Phx,Az ride report (ongoing)

Gentlemen,


As day one is drawing to a close let me report on the groups status.

Day 1 by sandskipper (Keith):

4:30 pm 1/31/06

Yesterday evening, I arrived at the Bradshaw Mountain RV resort about 4:30pm to find Ned37 (Ned) and cheeseberger (Colby) hanging out at the grounds and shooting the breeze. After a brief intro, I inform them that berger (Ken) and schwim (Json) are about 30 minutes behind and should arrive shortly. After Ken and Json arrive up comes Lubbz (Andy) and Mr. Lubbs (Jerry)... this is Lubbs father duel sporting the BMW. After a little bit of unloading and securing the gear and bikes we all head to the outdoor recreation room/pool/jacuzi for some cold beers, pizza, chips.... munchies! After a tire incident on the outskirts of Phoenix, DaleEO (Dale) decides he will grace us with his presence and shows up a little upset with his tire situation but otherwise in great spirits. A few hours of everyone meeting & greeting & eaten it was time to start getting settled in for the night. Most everyone retired back to their quarters/tent/Rv/Hotel with the exception of Ken and Json who had to make the 45mile trip into downtown Phx to pick up Parsko (Luke). Shortly after midnight the three arrive back from the airport and after a few minutes of greeting once again everyone retires for the night.

7:15 am 2/1/06

Reveille sounds and everyone jumps out of the bunks. Shower and shaves and everyone is at the Amish Kitchen for breakfast and conversation. After a relaxed breakfast we muster in the parking lot for role call before starting the 40min drive to the MileMarker 11.5 ride area. Well Ken is doing a great job of hosting this thing. Everything is in order, well hosted and time schedules are being made because we arrive at the MM11.5 area precisely at 10:15 just like planned. Splat (Brian) & son are there and ready to go. Also is Logjump (Rick) and LeFrog (Nicolas). After about 30minutes of more greeting, getting suited up and stuff we split into two groups of riders, Group A is single track and more advanced trails, Group B is a C/B ride with a little bit more room. A short riders meeting is held and we're off! Gone for about two hours on some spectacular trails with great views before we end up back at the rally point were DezDuster has arrived and waiting for everyone to return. So again another round of introductions and greetings before I have to load up and head back into town. The group remained at the Mile Markers and continued to do some more riding.

Tomorrow will be another day at the MM11.5 area before swinging eastward over to the Pima & Dynamite area on friday and Rolls OHV area on saturday.

I will try to update everyone with whats going on as I can, or others may put in their comments also...

The force is incredibly strong in Az right now!!!

Regards,

Gentlemen, I am unable to post any details about day two at this time. I could not make it out for the ride due to other arrangements so you will have to wait for an update from one of the ride members. I hear from the others that I missed a great ride up to Crown King, which I have done before. The scenery is great and it starts at about 2000ft in the desert and transitions over about 35 miles up to ~6000ft in elevation.

Day three, Pima & Dynamite:

Today was a mixed day. Meeting time was 10:30am and all were present and accounted for by 10:45. After a little chit-chat and boot lacing we were ready to go and on the trail by 11:30. Again there were two groups, one more technical group and one B/C rider group. We all rode for about an hour and a half or two hours before we all meet up again at a pre determined destination and then rode as a group over to Brians (Splat) staged RV for fuel top up, water, and snacks. After a brief rest we all mounted our bikes again and headed on what was to be a very beautiful and fun ride to the Verde river.
We leave on about 6 or 7 miles of trails and single track until we all spill out into this sandwash. Brian lets us know that the wash is about 11 miles long, and unless we take one of the goat trails off the sides of the wash, we will end up in the same destination. So what happens next is just pure excitement!!! 14 Husabergers all trying to negotiate 11 miles of sand wash, twisting and winding through gorges and wide open spaces, to see who gets to the river first.... You should have seen it, it was great! After we all muster at the end (I don't know who was first, it wasn't me) we take the opportunity to take some photos and a few fellow friends even took a quick dip in the river.... brrr. It's starting to get late now, 4pm, so we all gear back up and same thing again... 11 miles of blazing speed trying to get back down the sand wash.
Well this is where things start to go bad. One-by-one people start making it to the end of the wash and after about a half-hour everyone is there that is gona get there. We wait and wait and wait for about an hour still missing 5 people. So we send a two man sweep team (Splat & Cheesebeger) back to see if they can find the others. 3 minutes after they set out in a blaze of glory, DaleEO & Logjump ride up and spill the bad news... LeFrog went down hard and broke his arm. Now we know that one of our fellow riders is down and we have two sweep riders looking for the rest of the team. So all we can do at this point is wait until Brian & Cheeseberger return. At this time we see a sheriff driving by so we flag them down and explain whats going on. The sheriffs dispatch some help and drive off, really they were pretty concerned but I'm not gona explain every little thing. So we wait for about another 30min or so until our sweep riders show back up. They let us know what we already knew.... LeFrog has a broken arm. Now that the group is back together, minus schwim, berger, LeFrog & froggys son, we head on back to Splats RV for a fuel top off and water and head back to the trucks. We arrive back at the trucks just as the sun goes down. Meanwhile during all of this, Berger rides back to his truck via short cuts and then goes back for schwim, LeFrog and son with his truck. It sounds as though they were able to get Froggy out ok as I called berger and he informed me that all is well and Nic is on his way to the hospital. They were just finishing getting all the bikes loaded and heading back to the camp site for some of Bergdudes famous brisket, beans, and salads....Mmm mmm good!

Well this is a short recap of day three, first real injury was sustained by LeFrog but I will allow him to post up details.

This has been a great experience meeting new friends and sharing stories. I would hope that everyone will make a ride like this at least once in their lives. I have some memories that I will have for a lifetime.

One more day. A few people will be leaving tonight or in the morning to start their treks back home. The group will be a little smaller tomorrow.

More to come soon...

Regards,

Nic,

There is one pic in the gallery that you have labeled "Parsko" when it is actually "Lubbz" (Andy). The pics look great and I've been looking forward to seeing them. What happened to the group photo that we took along the river? Also Nic, I hope you are feeling well and monday brings good news about the arm. Get well so we can go do some of that ST.

Regards,