Fossil fuel burning douchenozzels, Woody Woodpecker, and the elusive American Honey Badger.

 http://app.strava.com/activities/38252964

 

On MLK day morning  Mike B. and I met up with Teamdicky at the Kitsuma parking lot and we were on the bikes and headed to Heartbreak Ridge starting at about 9:30. Mike had been on a ride recently that followed the 'Marshall H.' way up to Old Toll so we decided it would be fun to do some exploring and to follow that route.

That way took easily 25 minutes longer than the traditional way up but was easily 50%, ummm, easier. Along the way we made a few navigational errors that turned into brilliant mistakes. We found this cascade, for example:

Once we were on Old Toll the pace picked up significantly and all three of us were in no man's lands, Rich off the front, Mike (having not yet fully recovered from his 24 hour flu) off the back, and me in the middle. It was a beautiful day to be on the bikes. Temps in the very low 40's (if we were lucky), high winds, and blindingly blue skies.

After a quick break at the overlook Mike's legs woke up and it was tough keeping him in sight. I almost bonked chasing him as I mistook the not top for the top and didn't have any matches left in the book until a long rest at the trailers.

 

I took the lead for the descent and was feeling great, feeling FAST for the first little while. After a bit though my hands felt like I had just been at batting practice with an aluminum bat. They were hurting soooooo bad. I let Mike take the lead, finally had the notion that something was wrong with my fork, made a few adjustments, then was feeling fast as ever.  We took an extended break at the downed tree below the rootball of death, then rocketed to the bottom without incident.

We took it easy for the climb up Mill Creek and made it back to the vehicles in an unremarkable time. Mike and I had curfews to tend to so we were done and started to load up but Rich, ever the endurance freak, decided to knock out Kitsuma real quick. That was a fun ride guys, thanks for getting out. Thanks for making it up to the mountains, Rich!