Hadn't thrown a leg over the Gasser in 6-weeks, so it was time to get out for a ride and remember how the throttle worked. I had a nice, shiny new shifter after making spaghetti of my old one and was excited to give it and the position change a test (more on that later). The plan was to meet the cast of usual characters at Cedar Creek staging at 9:00 and peel off 40-50 miles of fun.
Upon checking the radar first thing Saturday morning, I made a mental note to grab my rain jacket as there was a massive swath of green over the Pacific and it seemed to be slowly creeping eastward. The ever-so-accurate weatherman confirmed my brilliant radar deduction, so I went about packing up and getting ready to go. Of course, in my haste of getting ready, I completely forgot to grab my rain jacket. Good 'ole Murphy.
Arrived at Cedar Creek and there was some drizzle in the air, but nothing too bad. Most of the nutballs were there, so unloading commenced as did changing into gear. About the time I'm down to skivvy's, standing in my gear tote, the skies open up. Fortunately, one of the guys was kind enough to get my umbrella out of the truck; but ironically, not willing to stand there and hold it for me while finishing gearing up...go figure. A few of the folks were contemplating packing it up and heading back, but peer pressure forced 'em to wait as everyone said it would pass. And we lucked out...it did.
The rough idea for the day's rip was to head west and hit some of the trails at the very edge of the riding area, which was awesome as I'd never been on any of 'em. We bombed out of staging and started off on special test, which was sloppy and had a couple puddles that swallowed bikes. I also discovered that adjusting a shifter should be something done when you have a chance to ride around your house or staging, not as you're heading out for 40ish miles. The new position was great, but the shifter itself was just a wee bit short (same length as stock, but I didn't account for position change). Lots of unintended upshifts throughout the day and my calf still hasn't forgiven me. Better than being stuck without one though.
We bombed up Old Cedar Creek, over to the short section of Frankenstein (at least, I think so), and then on over to Reids Ridge. Had a great time running the various sections of Musial Ridge and wound our way over to BFR.
