Lost Weekend 2: The Outtatowners

We were very excited about getting to share Hardrock with guests. Max and I were oddly proud of our Evil Beast Home Turf and beamed like happy parents at the thought of subjecting people we considered good friends to what promised to be the nastiest thing we could throw at their bikes. The time leading up to the appointed date in early December had been a bit of a disaster for us Florida boys..mainly because of feet. I, as previously posted, had just broken my foot at Hardrock two weeks before, but George (who had finally healed up enough to start joining us) was out because on his first gallivant at the end of October had picked up some manner of foot rot in what was still, basically, the open wound that was his foot. Unlike George, however, I didn't have to worry about infection, so decided there was no way in hell I was gonna miss the trip. I'd be good and stay out of the nasty stuff, but I knew the trails well enough that I could at least ride around and take pictures. My wife was dubious. I had to cut my boot to get it over my foot. We were gonna have a good time.

Here's the Carolina boys: Jay, from previous posts, on the left, Marcus on the right. Jay brought the venerable Field pig

While Marcus brought his sadly unnamed BSA single of some description (the model likely involving a "B" and some numbers, I'm definitely no BSA expert)

I was on the Stomper/Triumph Wheelchair...

....and though restricted to chicken routes on the top of the pit, could get pretty near to where the suffering was being doled out. Max was on good ol' Smokey Bacon, and had the other camera.

We started everyone out on a standard loop, but Marcus managed to get separated and missed a couple of our favorite spots, namely the Rock:

That's it in the foreground, it got worn down over time, but at this point you can see there were two ways to deal with it. You could aim for the notch and hope you had enough clearance, or hit it on the left(in this pic) and try to bounce over it. If you did get it, you got rewarded with one of the best views in Hardrock.

I didn't get this view, having a pretty leisurely tourist perspective of it all. Just look at that sad crippled peasant down there, who let him into the cycle park?

After giving Jay a chance to enjoy the view, Max figured it was time to make him miserable and led him to the Bottom. Sadly, I couldn't get anywhere near there to get pics, but damn if it didn't sound like a good one that time. I backtracked from the foot of the Rock and parked myself at the top of a scrabbly climb after the Bottom and got an aural treat listening to the horrid beating Max and Jay received going through it. Frantic revving, shouted commands, more revving, stall, brief silence, foul language, repeat. It seemed like days for them to get through. Good, good stuff. They finally made it, again...sadly, and came past my roost.

Marcus may have thought he escaped the joy of the Bottom, but he didn't get far. He was over in another shithole called the Rock Garden, when we found him he was turned around to come back and find us, but how he got that bike turned in there I have no idea.

The section is a ping pong narrow track between large limerock boulders that then abruptly turns right and climbs steeply uphill.

This was my favorite part of the day because I had a pretty good view down into the section. Which was nearly as much fun to watch as ride.

 Jay's face in these pics pretty well sums up that climb.

With a good loop in the bag we headed out, played on the Roller Coaster a bit, and then headed to the bottom of the pit for Picture Hill and general tomfoolery. My foot kept me from scrambling up the hill to get decent side-on shots, so sadly you get pics of rear tires and hind-quarters. Here's Marcus getting his pitcher taken,

 Jay getting his picture taken,

And Max going the wrong damned way,

Then it was time for some trials,

Those preliminaries out of the way, and we were off to the $13.65 Hillclimb, which was the climb on which I'd broken my foot. On the Tonup board I'd laid a challenge that whoever could get up that climb would get what I had in my pocket at that moment, which happened to be....$13.65. Here's Max trying to convince Jay that this was a proper sum of money on which to risk life and/or limb. If you recall earlier photos of this climb, you'll notice it got Even Better, it now had a fallen tree on it.

Jay didn't think 13 dollars, 65 cents was enough money for this endeavor, leaving Max to give it a go,

This was one of the most ridiculous, impressive bits of riding I've seen. Remember, this is a 360lb, 40 year old converted road machine.  Max was barely on the bike half the time, most of the time the bike was bucking and weaving and pretty much doing its own thing vaguely underneath him. But he got it. He got the prized $13.65, which he promptly put in a picture frame and hung in his bike room.

That accomplished, we left the pit and rode the Roller Coaster a bit more (well, they did), I swapped out my riding boot for my broke foot boot and we spent the rest of the weekend drinking beer and eating truly ridiculous quantities of fried, smoked, and generally unhealthy food. For his heroism on $13.65, Max was given the famed "Trophy For What We Deem Worthy This Time".

And with that, I'll leave this post with one of my favorite pics from the weekend, a nice family portrait from the pit bottom.