Red Eye Patrol Thursday Deer Creek Ride Report

I feel like I should name names, but for those who were seduced by the snooze button, (or have some other lame excuse ) here's my ride report for this (7-29-04) http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=38020
ride.

DashRipRock, IbmkidIII, Rweddy1 and I all headed up the trail about 6:10am. I was a casualty on the first rocky tricky minefield section and Kirk and Evan seized the opportunity to pass me making me feel pretty clumsy. Richard had also suffered some stumbles there so I was in good company.

We cranked up the rest of the way and someone asked which of these steep rocky sections that we kept encountering was The Wall. Deer Creek definitely starts off at near full scale as far as gnarly approaches go, so by the time we got there it kinda looked like more of the same.

SingleSpeeder showed up about this time and we all sat and talked about how the previous year's droughts had made it dusty and crumbly and how the recent rain had eroded it and made it even more gnarly. Then we overanalyzed our strategies for attacking it and I realized that I was just psyching myself out. I decided if I didn't go now I'd probably trip over the tiny stream 3 feet in front of me.

I took two tries and made it maybe a third of the way each time. My (lame) excuse was getting sucked into a bad line and spinning out on the loose stuff. Everyone else had similar luck except for Kirk (ibmkidIII) who made it probably 2 thirds of the way his first attempt. He picked a good line but stumbled about where the top of the new staircase is. He almost pulled off a trialsy hop maneuver to rest and then get going again but lost it at the last second. He also had an impressive attempt starting from the middle but said he had to stop because his chest was about to explode or something.

After that everything else is "cake" so we headed up to Red Mesa loop and made our way around to the high point. We stopped and talked about helmet cams and making mtb videos while we regrouped. The more psycho dowhillers went first followed by me and Richard, who joked about how we must have more to live for or something.

By the time we regrouped at the sign again, Richard was missing. We waited for a bit, but it was getting obvious that he must have had a mechanical. Kirk decided to head down and the rest of us decided to go back and check out what the matter was.

We found Richard pumping his rear tire back up. Somehow he had gotten a pinch flat on the most buff part of the trail!(?) More standing around waiting for him to do I have no idea what, but it took a long time.

Since we all had to hold Richard's hand while he fixed his flat, we all decided that there was no time to do the Plymouth Mt. loop and instead we blasted down. By the time I got to The Wall it seems that Evan had crashed and burned somehow. (What happened?). I spooked on my first attempt when I picked yet another bad line certain to result in an endo. Second time's a charm.

It was a great ride and as usual at 6:AMish there's no traffic or heat. At the bottom we all laughed about all the crazy characters on this forum. Hope to ride with you guys again soon and meet the rest of you eventually.

Ed

Traffic note: Left the parking lot at 8:15 and absolutely flew all the way to work (80+mph). No stop n go, no bottlenecks.