On December 24th, four fellow DoD'ers and I rode Brice Creek/Bryce Crik, as had been proposed by Brock. This was nicknamed the "Festivus Eve Ride." It turned out to be a very cool, and a somewhat crazy ride. There is also an
MTBR thread with additional pictures about this ride.
First, it was cold and snowing when we started (even though my thermometer said 33 degrees. Most of us were fine with the temp, but "new Lou" was worrying me. He had short finger gloves (seriously), and just plain cotton riding socks. Ian got him some sandwich bags for his feet, and I gave him some glove liners (not that these would help much after they got wet (they aren't wool)). Anyway, we headed out.
It was a gorgeous ride with the snow, and Brice is a favorite of mine - lots of rock, decent amount of roots, good flow to the trail. I was riding quite well, cleaning everything, and was stoked.
The ride is an out-and-back, and maybe 2/3rds of the way into the "out", Ian manages to snap both chainstays clean through! What adds to this was that it wasn't even his bike, it was Paul's (who was also on the ride). Luckily the road parallels the trail, and it was just a matter of Ian walking up to the next bridge across and waiting for Paul to come pick him up (after Paul rode back to the car). Fairly lucky timing and such overall. Lou was probably half frozen, and was suffering in general at this point, so he chased Paul back to the cars as well.
Brock and I continued on and finished up the ride. I was absolutely charging, and Brock was just trying to hang. In particular I was nailing every rocky, slick climb, no dabs, and totally in the zone. I was absolutley loving it. Well, all but my feet, which were pretty damn frozen at this point, so that was also motivating me to go fast and get back to some dry socks and car's heater.
I was really psyched on this ride, as you can see from my semi-muddy, grin, post ride. Ok, the pic doesn't have a big grin, but whatever.
Note, the first photo (of me, in yellow jacket), and the photo of the broken chainstays are courtest of Paul, and the full size ones can be found in the
MTBR thread).
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