Floribama Riders

One long and one not so long day of driving takes us from Birmingham to Salida, Colorado. Just one tourist stop on the way, at the Capulin Volcano, (http://www.nps.gov/cavo/). We are staying at the Super 8 motel on Hwy 50 in Salida. Greg, Frank and Thom are already there, and are out for a ride. We unload, and I take the WR out for a short spin on the road to try to gauge the jetting. I have some old notes about my normal jetting, and jetting from previous trips to CO, but when I took the carb apart the last day in Birmingham, it wasn't jetted the way my notes said. Did I leave it jetted lean from the last trip? It seems OK, but I won't know until I get on the trail.

On Saturday, after breakfast we gear up, and head out for the Rainbow Trail. About 10 years before, I came out with my friend Mark and his son Brian for a week of riding. We planned to do the Rainbow Trail our last day, but by the time we were ready, Mark's bike was no longer in shape to make it. Brian and I rode it, entering the trail near Poncha Springs. I was on my old DR350S, and Brian was on a YZ250. The first 3 miles of the trail were extremely difficult for me, and pretty tough for Brian, then it opened up into 30 miles of great single track.

The next year, a big crowd went to Colorado, but I didn't go, and Brian didn't go. The group struggled up the difficult climb onto the Rainbow Trail, and about half of them turned back at 2.8 miles, saying the trail was too tough. Too bad they didn't have one of us there to let them know they were almost to the good stuff. Heck, they should have realized that the previous year, an old fat man on a street legal dirt bike made it through, how bad could it be?

Anyway, the trail access from Salida bypasses the most difficult part of this part of the Rainbow Trail. With 10 more years of mileage on my old body, I'm not sure I could make the first 3 miles today.

On the road up to the Rainbow Trail, I realize my jetting is not right. We stop, and drop the needle 2 notches, and the old WR is much happier.

The trail is great as I remembered. There are some nice scenic overlooks, and quite a bit more water than I remembered. http://alabamadirtbags.tripod.com/colorado2008/IMG_0052.JPG They had lot of snow last winter, although not too much rain since then. The snow melt runoff is pretty substantial in some spots. After about 10 miles of single track, my right wrist begins to bother me. After I broke it last year, my fingers did not want to work independently. Physical therapy helped that, but when I work it too much, and get tired, they no longer want to work correctly. On most of the rocky descents, I have 2 fingers on the front brake, and two around the grip. When I release the brake, the two around the grip want to open up as well, which is not good. While dealing with this, I slow down enough to have to paddle with my feet over lots of obstacles. That really saps my energy. At 15 miles I am really suffering, and at 20, I bail off the trail to take the road back. I don't want to get hurt my first day of riding.

Back in town, I rested, and wondered if this was going to be a problem all week. Back in Birmingham, I had been on several dirt rides, and 20 miles of single track was about all I could handle. Last ride was the Hooch, with a couple of 100 mile days, mostly dirt roads and jeep roads, though.

The rest of the group returned around 5:30, and we rode the dirtbikes into downtown Salida for a pizza at Amica Pizza and Microbrew. The pizza was good, the adult beverages even better.

On Sunday, we moved to Taylor Park. http://www.taylorparktradingpost.com/  The second contingent of our group was staying about 10 miles away near Monarch Pass. They planned to ride 4-wheelers over old Monarch Pass, Tomichi Pass, Hancock Pass, and Tin Cup Pass while their wives drove the trucks from camp, to Taylor Park. I've been that way before, and wanted to do it with them, so Sam agreed to drive my truck over Cottonwood Pass to Taylor Park. I left Salida pretty early to get to their campground before they left. Cell phone coverage was non-existent, so I wanted to be sure I didn't miss them. Ha. When I got there, they had about an hour of packing and loading to do before they could leave. I sat down to watch; I'm not scared of hard work, I could watch it all day.

We're finally ready to go, so we head out the back of the campground to make the climb up to the continental divide. Last time I did this ride, I was 2-up with Ruthie on the back of the DR350. It was quite a bit easier on the WR, although I had to hang back pretty far because of the 4-wheeler dust. We had to skirt a snow bank near the top of the hill, and came back onto Hwy. 50.

A short, illegal (for the 4-wheelers) blast down Hwy. 50, and we turned off onto old Monarch Pass. This is a smooth, well-groomed dirt road that goes over the pass and down the other side in a long series of switchbacks. Just perfect for power-sliding around while you imagine you are racing in the Pikes Peak Hillclimb. Woo-hoo, what a blast! Mark's computer on his 4-wheeler shows a peak speed of 84 mph. I'm sure it was malfunctioning, because I'm sure we did not exceed the speed limit on this FS road at any time. :-)

When we arrive at the bottom of the mountain, Mark announces that the rear brakes of his GasGas 4-wheeler are gone. We can hear them boiling. He finds the appropriate wrench and opens the bleeder, to be greeted by a geyser of boiling brake fluid. It seems a rock made contact with his master cylinder bracket, and the brakes were dragging the whole time. Cooling off and bleeding the brakes didn't help, apparently the seals are toast now. Oh, well, who needs brakes?

We head up the road to Tomichi Pass. This starts out as big, wide smooth dirt, and gradually gets steeper, narrower, rockier and more challenging after you pass the village of Whitepine. Beyond Whitepine we begin to see more and more snow on the sides of the trail. We pass a family on a couple of 4-wheelers, and soon, I catch the rest of my group sitting around Todd's oddly parked 4-wheeler. It turns out that Todd's 4-wheeler has spit him off for some unknown reason, and he has banged up the wrist he broke a couple of years ago. While waiting on him to be ready to ride again, the family of 4-wheelers pass us.

In about 15 minutes Todd is  ready to go, and we take off, passing the family once more and pressing on toward the pass. The road gets more and more challenging. I am having a blast, and with plenty of rest between long downhills, my wrist problem of yesterday is not a problem today.

Just short of the pass, we find our way blocked with a snowbank. We look for a way around, and the choices are not so good. Todd makes one attempt on his 4-wheeler, and fails. Jimmy tries a different approach, and makes it by the skin of his teeth. Mark tries the same climb as Jimmy, and stalls the 4-wheeler at the top, sideways. He tried to get off the 4-wheeler on the uphill side, but fails, and got catapulted down the hill, landing pretty hard on his head and shoulder. The 4-wheeler nearly rolled over on him. He's hurting from the impact. We manage to get all the 4-wheelers up, and I find a really easy way to get my bike up, thanks to a 2 foot wide path where the snow has melted. 1 point for 2 wheels, today.

The road beyond Tomichi Pass seems to have a lot of snow on it. The family on the same road turns out to be locals who have come up to see if the pass is open. They give us some good advice, and using some long lenses on their 35mm camera, we can see some additional snowbanks over the road. We hung out at the pass waiting for Mark to feel up to riding, and no one came over the pass from the opposite direction, a sure sign that it was impassable.

We would have waited longer on the pass, but one of Colorado's famous afternoon thunderstorms made an appearance, and we decide to get off the top of that pass. Rather than ride off the trail, I ride down through the snowbank that blocked our path going up. The tires break through the snow, but the hard crust on the top enables me to use my feet sort of like outriggers to say upright, and I get down easily. Another point for the 2 wheelers.

 On the way down, we had to stop and remove the broken skidplate from Doug's 4-wheeler, then beat it for Pitkin. In Pitkin, we gassed up and looked for lunch. None was to be found, so we headed for Tin Cup via Cumberland Pass. 20+ miles of dirt road, a beautiful but cold ride over Cumberland Pass brought us to Frenchy's Cafe in downtown Tin Cup. A very welcome late lunch.

We pulled into Taylor Park around 3:30 PM, after 110 miles and several adventures and mis-adventures. Mark's crash basically just pushed the useless end of his previous broken collarbone into some soft tissue, causing some pain but no serious damage. Todd's wrist was just sprained. Of course, they didn't know that until the doctor visit the next morning.

 Stay Tuned for Part 2.