Ride Report STR Invades Mammoth.... and I do mean INVADES!

My RR

My RR goes like this---tired. Wasn't feeling well.
I will have to spend some time up there when I am feeling better.

I have some healing to do.
I didn't say anything but I hurt my wrist and my neck and both my feet on wed so I was hurting the whole time. Thursday and friday I couldn't sleep because the pain. So sat I was a zombie. That is why most of you didnt even notice me there.

Duc is the one who made it happen and he was rockin the trails.
I had fun hanging out I had some pain meds that started to kick in by the end of the day so I did get to hit a lot of the trails at speed just no sweet jumps.

I can't wait to go back and hammer the Rock gardens .

I will add more later .



J

 

And mine goes something like this...

I left home thursday morning about 5:30am - figured i'd beat the friday rush and get a day up in mammoth to kick back, relax, get a little hiking in. Went hiking up Convict Creek that afternoon (convict lake is just south of mammoth, and the creek heads back into the high country from there). Ended up nearly killin myself climbing a waterfall, but that's for another story...hit the hot springs, ate, went to the pub...just another thursday in mammoth!

Friday hooked up with Brian (Bryguy17) and headed down to meet Matt (matt13) at Lower Rock Creek. Got one run in and figured we were really going to have to push to catch art, steppie, et al on a second run. Turned out they were just ready to go as we got back to the trailhead! Got a great second run in with art, scott, steppie, 1080P, and Gaylord. I hope there's a shot around of the 8 bikes in the back of art's truck - classic! Made our way back to town for food and libations, pool and darts...and shots of whetever was handed our way! It was a fun night...

Saturday we caught the first shuttle up. Matt, Brian, Art and I got in our first run down Skid Marks>Paper Route>Follow Me, which was steep warm up! Brian headed off to hit some more FR type stuff, we hooked up with the big group heading down Skid Marks again, then split off with Jeff (jfsh) and Scotty, which became our de facto group of saturday and sunday. Jeff and Scotty are great guys to ride with, and following them around got me to push myself faster and harder than i probably would have done one my own. Powered down some pizza at Giovanni's and then fell into a food coma at 9:30(!), and unfortunately missed meeting up with everyone later that evening for beers.

Sunday hooked up with Art, Jeff, and Scotty again, plus Andy (sprockethead), Ann (slowspokes) and Lynn (sheclimbs) for a bunch more runs. Finished up with finally getting the log ride in on Shotgun (which wasn't nearly as difficult as i thought it would be). Picked up Brian and headed home, and got back around 8 Sunday night.

It's been said already, but it was amazing how many of us were up there! Great time seeing and riding with those I already know, and having the chance to meet and ride with some new people.

:beer:

 

Some pix corresponding to my post on pg2:
Still riding high, myself. Great w/e.

Rendezvous.


ADawg








Fail!


Take THAT, trail!




Take THAT snowboarders!




Got wood?




Mt Tom.


Up-thrust.


Hike that bike!


Time to go home. I spent ~20min here waiting for the shuttle. It was so silent, aside from the bugs and birds and horses and cows. The temp was perfect, the sun was low. It really made me miss the country. Pastoral perfection.


All photos by Flaskman.

 

What a great weekend. I’ve never had this much fun in Mammoth! Special thanks go out to Jeff and Scotty. It’s always nice to spend time with you and your families. You guys have some awesome kids. Thanks for letting me hang with them. The boys were giving me some good tips on hucking curbs.
Also wanted to thank my DH coaches – Ann and Andy and Nancy and Roger. This DH stuff is fun! Andy put a shorter stem on my bike and I really noticed a big difference.
My biggest accomplishment was doing the log ride on shotgun, my first. (Ok, so that's FR not DH bit it's still exciting.)
My heart might have been beating just as much as Jeff’s but it wasn’t nearly the excitement of seeing J Simms do the Flow Drop. Congratulations Jeff.
It was a lot of fun to ride with so many of you this weekend, I haven’t seen many of you since last year’s trip.
Mammoth is so pretty this time of year, we ended up staying an extra day just to enjoy the beautiful fall weather. The golden aspen’s were incredible.
Feels like fall has arrived, time to head back to the San Gabs.

 

BFlo... I'm impressed with your writing and Ride Review. You did a great job of capturing and putting into words how awesome your weekend at Mammoth was. Keep up the good work!

Seems crazy, but I am still buzzing this Tuesday from my 3 day weekend in Mammoth. The memories from this trip will last forever... good peeps and good riding under perfect conditions. Viva la Mammoth Bike Park!

BTW, the GF doesn't believe me about the length of Gaylord's corn rows, or that it was over 8 years worth of hair on his head.... Did anyone get a pic of Gaylord and his 'do getting some air? I need some proof. :bang:

 

More ride reports please!!!!

Ok, where are the Ride Reports from my crew???? You know who you are!!!!!

This smile says it all!!!

 

Some Intense #-o shots from Friday @ Mammoth.

Starring Denmother, Roger, Jsims & Daniel:
















































The End

 

Still uploading photos......

 

Great RR and pics everyone. I hope to make it up there someday, but since I don't have a "big" bike yet, it'll have to wait. Don't think my Rocky Tribal will be enough. Looks like a hell of time. Thanks for sharing. :beer:

 

Gene, you don't need a big bike to ride Mammoth. Your Tribal is just fine for most of the trails there, and you'd have a lot of fun on it. The bigger bikes simply make it easier to do some of the gnarlier stuff. As many will say, there is a lot of fun even for the hardcore XC crowd, too.

 

What an awesome place to ride!! It was great meeting new people on STR at the mountain as well as at Giovanni's Sat evening.

Thanks Denmother for putting this together.

Dean and Scott rode with me Sat am, and Dean on Sun am. We rode from the top of the Gondola and did Off the Top-Beachcruiser-Downtown to the Village. A big Thanks to Dean and Scott for riding with me, I had a great time! I ended up doing same route in the afternoons solo. Met up with Art in the late afternoon on Sunday as people were starting to head home and rode the remaining part of the day.

We stayed an extra night, and Mon am went on a great hike. A HR to follow.

I can't wait to MTB up there again next season.

 

Ok thats it!! I'm joining you next year!!!!!! :wave::lol:


thanks for the ride reports.

 

my weekend happened as follows, we got there around 9pm friday night got some carls jr that took for ever having nicks dad yell at them:lol: sat morning we got there early met up with nancy,roger,danny,and jeff. after spending almost all the money i had on my 2 day lift tix more and more familiar faces started showing. sat. i ended up riding all of saterday with a rear brake that needed to be bled, i had to pump it 4 times before it would actually start grabbing. me and nick ended up riding by ourselves for the most part checking out the trails getting almost all of them done. ended up riding shotgun with stinkyrider now gloryholerider, kanga, happy gilmore for our last run down. sat. night we went to the pizza place split a BOMB bbq chicken pizza and had some fun convo's about how the day went. lee ended up coming to my reescue that night by coming over to nicks grandpa's mansion that we were staying at to fix my brakes after a good attempt by bryguy to fix them, so sunday morning woke up to a good rear brake and a good day of riding ahead of us. we rode with the big group down off the top for a XC dh warm up and ended up riding with kanga, bryguy, mark and danny for the finishing runs of the day. kanga(steve) took a HUGE rock to the head when he crashed on a lower rock garden on bullet. lucky he was ok and only had a chip of paint to his helmet.:bang: the last run of the day me and nick decide to take skidmarks to paper route to juniper so that we wouldnt have to pedal uphill to get home and as we were going down skidmarks right before you have the chance to go right or straight and theres a series of ditch things i smack my rear wheel on the last one and ended up pinch flatting and bending my rim. no one was around and we didnt have the big wrench to take off the bolts so i eneded up riding down from 3/4th the way up to the bottom on a flat and bent rim. other then that it was a killer weekend, couldnt have asked for a better first time up there. luckily my rim bent on the last run of the day im deffinantly looking forward to next season! it was the best kind of fun riding with everyone i rode with who know who i am!:beer:

ps.i rocked the :steppie: flannel at dinner and he wasnt wearing his!

 

I got to ride with Danny and his friend ( SOCALRIDER ) for a little while on Sunday morning that was fun.

I think we had a nice pace going for me having my broken A$$ body.

Those boyz can ride.:bang:

I'm still sad I didn't get to huck. All the jumps and ladders looked so fun.

 

The Best of Times………..

Day 1 Friday
Steve (Kanga) Mark (Stinkyrider) Mark and myself knocked out as many runs as possible, Steve had 17, I had a few less after an nice rolling header on the Upper Chain Smoke rock garden, where I pretzel’d my left front Hope Moto level. We had the Bike Park to ourselves No Gondola lines. We hit all the favorites Chain Smoke, Velocity, Skid marks, Off the Top, Kamikaze, Upper Shock Treatment, Lower Shock Treatment, Bullet, and Follow me. The Day ended with Dinner at Angels with the STR crew.

Day 2 Saturday
STR group rides to many names to mention, It was worth the price of admission to watch STR’s finest the skilled riders conquer the Chain Smoke Rock gardens. One of the last runs of the day down Bullet Stinky washes out on a section of rocky trail and put a nice puncture wound in his leg, to add insult to injury We missed the last Shuttle...….Doh !, so Steve
(Kanga) was nice enough to peddle up to his house and get his truck and give me a ride back to my car at the main lodge, picked up Stinky, headed back to the Hotel and on to Pizza dinner with STR crew

Day 3 Sunday
Steve (Kanga) attemps a Den Mother pass at the 90 degree rock cliff turn of Skid Marks, He went by me so fast I was speech less (the trail was a few feet wider at that point). We rode half day.......and a I was spent.

Memorable observations:

-Den Mother attempts a pass me on Skid marks right after the sharp rock laced 90 degree left turn. I hear a sweet angelic voice “Can I get bye you” keep in mind there’s is accessible trail width is less than 36 inches, my bar width is 28 inches, the GPS elevation at turn reads 10,660 feet, the Cloud Nine Express chair lift elevation at bottom of upper skid marks is 10,370. Penalty for failure 290 foot fall on a near vertical jagged rock face. I respond in a startled voice “hold on Nancy its kind of dangerous right here” I released my brakes and took off in fear that she may try to pass me on 8 inches of trail. (will post helmet cam video later)

-2Wheel Lee bombs mid mountain transition from the bottom of upper skid marks to Bullet. I just completed my run and I am talking to a couple of mountain bikers, they say look at that guy in black coming strait down the hill like a bullet (most of us wag like the tail on a dog coming down this pumice slide), they say does he know there a big rut at the bottom, I thinks he’s going to crash,….. Almost machine like the front wheel rises off the ground the rider glides over the rut and rides by us, Someone in STR yells that’s just Lee cruising at 40 mph.

-Steve (Kanga) makes Chain Smoke Waterfall look easy, ducks a tree and sanitizes the pumice run out.

-Stinkyrider hits Flow drop, Techno rock is next year

-GPS speeds
Skid Marks mid mountain transition from Upper to lower and 32 mph (pumice slide)
Fire road to Follow me / Bullet 39 mph (section after the 180 degree right hand turn)
Pavement max speed 37 mph (starts at end of Big ring to shuttle pickup)
Kamikaze 43 mph

It was great riding with everybody. Thanks to Den Mother for setting up this excellent ride, what a way to end the Season.

......Video / Helmet cam will be up soon

 

my rr would have been teh same as socalridurs hahh im nick by the way jason but no worries thanks for the comments and i will be up there next trip as well
:beer:

 

can't wait for the helmet cam footage Chuck, should be pretty cool (and have amazing exclamations from me as I approached the flow drop :lol::lol::lol

Like I said, I'm getting a season pass and coming up there with you guys a bunch. My goals for next year: hit all of the major drops, figure out how Lee does that mid mountain transfer, and finish trying every double black in the park :bang:

Oh and Danny, sorry I couldn't get your brake fixed all the way. I was trying to remember all the steps to bleed it right from the top of my head, and I've only done it twice before. Glad you got it working for sunday

 

I'm telling you, it's not the rider, it's the bike!
See a pattern here?
(I need to get a skin suit.)

 

hahahah! I think the aero helmet would make the biggest difference. I mean, my goggles are super not aero [-(

I'll let go of the brakes next time and see how close i get to crapping my pants. then go from there :lol:

 

Hit the flow drop if you didnt. Its so intimidating, but this trip, first time wihtout looking i just hit it. the less i waited the less anticipation i had. its honestly like going off a curb its pretty smooth.
as long as you dont land at the bottom your bike shouldnt botom out