Ride Report STR/PATH Bootleg Weekend extravaganza

No worries Allison! Like you said -- falling is part of learning! I wouldn't progress if I didn't try anything new! Sorry to hear about your endo


And Dave, any time my friend. Jason and I enjoyed the company!

 

Another fun STR ride! I don't ride that often, but the quality of the STR rides more than make up for the quantity!

After having a crown installed on a rear molar Friday afternoon, I was debating on coming. I was in a ton of pain Friday night. Nonetheless, after piddling around, I decided to pack and go. I left fairly late in the evening. I drove around the city of Boulder until I finally found the camping area at about 3:45 am. After getting prepped for bed, this left me four hours to sleep. Unfortunately, the tooth was killing me, so I couldn't really sleep. And for those who were in the parking lot, no, the other big truck with the stereo cranked up doing donuts did not come with me! :lol:

Come Saturday morning, the parking area quickly filled up with STR members suiting up for the shuttle trucks. While we were boarding, I was amazed how large our group was. I think someone counted 30 STR riders! :bang:

The truck rides to the top were non-eventful, except a couple times where I think tires from bikes in the big truck hit or almost hit the trailer from the other shuttle vehicle traveling in the other direction. What really kicked my butt was the approximately 1/2 mile hike to the top of the trails. I was really dragging my feet on that - hey, I had to break in my new 5.10s!

After a regroup at the top, we let the air be filled with tires! :bang:

Hitting the trails - I think someone here mentioned there are a lot of rocks in Bootleg - holy crap! Lots of chunk! chunk, chunk, chunk, air, chunk, chunk, pedal, chunk... Although Tunnel and Cold Springs are a bit different, I've never ridden a bicycle in the kind of terrain that Bootleg has to offer. It was awesome! Admittedly, I was a little slow at adapting to the bike again, let alone the terrain (I hadn't ridden the DH bike since Mammoth). On Sunday, however, the bike and I became one.

Dinner on Saturday night was great. That margarita treated me nicely (and I'm a lightweight when it comes to alcohol). Then back at camp, we couldn't have asked for nicer camping weather! Oh, and the hot showers felt so good.

There are quite a few deserved kudos:
Luke and his friend (sorry, I forgot!) - although Luke got a few scratches, they were nothing like many of us expected. They rode XC all freakin' day. Animals!

There were a number of people riding the DH trails on trailbikes. I don't think I could have done a lot of those trails with anything steeper than a 64-degree headangle, and then you have guys like Craig and Dan just tearing it up on much steeper trail bikes. Respect was earned.

Justin and Allison, I have two words for your future DH racing efforts: EXPERT CLASS. Both of you two rock! Again, major respect for your skills.

Steph, oh man, you scared the crap out of me on your fall. I'd have gone home after that. I surely wouldn't have kept riding as you did.

Quite honestly, the STR group consist of a lot of very talented riders, which makes me feel honored to ride with all of you.

And finally, kudos to Nancy for putting this together. Nancy and Roger know how to "do" rides. They always know the cool trails.

I hope those who fell feel better soon. There was some gnarly stuff up there, and I think those who did take a tumble came out of it amazingly well. Any of those falls could have been considerably worse. Brendan, although there was a lot of swelling, from what I could see after you returned from the ER, I think that will heal very nicely. Also, keep in mind that the face generally heals better than other parts of the body.

I wish I could thank everyone for their individual contributions in making the trip so much fun, but the list would be very long. Everyone contributed in one form or another.

Thanks to all!

 

damn u guys, that looks like soooo much fun. u all tore it up. !!!

 

Just call me "Big Balls" ...

Not sure I can add too much to what everyone else has already said, but I will say I had a great time at Bootleg. Also huge props to Allison and Justin for the ride out there and the lessons in DH'ing, Jeff for sticking with me and pumping up my confidence when I was hands down the slowest rider in the group and the amazingly good beers you brought and lastly to Nancy and Roger for setting all this up and the amazing lunch on Saturday.

We got there around 8:30 or so on Saturday morning and after about 50 feet into the first DH run we did I was thinking "What the f--- did I get myself into?!?!" Not only is Bootleg super chunky, but its freakin steep with drops and the penalty for failure there is huge cause you are riding a 2-4 foot wide trail (and even narrower in some points) with a 50 foot plus cliff to fall off of if you make a mistake. Anyways I made it out without any major crashes (just a few close calls), but I definitely did my share of walking. But all in all it was a great experience and even though Justin, the drunken sandal wearing helmetless rock drop champ (sorry Craig you came in a close second), might not believe it I pushed myself much harder and rode more than I would have ever expected.

Another thing that was reenforced to me this weekend is that STR has some freakin insanely good riders. Although I am sure I missed most of the best riding cause I was waay behind everyone and walking the sections that they were flying through. I witnessed some crazy drops and incredible technical riding at ridiculous speeds. You guys and gals are all 'heroes' in my mind and so heres to you.:beer:

Anyways thanks again to everyone who made this weekend happen and to all the cool people I met along the way. And to everyone that got hurt this weekend, Brendan, Willie, Justin, Steph, Allison and even one else who got dinged up, heal up soon. My only question is when is the next Bootleg trip going to happen??

 

I hope you did not mind my farting and snoring :lol:. Jason was going to put the sleep machine on you. I had some crazy gas that whole weekend. It was interesting how Jason played for every punk rock band in the US for at least ten min. It was cool that I got to hear Johnny Something from NY who used to play for the NY Dolls. Its a good thing Jason and I did not hot box your truck with our farts. I will now know that if I offer you to check out my new issue of MTB action I better read the whole thing first. Finally the word of trip was RELENTLESS!!!!!!!!!!!!! :bang:

2WheelLee it was cool talking old school BMX / Freestyle stories with you.

 

A little Friday evening action starring Doublewide and Hootie.

Gap jump right after the teeter totter:










Sadly we didn’t find the pot of gold:


Electric – Time to head to Big Hooties!


A big thanks to Henry and Bob for the Friday afternoon shuttle action! :bang:

 

Is it Doublewide or Hootie who is also known as Shi#y? I haven't seen him in years! Both those guys are awesome riders.

 

Doublewide = Shitty :beer:

 

Hey Lee, nice to see again, been a long time. All you have to do is look at da butt and you'll know that I'm "doublewide"
Great weekend lotsa fun. Thanks Bob and Henry for the shuttle rides on Fri. Thanks to Roger and Nancy for setting this up. Good to meet some of the STR crew. When is the next trip?


shitty

 

Damn, look like such a fun trip i can wait till till christmas break when i go to bootleg, did anyone attempt ginger?

 

Prettiest sunset shot I've seen in quite some time. I can almost see smiling flame faces in a couple of them. Of course that may just be PTSD!

 

I could only ride on Saturday. Everyone thought I was crazy for driving all that way for just one day of riding. When I got back I was asked if it was worth it. Oh heck yes it was.

What a nice place. Even have flush shitters and showers. It was pretty nice to ride all day and take a quick shower before a 4 hour drive home.

I very rarely have any bike mechanicals but Saturday was not the case. At least I had them all on the same run. After my second flat (only one spare tube) I was riding on the rim. I rolled up on Mechmann and it looked like he was just fixing a flat and no big deal. I was already on the rim and didn’t think I could have helped. I later found out that he could have used a hand. So I would like to apologize for not stopping. That’s not like me and I felt bad about it once I realized it.

Anyway I have always heard that Nancy and Rodger are great people. This was the first time I rode with them and they did not disappoint. So thanks for setting this up for the group.
It was great seeing some old faces (yeah even you shitty haha) and meeting some new ones.

Other then the fact that I rode like a pansy, had every type of mechanical you could have in one run it was a great day!

 

He was probably fine at first... was having a lot of problems getting his tire off his rim (happened twice over the weekend). I think he ended up snapping around 3 tire levers. Took at least 2-3 people to get his tire off the rim in the parking lot Sunday morning. I think Nancy has photos from the patiently waiting shuttle truck

It was nice briefly seeing you Saturday morning!

Will you be out at Fontana?

 

haha, it's all good. That rim was already pretty beat down. So what's a few more flat spots. :?:

Hey, I never caught the names of the guy and his 11 year old son. How cool was it to see those guys out there? Man, I'd loved it if my dad was into that kind of stuff when I was a kid!!

 

Quite rolling Kenda tires! That way you can stick with the group more. :lol:

 

The kid's name is Josh and I feel so bad but I forgot the dad's name he has riding the white specialized with the F'ed up shock landing that sick drop at the end of the day. I feel bad because I was out of water after my third ride down and he hooked me up with a Mt Dew. Ahhhh the sweet necter of the Dew.

 

They were really cool. They joined us for dinner Sat night also!

 

Nice pictures Allison - looks like it was a fun trip indeed! I hope the injured are feeling better soon.

 

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, one day only!!!

Pics from the first shuttle run:

 

Winston - sweet pics as always. You coming out to Fontana?