"Lojack Gravel Road Ride"

Official Mountain Bike Ride Report for the “Lojack Gravel Road Ride”, 22.5 gravel road and trail ride.

First off, I have been taking some good natured ribbing from Craig “Chief” Drozd and Doug “Rhino” Jones due to the lack of ride reports lately. Of course the last ride report that Doug did was my spectacular crash years ago and Craig’s was a year or two ago after either the Iceman or Chequamegon Fat Tire mountain bike races! Heck, even the “new” guy, Kirk Schaeffer, had the audacity to razz me about not seeing any ride reports, he even asked me if I had his correct Email address!! I think he is just mad that he doesn’t have a nickname yet, but since he is riding, and crap he is fast, and he is a friend of Doug Jones, I think I will cut him some slack and write up the 5 missing ride reports for everyone’s reading pleasure. So, I will be sending out a number of delinquent ride reports in the near future.

There was a ride Saturday, 8/2, starting at Joe “Lojack” Rosenhauer’s house, so this ride will be formally known as the “Lojack Gravel Road Ride” from now on. It was going to be just Joe and me but Craig Drozd called me early Saturday morning (he was on vacation and didn’t see the ride invitation until late Friday night) and asked if we were riding and since we were he saddled up and drove to Joe’s house to join us! Where have all the other riders gone?

We started off and I quickly fell behind Joe and Craig. That seems to be a common refrain but I chalk it up to them having almost a two month head start on me this year in regards to training rides. Then I hear Craig exclaim that he forgot his sunglasses on the spare tire of his Jeep, again, as he done in past rides! We highly recommend riding with glasses because you can have a serious crash if you take a branch to the eye on a downhill or fast section, heck you could also just suffer a serious eye injury, and of course it is mountain biking so you could end up with sand, dirt or rocks in your eyes from the riders tires in front of you. That is why it is difficult to decide whether to lead and be the first to encounter the branches and have to call them out for the following riders, or follow and risk all the debris from everyone’s tires in front of you. But hey, its mountain biking so it is all good.

When we got to the 3 mile “trail loop” (think Gilligan’s Island-just a 3 hour tour!!!) Craig and Joe made me lead since they thought I was dogging it. Now what you have to realize is this is a simple 3 mile trail loop with a 9 mile first hill, yes you read that right—a 9 mile first hill. It starts out in the parking lot and goes up; through a tunnel of trees so you can only see so far up the trail, then it has a series of turns so you can see even less far. It is loose sand and gravel to make it that much more difficult. It goes up somewhat gently for a good ways, and then it pitches up considerably more so you are quickly downshifting out of the big front chain ring into the middle front chain ring. It turns right and pitches up considerably more, turns left, pitches up considerably more, turns right again, pitches up considerably more, then flattens out on a bare patch of dirt in an opening with no trees and you think that you are at the top. But NO, it pitches up again and you are sure that this hill has turned into a giant treadmill, and that it keeps speeding up more and more and inclining more and more before you can get to the front of the revolving tread and turn it off!!! So you down shift into the small front chain ring! It pitches up, and turns, and pitches up and turns again and again and you downshift until you are in “granny/granny” gear (small front chain ring, big rear cassette ring for the lowest possible gear you have) and your lungs are and legs are burning and then you see another clearing up ahead. You think you are going to find that guy on the top of the mountain you go to ask the meaning of life but nooo, it pitches up again and you look down at your gears in the futile hope that you can find a “great granny” gear!!! Finally, the tread mill quits and you crest the top of the 9 mile hill, barely able to breathe, vision narrowed and dimmed due to the lack of oxygen only to plunge into a steep downhill with two turns. As you try to stay on the trail and miss the trees and rocks you think what a long wild ride it is going to be, except it abruptly turns into another uphill??? You struggle up the hill and wonder what the heck happened to the big downhill that should follow that 9 mile uphill when all of a sudden, another step down hill with two more turns about twice as long as the last one. But again it abruptly turns into an even steeper uphill and I furiously downshift again, and drop the chain off of the front chain rings almost crashing and have to stop while Joe “Lojack” Rosenhauer flies by me. I quickly put the chain back on and run the rest of the way up the hill so I can try to get back on the bike before Craig “Chief” Drozd passes me, and yeesss, I am successful, no sign of Craig yet.

I rode like crazy through the winding trail as it goes through knee deep grass and raspberry vines getting wet from the dew and scratched up at the same time. I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if I could keep in the center of the trail but nooo, I have to try to catch Joe. Then, as I pass through the apple orchard I about crash several times, why you ask? Think about all those movies you have seen where the bad guys fall after the good guys dump a bunch of marbles on the floor. Yep, a bunch of fallen apples is a lot like marbles, especially when you still haven’t regained all your vision from the oxygen deprivation. After a couple of wicked down hills with 90 degree turns at the bottom, scrubbing off all of my speed, then some sandy spots just for good measure, I got to the final 3 short but very steep hills but I still don’t see any sign of Joe, or Craig for that matter. I drop my chain off of the front chain rings again on the steepest hill and as I walk to the top I am thinking why is it so hot this early in the morning as my sunglasses are fogging up. Finally I get back to the beginning of the trail where I find Joe leisurely reading the information on the bulletin board. I take off my helmet and sunglasses and put them on the ledge on the bulletin board so I can raise my seat post to try to get some more leg extension and speed. Craig rides up and declares that he had some mechanical problems with his rear wheel several times and had to straighten it so that was why he was so far behind. We check our odometers and sure enough, it is only 3 miles, but that 9 mile hill is not a figment of our imaginations, seriously!!! If you don’t believe me, you come ride it with us!!!

Just as we started to ride back to the gravel road Craig was kind enough to remind me not to leave my helmet and sunglasses on the ledge!!! See oxygen deprivation is real as I never ride without a helmet, and had Craig not been suffering from it also he would have realized it would have been even funnier to remind me at the top off hill on the way back to the gravel road so I would have had to go back my helmet and glasses and ride the hill a second time!!! We insist that everyone who rides with us wears a helmet!!!! We don’t want to have any serious head injuries that could have been avoided with a helmet, that and many of the trails actually state that helmets are required. We also recommend wearing gloves so that you don’t have to dig gravel out of the palms of your hands if you do happen to crash.

About half way through the 22.5 mile ride, Craig flew by Joe and me so that he could stop up ahead at an intersection to adjust his rear wheel again. I don’t know what he did that time, but when we started riding again he just took off and left Joe in the dust. But don’t feel bad for Joe, because Joe left me in his dust as well!! Turns out that when Joe and I finally caught up to Craig, in Joe’s driveway, Craig was just frustrated with his rear wheel and took it out on it by riding like a bat out of hell the last 12 miles!! So, while I finished in about 1:44:00, I am sure that Craig finished in the low 1:30:00’s, which is pretty darn fast for 22.5 miles.

Still looking for some of our other intrepid riders who were AWOL!

Sincerely,

Dan “Krash” Kiplinger

“Embedded” in-the-field Correspondent and Editor-in-chief for the “Official Mountain Bike Ride Report”.