My SuperBowl Weekend's Ride Report

[Jim Cook]

Jack Bondus was down here visiting (and temporarily escaping those
sub zero (F) temps in MN) for the last few days.

My son Gabriel, Jack, and I rode Saturday in the Ouachita Mtns at
the Bear Creek Cycle Trail. Jack rode my son Joshua's '99 MC250
(counterbalanced, with six speed and WP 43mm forks added). Gabe rode
his '00 XC250 and I rode my '06 DE300.

Jack and Gabe were roosting, and I did my best to keep up.
We got in about 40 miles, and while we were at it, rode the new hare
scramble trail there, that the Arkansas Dirt Riders and I had been
working on for the last four weekends.
Those are some rugged trails. The Bear Creek trails are much like
the Brock Creek trails, except Bear Creek has much longer/taller
climbs and much less dirt amongst the rocks. If we had been at
TrainRobbers Trail, the amount of fuel and time we consumed would have
taken us a good sixty-five miles, instead of forty.

Bear Creek is the roughest place that I have to ride, and I haven't
been riding those really rough sections in several years, because of
circumstances I won't go into right now.
I have been working trails up there for the last five weekends,
helping build and prepare a relatively non-technical loop for the
upcoming Arkansas Dirt Rider hosted round of the Arkansas Championship
Hare Scramble Series on March 16th. That loop is on the only really
"friendly" terrain at Bear Creek.
Brock Creek is the only other trail system (normally available to me)
with any closely similar terrain, and after experiencing certain
difficulties in those sections, I just rode other trails available
there, that were not so difficult. <G>

At Bear Creek, once we ventured outside of the new hare scramble
loop, there was no other way to get where we were going, so I got a
really good chance to gather more data on the Rekluse AutoClutch, in
comparison to a standard GasGas clutch, particularly as it pertains to
extremely rugged climbs when there is not much chance to gain momentum
after stopping on the climb. I found that, when things get really
rough and slow, I can climb more successfully with Joshua's bike than
I can with mine.
I backed this up by switching bikes with Jack, and watching him
flounder (with my bike) on some climbs that I was just squirting up
with Josh's bike.

I will now change my bike's gearing from 13/49 to 12/49, before I go
back up there this weekend. Hopefully, this will lower my gearing
enough that it will drop my Rekluse clutch's first gear engagement
speed to a point where it will give me that control needed to make it
in those situations.
As it is, the manual clutch lets me slip the clutch hard enough to
smoothly get going in places where the auto clutch now has the front
wheel reaching for the sky as I take off, even if I am sitting on the
gas cap. (Of course, the new Rekluse Pro model auto clutch will give
the best of both worlds. They just don't make that one for GasGas.)

The "Jim Entertainment Moment" for the day's ride was furnished at a
place where I was on my bike climbing up a steep rocky rooted
hillside.
As I approached a broken tree that crossed over the trail some 5.5'
above the trail surface, I hunkered down and ducked my head to go
under. Just as I ducked my head, my back wheel spun off a root,
letting the engine gain unexpected rpms. When the wheel touched down,
it caught traction and the bike wheelied. It was a most un-opportune
moment. <G>
At least, when my head hit that tree, I had my head and neck in line
with the impact and the bike wasn't going over 15 mph.
It cleaned me off the bike. I landed about 10 feet back down the
hill (on my back with feet uphill). Yaaahooo!
The only damage was my visor and a sore neck. The bike never quit
running on it's own. Jack was up ahead, but Gabe got to witness my
show.
After a short intermission, we were back roosting, with me now a bit
less aggressive.

Sunday was my wife Deb's birthday, as well as SuperBowl Sunday, so I dared not ask for the day off riding. She's normally pretty easy going about
me taking off for a riding trip, but this was HER birthday.
(A man's got to know his limitations.
We had a combined Birthday/SuperBowl party. I drank Crown and
chased it with Coca Cola. Deb had a good time, and it was fun
watching such a good game.

I will continue this "too long" ride report with a recount of Monday's ride at the TrainRobbers Trail in my reply to this post.

Jim Cook
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