She was a bit cold yesterday

[bigpower]

But the men who are men toughed it out.
27 degrees when I piled my hinnie out of the rack yesterday. Thought for sure that I'd be getting a call from my bros coming up from downstate that they'd decided to pass, but they rang when they were 6 miles out from the house. Even though they ride those 4 strokes, gotta give these boys credit. They'll drive 2.5 hours to put on 60 miles. Thats balls.
The plan for the day was the Kalkaska A loop. The regular guys I ride with met us at the trailhead about 10, and off to the races it was. Now I live on this trail system, but this stretch of it is the northern most part of it. The loop is only 25 miles long, but it's not the freindliest 25 miles you'll ever ride. Its not the fact that it has lots of roots that'll kick your ass, compound that with thick covering of leaves and you got big problems. One minute, you're rippin like nobodys bidness, next minute, your on your ass. It just never gets any easier. But I always find it amazing at how many different faces the woods take on thru the year. A month and a half ago, you couldn't see 20 feet thru the forest, now, you can see whats on the next ridge. The one bitch about all those leaves is it can be difficult to keep on the trail. It becomes nothing but a faint path in a sea of reds, oranges and yellows. I found myself looking for the triangle markers more than once yesterday, and I've rode this particular prolly 100 or more times.
Everyone made the run unscathed for the most part(or what anyone would admit to). We knocked it out in about an hour and a half with our usual tune up stops. Finish temp, about 40 degrees. My 2 buds from downstate headed over to Frederic to finish up the business we started over there a couple weeks ago, and the rest of us called it a day to do chores(yea, I had to get the blower out and do the F***ing LEAVES)!
Sorry, we don't have any pics, as the asshole that posted this report left his camera on the computer desk.

One more next week before the gun season, think its gonna be a box trucker. Need one more 120-140 miler before I hang it up for the season

[Ported&Polished]

Sounds exhilerating, and fun. We have had some cold early mornings lately too, winter is right around the corner for us also. Love crisp rides, slipery though, yikes!

[dannygraves]