Pain.
It’s been two days since the Monday night St. Louis downhill and jump session, and my body hurts the same as if I had done a full day of snowboarding two days ago. My messed-up shoulder is stiff, and my back muscles, triceps, and forearms hurt – just like I repeatedly stacked in the terrain park or something. My back leg quad and calf really hurt – just like from riding deep pow all day with not enough stance setback.
I hope I can recover for tomorrow’s Tantalus ride!
Right after work on Monday, I drove to the top of St. Louis to meet Ckucke, JT, and Kevyn. Root was unaccounted for, as he had neither returned phone calls or emails since I sent out the call-up on Sunday night. When I got to the top, the parking lot was full except for the one empty space I took. I have never seen this before! JT later surmised that it was a celebration of 4/20 by the toker community. This was corroborated by the abundant aroma of burning herbage. Ckucke told me to give him a ring when I got to the park at the top, but krappy T-mobile had no signal up there, so I suited up and blasted down to the jumps. It was nice riding in daylight instead of dwindling twilight for once. Spring was now upon us. I was able to pick a better line through the roots and hit the two side jumps with more confidence. At the jumps, I called Ckucke. They were down at the concrete road. A flat near the top had delayed them on their run, so they were not far ahead of me. Ckucke told me that they would wait and that I should meet them there.
Not wanting to make them wait, I put the hammer down and hit the jump line, turned off at taco jumps, and hit the berms and crossed the mainline straight through to the rock drop. The ground conditions were perfect. It had rained the night before after a cloudless weekend. There were clouds all day, but no further rain. The dry, thirsty ground took all the moisture and tightened up into a solid riding surface. The berms and straights were fast. I took the straight-through at the switchback before the rock waterfall, and cranked the rough line through the koa haole to the old burnt-out area and rolled the rocky switchbacks to the concrete road. My arms were seriously dead. The rocky section worked them to noodles. I could control the brakes, but steering and controlling body height above the bars against the will of the rocks was a little iffy. My arches were pounded sore like my hands, but that subsided after a bit of rest.
Miraculously, Taro called and said he was at the park. Ckucke told him to wait for us there, and we dropped the last pitch to the road and shuttled up in Kevyn’s truck (thanks, Kevyn!). Back at the top, we rode back down to the jumps and sessioned them for a while. The park was open later since the sun was up longer, so we weren’t in as much of a rush as a few weeks ago. A dude on a green Kona came down the trail – it would not be the last time he would see us. The jumps had been recontoured, so they were smoother and there was better loft. This was especially noticeable on the middle jump – it threw high and far, but with no disconcerting kick to cause a nose-down situation. It felt nice: I almost felt like trying to reach the downslope landing past the roots. We did the normal run down to the rock waterfall and agave, where we saw the Kona dude come down on his second run.
The ride back up was painful and grueling as usual, but we got in a lot more riding time with the earlier start and later finish. Just before the jumps, the Kona dude passed us on his third run. This time he stopped long enough for a short conversation. I’m pretty sure we’ll see him up there again. After reaching the top and packing up, we left the pall of smoke and the chronic crew behind and went down to grab some Yokohama-style ramen at Rara-ya on King Street.
Pictures here
D = 7.95 km (4.94-miles), Vavr = 10.8 km/h (6.7-mph), Vmax = 40.9 km/h (25.4-mph), T = 44-minutes (first run down around 9-minutes to Kanewai Park)
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