up the goggles til it was stopped by my nose. Yup. My face stopped the fall, it also broke my nose (likely at least one orbital fracture too, 6 weeks later it still hurts right below my eye.) Of course, it was my only tip over for the day. Go big or go home… All I could do for about 3 minutes was rock back and forth on my hands and knees, saying F**k that hurt. Then I figured I should get the bike out of the way, in case anyone else came along. After that I was able to use the mirror to see the damage and clean the blood off my face. Bout the time I was cleaned up and thinking about getting back on the bike to find others, Mike showed up. He and I talked a bit, he pointed out that my nose was crooked, so I tried to straighten some more, it took a couple more tries. I think he was close to loosing his breakfast, the crunch noise got to him. Like I’ve said a few times, right after is the time to do those things, since you can’t feel it yet and I wasn’t feeling it (much) until I got back to the truck. He got my bike turned around for me, I head down toward the truck, and he went back to get Kristy. I was pretty careful on the way down, and stopped a few times, but didn’t have much trouble getting back to the truck at least 15 minutes before they made back.
It was nice that they had a lot of ice with them, Kristy drove my truck back to the house while I sat there with ice on my face, trying to head off major swelling. This was about 2 hours after it happened. And the next morning.
It just continued to get prettier as the week went on. I ended up with two black eyes by the time it started to get better.
After this fun I made the two hour drive from Salt Lake up to Bear Lake.