Official Mountain Bike Ride Report for Potawatomi, 17 mile Mountain Bike Trail Ride.
The week leading up to our third attempt in 10 years at the Potawatomi trail ride was hectic as I, Dan “Krash” Kiplinger, was trying to get in as many rides as possible to catch up to the advanced fitness level of fellow riders Craig “Chief” Drozd, Doug “Rhino” Jones, and Joe “Lojack” Rosenhauer and others who have been riding 1-3 times a week for a couple of months now. I rode my 11.5 mile gravel road route twice, Joe “Lojcak’s” 14.5 mile gravel road route once, and then scheduled a BAB trail ride (Bald Mountain-Addison Oaks-Bald Mountain) Thursday, 6/26. Several “fair weather” riders backed out of the BAB ride at the last minute due to thunderstorms in the area but since the storms weren’t actually over the trails four us (Craig, Joe, Peter Hill and me) rode both loops of Bald Mountain instead of the BAB ride. I had to get one “easy” trail ride under my belt before riding Potawatomi because five years ago, June 17, 2003 to be exact as some of you may remember, I had a spectacular crash on my first trail ride of the year at Pontiac Lake and seriously injured myself-which is how I got my nick name-“Krash”. See Doug Jones for photo evidence of the incident, who is still holding my Timex watch hostage (couldn’t take a licking and stopped ticking at the time of impact (dating myself here—watch commercial from a long time ago)) until I return to the scene of the crash when he will present it to me and will formally name that section of the trail in honor of my crash.
The Potawatomi ride had 11 riders scheduled but some didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t make it. Peter Hill decided to ride in a actual sanctioned mountain bike trail race at Stoney Creek Metro Park, which is his “home” course so he has a legitimate excuse. Matt Bradley had bronchitis from riding in recent rainy and cold weather so he has a legitimate excuse. Mike Kurpinski was out of town with his wife so he has a legitimate excuse, at least we think it is legitimate since he is retired now and has lots of time on his hands. Dennis “Chicago” Kennedy ran into two issues: 1) the toilet in his cabin quit working and in order to maintain his marital status he said he had to go repair it; 2) he couldn’t figure out how to get the 20 HP Kohler engine off of his riding lawn mower and onto his Specialized Stump Jumper Pro as his training regimen this year has consisted of mowing his lawn—so I am not sure he has a legitimate excuse since he blamed women for inventing plumbing risking the ire of all current and future women mountain bike riders.
Saturday morning started off overcast and rainy, just like year when we had to scratch the ride because it is one thing to start riding and then get caught in the rain but it is entirely another to start out in a drenching downpour which was what we encountered after driving all the way there last year. Joe called me to verify that we were still going and I called Craig who said he was on the way to pick up Doug, so I left for Joe’s house so we could ride together. I called Daniela Bredemeirer to let her know we still planned to ride and try to talk her into going (she was one of the “fair weather” no shows for the BAB ride) only to find out that she was already driving there and would probably beat us “die hards” there!! I called Alex Zawinsky and found out that he too was already driving and that he had confirmed that Steve Burgin would also meet us there.
When Joe and I arrived at the parking lot Daniela was already there, as was Steve, but I am going to say Daniela was the first to arrive (ladies first!) and was gung ho to ride and deserves tremendous credit for agreeing to ride because even though it wasn’t raining at that time it was certainly a possibility given the overcast sky. Craig and Doug showed up next followed by Alex. At this point everyone began to unload and assemble their bikes. Daniela had a awesome new Giant full suspension bike that was just too clean for the rest of us to believe that she had been riding it on any trails and was tastefully attired in shoes, socks, shorts, and jersey with colors that matched her bike, which was very classy, and believe me we need some class out there! About this time I heard shouts of “KICKSTAND, you have a kickstand on your bike???” followed by “does anyone have a 15mm wrench, a open and box, a crescent wrench, anything?” from Alex as he was helping Steve Burgin get his bike ready. I swear I heard Steve muttering “my kingdom for a wrench” and I mentioned to Joe that he could probably sell Steve his crescent wrench for $100 right about now, but being the gracious people that mountain bikers are, Joe loaned the crescent wrench to Alex/Steve who promptly removed the offending item. Of course we aren’t all that gracious so unfortunately Steve is now known as Steve “Kickstand” Burgin, until some other incident prompts the creation of a different even more descriptive nick name!! Steve had thought about removing the kickstand the night before but decided not to as he was certain no one would rag on him about it. Being the ROOKIE he unfortunately found out the hard way he was wrong! Craig assembled the riders so that pre-ride photos could be taken, which is why he is the “Chief” and Doug and Alex ridiculed me for trying to hand out trail maps—“maps, we don’t need no stinking maps!!”. Then the seven of us (Craig, Doug, Steve, Alex, Joe, Daniela and me) took off for a simple “3 hour tour”-if you remember Gilligan’s Island you’ll get the reference.
Given that this was the first time this group had ridden together there were fits and starts going over treacherous terrain on the first series of uphill’s until everyone could get a feel for each other’s riding styles and speed—in other words a polite way of saying some of us had to dismount occasionally in order to avoid crashing! As per normal operating procedure we split up into two loose groups of faster and slower riders. I rode in the slower rider group with Daniela and no, it was NOT because she is a slow rider, it was more because I promised my wife (again) that I wouldn’t do anything stupid and crash like I did at Pontiac Lake and by riding last I was assured that I didn’t have to worry about my inability to exercise self control. Daniela simply wanted to get one ride in with the “group” before she probably smokes everyone on the next ride, in other words—we think she was sandbagging us!!
By the time we were 4 miles into the 17 mile ride it began to rain, hard, just like the last time we actually tried to ride Potawatomi and had to quit before finishing because the trail flooded out, something that Dennis “Chicago” regrets to this day—never having finished riding Poto!!! There was no turning back now so we began to stow our sunglasses, too dark for them, and glasses, too hard to see through the lenses covered in water (which is why Dennis “Chicago” Kennedy got Lasik surgery, so he didn’t have to ride behind me when I was known as AEWS—Audible Early Warning System—in order to gauge the condition/terrain of the trail he was about to ride blind). The fast group occasionally stopped to let the slow group catch up and some riders changed groups during those short rest stops. At one point Alex decided to stop and take off his rear wheel in order to remove his “trailer hitch” that he used to pull the trailer with his kids around the neighborhood. Interestingly enough Alex did not earn the moniker “Trailer Hitch”—probably due to the fact at one time Alex was actually a bike racer and commands enough respect to avoid a nick name for now. Unfortunately the rain had washed off all of the bug spray and the mosquitoes were distracting Alex so much that he put the rear wheel back on crooked so I actually got to pass him (Yesss!!) when he had to stop and fix the problem. It was only moments later that he blew by me as I passed Craig for the second time (of course both times were because Craig had stopped to take action photos of all of the riders!!!—Nooo!!!). I never really saw Joe or Doug much because they were up front blazing the trail, or so I was told. It quit raining for awhile, then started up again but not quite as hard or as long, quit again and started up but not quite as hard or as long a third time and it was amazing because Daniela’s bike never got dirty! Pretty soon the dirt and sand started to take a toll on some of the rider’s bikes who started complaining about malfunctioning brakes and to a lesser extent, shifters, as the riders tried to spit water on the cables to rinse off the grit so they could ride faster. Not to be outdone, Steve “Kickstand” Burgin decided that his brakes were beyond repair so he resorted to bombing downhill yelling “NO BRAKES, NO BRAKES” in order to warn Daniela and me as he flew by us on the downhill. Daniela and I decided that since we actually were using our brakes much more often (in our opinion-riding under control, others mentioned something about “chicken” or “wimpy”) our brakes seemed to continue to work fine for the whole ride!!! Eventually it got to the point that Steve would take the downhill “side saddle” or “half way mounted” dragging his right foot in the mud, dirt, sand, rocks, tree roots to slow him down enough until he could fully mount the bike to attack the uphill! Last we heard, Steve was at Foot Locker trying to buy the right display shoe in order to replace his shredded right shoe, muttering something about saving money by only buying one shoe so he could afford to pay for brake repairs!!!
Because I was riding in the back (read—under control) I didn’t actually see any crashes but I heard that there were a few. Doug evidently face planted into a giant mud puddle coming off the downhill side of a slippery wooden plank bridge, ruining his collector’s edition EDS riding jersey (since we are soon to be known as EDS-an HP company instead of EDS). We think he was just looking for an excuse to get a new jersey for the new company name!! Then finally near the end Joe witnessed Alex do a rare uphill endo (front wheel stops, in this case on a large root, but the rest of the bike and rider continue with enough forward momentum until the rider-Alex-launches over the handlebars) crashing and drawing blood (read—badge of honor—although I heard Alex telling Daniela during the ride that in retrospect when replaying all of his crashes in his mind they were really stupid riding errors—not actually crashes—so he has never actually “crashed”). I have, of course, crashed many times, hence my nick name “Krash” and none of them were stupid riding errors because I am not that good of a rider, so they were ALL “krashes”. I am sure that there were some other crashes during the ride but I didn’t hear much about them, maybe someone else will recount the better ones in a Email response to this Email.
Craig “Chief” assembled the riders for post-ride photos, which took about 3 hours, no one really knows since computers and even Joe’s GPS quit working in the rain, especially when buttons were depressed and got stuck due to sand (Craig even tried dunking his in a lake but that didn’t wash out the sand), see Craig for photo evidence of the ride. As we got ready to leave Alex said he was going to get a new bike frame, under the lifetime warranty, to fix his rear wheel/axle/trailer hitch problem, Steve “Kickstand” said he was going to get new brakes and a right shoe, Daniela said she had a great time and would ride again (I didn’t hear her mutter “in fair weather” but the other guys think they did) and so we live to ride again.
Craig “Chief” Drozd has scheduled a BAB (Bald Mountain-Addison Oaks-Bald Mountain) ride for Thursday, 7/3/2008, at 5:30 PM if anyone would like to join us. I maintain a separate distribution list for Mountain Bike Ride Invitations, so if you want to be on that distribution list, Email me with your Email address and I will add you to the Mountain Bike Ride Invitations distribution list.
Sincerely,
Dan “Krash” Kiplinger
Embedded in the field Correspondent and Editor-in-chief for the “Official Mountain Bike Ride Report”.
