I hit the jumps up on St. Louis with the boys on Monday. My stomach wasn’t feeling right since lunchtime, and I was still on the weird funk I had all weekend. Saturated with fumes from painting all day at work, Scat was a little out of sorts, hitting the jumps a little off and landing at the edge of control. Ckucke managed to break something in his rear hub, possibly the axle or bearing cup – his rear hub got loose and the back-end felt all floppy. I tried cranking down on his Q/R, but it still seemed the same. Everything seemed relatively normal with Root. Like last week, a hint of a drizzle drifted down the ridgetop at one point, but didn’t get anything wet or sticky. Scat said it had been socked-in at mid-day, but if any precipitation fell, it was all soaked in and dried up by the time we arrived. At the end of the jump session, Scat and I had more-or-less managed to get back onto a somewhat normal footing.
After the jumps, we dropped the taco trail, nailing the berms at drifting speed, then continued down the mainline. The two mini-jumps threw good long airs, albeit not high ones: The silence of wheels not on the ground lasted well into the start of the exit turn at the speed I was going at. We took the left fork at the junction and carved down the fun bermed twisties, intercepting the regular trail just after the hammock tree. I finally rolled up to the edge of the boulder drop to see what it was all about. All I can say is, “not on a hardtail, and not without a full-head helmet and my Dainese on.” We dropped out at speed in short order. Ckucke low-sided on one of the rocky left drop-in switchbacks, but didn’t get hurt or anything.
We were worried about getting out with daylight, but we reached the concrete road around the same time as last week, and headed down the lower trail. I was last, but just before the waterbar, I got caught up on some koa-haole branch on the right that grabbed my hand and spoiled my line, sending me further off the back. It took a while to catch up with everyone, especially on the rock slab descent. I had to utilize more air time than normal to cut my trailing distance. I’m somewhat surprised that the maximum speed wasn’t higher this week than last, but last week’s peak was probably on the top section.
Dinner was at Yamagen, this time with new, improved, low-rudeness waitress. Fabio met us for food, and Chris dropped by after finishing his shift at McBike. I had tanked an extra big frame bottle during the ride, and drank a lot of water with dinner. I felt a lot more human afterwards. Scat and I both wondered if dehydration was partly to blame for our “out of it” condition earlier. Damn summer heat!
D = 7.63 km (4.74-miles), Vavr = 13.7 km/h (8.5 mph), Vmax = 47 km/h (29.2mph) (max speed on trail about 37 km/h (23 mph)), T = 33-minutes
More pictures here
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