Coal Creek was a blast!
I think there was a grand total of 18 Pilots present along with a hand full of quads and a bunch of bikes too. I'm guessing 35 to 40 people all together. Wives, kids - everyone had a good time.
Overall, the damage was minimal - especially for the number of us there. Two bikes suffered flat rears, quite a few of the Pilot tires had the same fate too. But hey, it's Coal Creek! (rocks abound).
Human damage was minimal too - Stoneman's shoulder and one of my buddy's thighs both found large rocks embedded in the soil and Mark & Red's buddy Mathew played Jousting Knight with a large tree branch (Matthew lost, but is all right). I hear that Vrooom's boy did a tumble down a hill on a quad too.
We had a contingent of world travelers present: Ozpilot made the trip from Sydney and gets the iron butt traveler award. Ludedude and Ted made the two day drive from Nova Scotia (Lude depends on that GPS/laptop setup too much....
- Rand-McNally, Lude...) and dhjunkie flew in from the reconquered upper Mexico, formerly Los Angeles to Pilothawk's neighborhood to play Aamco Man for PH's wife's vehicle.
Lude, fortunately, doesn't mind (too much?) wrenching on machines. He got in a huge amount of wrench time, as his Pilot's power plant didn't seem to like the high temps and high humidity there at CC. (I think it wanted to go back to Nova Scotia and be cool - Lude, don't take it to the desert, it will melt). We'd see him sitting in the roll cage working on the engine one minute then we'd see him head on up the mountain. Sometimes he'd come back under his own power, sometimes under the power of Ted's front bumper. Lude and crew did get in some really good rides, though (from what I understand). Something about a creek and swimming... Bucked scared everyone too... (pink tu-tu??)
Unfortunately, the bikes and Pilots didn't seem to ever leave the pits at the same time, so I didn't get to ride with the Pilot guys, but dh & Stoneman more than made up for entertainment on the trail.
A small group of us went out on a nice "easy" bike ride. The group consisted of Ramjet on his KTM 200, Mini-Ram on his KTM 65 (up shift!), dhjunkie on PH's XR400, Stone on the Green Ox (KX500), Max (mini-Stoneman) on his XR and PH's brother John in one of the Stoneman Pilots, me on my CRF 450X. "We'll just go up the nice gravel road and take it easy - make it nice for the kids" -- famous last words.
Somewhere along the line, Ramjet & Mini-Ram decide that they've had enough (mini-Ram's just learning how to use a clutch, so when the trails got rough/tight, it was a bit of a challenge) and they head back to camp.
While we were discussing this, Junkie's pulled over at the edge of a fairly large water puddle and is worn out trying to kick over the XR400.
I walk over to help him get the XR started and we hear a large bore two stroke coming up on the pipe... About the time I realize what's going on, a green streak comes flying through the puddle, parting it like Moses did the Red Sea. His intention was to splash Junkie and myself with the pudding colored/thick muddy water. Fortunately, we were at the leading edge of the puddle and Stone missed us and the XR. My bike, on the other hand was on the opposite side and farther down... Thanks Stone.
We get the XR started and dh decides that he can hand a little of that back to Stone. Testosterone at it's finest. I was enjoying the show...
The section of the trail we were on alternated between puddles of pudding and dry spots - 20' of pudding, 20' of dry. dh pulls up along side Stone and attempt the splash. Stoneman sees it coming and opens up the Ox. (there's NOTHING like the sound of an open-class 2 stroke on the throttle)
They both hit the next puddle at about the same time, canceling out each others splash (I think Max may have caught some of it).
Still accelerating, they are now approaching dh's terminal speed (testosterone's starting to die down and fear of dirt sampling is taking over - good move!).
We jog around a corner and there are three large, wide, deep puddles of water and then there's the puddle of pudding mud at the end of the three.
There's Stoneman, on his hands and knees, beside the Ox (on it's side) covered from head to toe in pudding mud. I missed the crash, but from what I hear, it took him the three holes to crash and the final one caught him. I pull up beside him and ask if he's all right and in the great Stoneman fashion, he slowly stands up, raises his hands above his head and yells out "THAT WAS AWESOME!" Don't know why, but he's gotta take a soil sample ever ride gathering... At least he does them in spectacular style!
We'll wait for dh's play by play - he saw it all.
Saturday night was spent at the PH compound. The swimming pool was well used, PH cooked and his wife proceeded to destroy the crowd (well, some of us.... ahem...) with margaritas and pina coladas.
Sunday was another great day of riding too. About half the crew made the trek back out for a few more miles before packing up and heading home.
I don't think that there's ever been a larger gathering here in the east and it was just plain wonderful. There wasn't not a person there that wouldn't lend a hand, or help out if the need was present.
To those that missed it, you have to try to make one of these trips. They're a blast and it's the best group of people around to have a blast with!
Hey Zoomer, was good to meet you and your boy. Sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to you a bit more.
Oh - if anyone wants some Kenwood stereo equipment, get in touch with Ram. I think he'll let it go with a smile on his face.
Thanks again to PH & Cricket for the bed space and hospitality and to everyone for making this a great weekend.
Think about Little Sahara Sept 30th - Oct 3rd... Maybe we can get another great group gathered there.
RIDE ON!!!