Magna_Graecia
Tapia Bunny Slayer
Greetings and salutations all, and welcome to the the belated Golden Eagle ride report. While this ride happened on July 24th, due to work burn-out, dehydration and a whole list of other pathetic excuses, I'm now just getting around to throwing something up for those of you who chose not to go on this epic ride of love and justice. Also, I've been lambasted in the past for not including pictures in my previous ride reports so fear not; this time I have pictures to prove it. Granted, they're crappy iphone pictures, but seeing as I don't own a digital camera, it was the phone or nothing.
So now, sit back, relax and let a now slightly inebriated (read: pretty much sh!t-faced) Magna_Graecia take you on a journey of sight, sight, and...well, you get the picture...to a wonderful trail that few people ride, as it is in the middle of freakin' nowhere. Ladies and gentlemen...and Dino, I present to you, Golden Eagle.
This ride was literally 6 months in the making, as every time I'd bring it up, fate would immediately poo-poo it. Work, illness, plagues of locusts all conspired against this ride ever coming together. Finally, I decided to raise a middle finger the size of Illinois in fate's direction and called the ride, initially only within the SCV Dirtbag social group. I then figured that the best way to insure that this ride would actually happen was to throw open the doors to all and sundry, I posted it in the calender on the front page and hoped that a few people would bite. After a week or so of crossing my fingers, 7 brave souls decided to brave the summer heat to ride this incredible trail. The guilty parties where: grannygear, FFW, El Immigrante, un_clipped in, sc_nomad, someone from Seattle (whose name I forget, but he was freakin' fast) and myself. The plan was to meet at the Sandberg Inn Ruins at 7am and then ride the fire road up to the trail head and then ride the 8+ miles of incredible singletrack bliss back to the cars.
However, it seemed that I was the only weak climber in the crew, and we ended up separating into three groups, with the plan being to meet at the trailhead. Team Steroid-Goat decided to climb the singletrack, Team Damn-they're-fast bolted up the fireroad, and Team We'll-get-there-when-we-get-there was headed up by yours truly. Luckily for me, El Immigrante took pity on me and and joined me on what I thought was going to be a painful slog.
Notice how I said, thought would be. The last two times I've ridden Golden Eagle, the climb basically murderlized me, taking well over two hours to make the 9 mile accent. This time, it took just under two hours, and we could have shaved more time off of that had I not stopped for pictures and a random snack break. While still slow by most standards, I was damn proud of myself. However, after taking this group shot:
Golden Eagle decided to remind me who was whose bitch. You see, me and this trail have a history. Do a search for “When Thompson met Johnson” for details of my first Golden Eagle ride. Short version, I almost lost a testicle and had to ride 4 miles after doing the deed. The second time I just almost killed myself with heat stroke. This time, it was the cramps from hell. The thing with this trail is that after climbing for 9 miles, the first few miles of the singletrack requires more climbing, just to keep you honest. I thought that I had been hydrating properly...turns out I was oh so very wrong. After one climb, I felt my legs start to give out, so I decided to get off the bike for a second...big mistake. My quads locked and I couldn't move for five minutes. Not even mustard helped. The pain was quite exquisite, to say the least. Once my quad unclenched slightly, poor El Immigrante was forced to listen to me scream and rant for five minutes, basically begging my legs to unlock enough that I could get off of my tip toes.
After I managed to regain my composure and the use of my legs, we caught up with the rest of the crew and rode the rest of the trail without incident. Outside of being somewhat overgrown, Team Steroid-Goat scaring up a rattler on the way up, and Team D.G.T.F. coming across a giant deer, Golden Eagle was a blast and definitely worth the drive out there.
Although I always seem to have drama when I ride G.E., I never regret going out there. The scenery is beautiful, the trail awesome and the isolation a good reminder as to why I chose this addiction in the first place. To finish (I'm out of beer), I'd like to thank everyone who came out to ride. Hopefully my personality didn't sour the experience too much v(^_^)v. And also a big shout out to Jeffj, who helped me rebuild my Chumba and who also built my wheelset; it made a huge HUGE difference!
That's it. Now look at the pretty pictures.
So now, sit back, relax and let a now slightly inebriated (read: pretty much sh!t-faced) Magna_Graecia take you on a journey of sight, sight, and...well, you get the picture...to a wonderful trail that few people ride, as it is in the middle of freakin' nowhere. Ladies and gentlemen...and Dino, I present to you, Golden Eagle.
This ride was literally 6 months in the making, as every time I'd bring it up, fate would immediately poo-poo it. Work, illness, plagues of locusts all conspired against this ride ever coming together. Finally, I decided to raise a middle finger the size of Illinois in fate's direction and called the ride, initially only within the SCV Dirtbag social group. I then figured that the best way to insure that this ride would actually happen was to throw open the doors to all and sundry, I posted it in the calender on the front page and hoped that a few people would bite. After a week or so of crossing my fingers, 7 brave souls decided to brave the summer heat to ride this incredible trail. The guilty parties where: grannygear, FFW, El Immigrante, un_clipped in, sc_nomad, someone from Seattle (whose name I forget, but he was freakin' fast) and myself. The plan was to meet at the Sandberg Inn Ruins at 7am and then ride the fire road up to the trail head and then ride the 8+ miles of incredible singletrack bliss back to the cars.
However, it seemed that I was the only weak climber in the crew, and we ended up separating into three groups, with the plan being to meet at the trailhead. Team Steroid-Goat decided to climb the singletrack, Team Damn-they're-fast bolted up the fireroad, and Team We'll-get-there-when-we-get-there was headed up by yours truly. Luckily for me, El Immigrante took pity on me and and joined me on what I thought was going to be a painful slog.
Notice how I said, thought would be. The last two times I've ridden Golden Eagle, the climb basically murderlized me, taking well over two hours to make the 9 mile accent. This time, it took just under two hours, and we could have shaved more time off of that had I not stopped for pictures and a random snack break. While still slow by most standards, I was damn proud of myself. However, after taking this group shot:
Golden Eagle decided to remind me who was whose bitch. You see, me and this trail have a history. Do a search for “When Thompson met Johnson” for details of my first Golden Eagle ride. Short version, I almost lost a testicle and had to ride 4 miles after doing the deed. The second time I just almost killed myself with heat stroke. This time, it was the cramps from hell. The thing with this trail is that after climbing for 9 miles, the first few miles of the singletrack requires more climbing, just to keep you honest. I thought that I had been hydrating properly...turns out I was oh so very wrong. After one climb, I felt my legs start to give out, so I decided to get off the bike for a second...big mistake. My quads locked and I couldn't move for five minutes. Not even mustard helped. The pain was quite exquisite, to say the least. Once my quad unclenched slightly, poor El Immigrante was forced to listen to me scream and rant for five minutes, basically begging my legs to unlock enough that I could get off of my tip toes.
After I managed to regain my composure and the use of my legs, we caught up with the rest of the crew and rode the rest of the trail without incident. Outside of being somewhat overgrown, Team Steroid-Goat scaring up a rattler on the way up, and Team D.G.T.F. coming across a giant deer, Golden Eagle was a blast and definitely worth the drive out there.
Although I always seem to have drama when I ride G.E., I never regret going out there. The scenery is beautiful, the trail awesome and the isolation a good reminder as to why I chose this addiction in the first place. To finish (I'm out of beer), I'd like to thank everyone who came out to ride. Hopefully my personality didn't sour the experience too much v(^_^)v. And also a big shout out to Jeffj, who helped me rebuild my Chumba and who also built my wheelset; it made a huge HUGE difference!
That's it. Now look at the pretty pictures.
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