22 Aug S.M.A.R.T. Ride 2014
Saturday, August 16
4:42am to be exact… I hear tussling, it’s a bear, a panther, maybe a cougar.. nope.. it’s
a BigDog too excited to ride he can’t sleep… so I join in and start getting the bike ready before the sun is even up the littlest bit.. Before we head out, I hear a WR250R heading our way.. and I knew it was RoadDad, he also, was up early and ready to get going! As we’re saddling up, it starts to sprinkle.. luckily my good ‘ole buddy BigDog brought an extra Gore-Tex outer layer for me to wear, so I threw it on over my mesh jacket and we headed to breakfast.. back up at Bixby General Store. They open up at 3:30am for local miners.. so they were ready for us by 5:30am. Several other ADV’ers ate breakfast and the rain came down steady for a bit, just enough to beat the dust down! Time to head out…
Sieg had a bunch of gravel laid out with several very fun ATV trails, off-the-beaten path, grass in the middle roads.. it was a good mixture, we were having a lot of fun.. until we came upon the first creek crossing..
Are you serious! We are suppose to cross this! BigDog is dumb-founded… he pre-rode these tracks with Sieg and doesn’t remember this at all.. but guess he’s gotta man up..
Then we figure out.. we aren’t suppose to cross there.. hahaha! Just kidding, but I do wonder if any others behind us went for it… We did come across a lot of good creek crossings.. the creeks are so crystal clear in southern Missouri…
Everyone heard about and had in the back of their minds the “Big Boy” track Sieg had included in this ride.. kinda tauntingly.. who would ride it? who would dare to brave the thick jungle of the Mark Twain National Forest on this day and conqueror the “Big Boy” section…. well, the six of us in our group were the first, we just had to go for it!!! Yay!
This trail looked like it had never been ridden since last fall, BigDog lead us through.. there was a bit of a drop-off into one creek that would make it difficult to turn around and go back, so we knew we were committed. The trail was wet, tall grass, you couldn’t see the hidden rocks or down trees.. to make it even better, the brush hung low and made a small tunnel thru much of it, so you’d wack it out of the way with one hand and hope your helmet didn’t get caught.. A down tree did catch me.. my front tire and in 0.0000324 of a second I was on the ground. RoadDad was laughing once he saw me pop right up… I never saw that thing!
Then, the inevitable fork in the trail, it went left and right.. so we took a second to investigate. I hung back a bit in the middle of the creek…waiting for movement.
All the while, RoadDad is in the back chirpin’ about why we aren’t moving.. “Come on lets go… grow a pair already, would ya!” Something like that.. haha! Here he is just itching to put that WRR on the pipe!
BigDog goes up the trail on the right a bit.. then finds it just doesn’t look good. So Jerry and I investigate the left, we find a way through.. we cleared a lot of the low brush, break trees in half with a judo chop and head back to our bikes. All the other ADV’rs would thank us later for that hard work. So we go left, pop threw this creek, up the embankment, a quick right and ride up the dry creek.. all looks good now!
A_SAPPER took the creek earlier which was the better line.. he’s all smiles on his KLX250.
We all were.. until.. we spot BigFoot and it stops us in our tracks….
Once BigFoot runs off.. we see there’s a blockage in the trail.. time for a little saw action from RoadDad.. we find a way thru, we’re not all gonna die out here…. love this adventure stuff!
BigFoot would join us for the rest of the ride.. he rides a KTM 690 Adventure!
My WR250R in her element… my first ride with a MT21, so far I’m diggin’ it.
The trail took us through some great stuff.. sometime later, I hadn’t seen A_SAPPER in my mirror in a long while. BigDog was leading, and I was behind him.. the other four behind me. So in this situation, you would stick with the leader.. always riding in pairs at least. Leave no man alone.. So I continue to follow BigDog, we crossed a few creeks then stopped so I told him, “I haven’t seen A_SAPPER in a while, and I remember a rough patch back there, thats the last time I saw him”. So we waited and waited and waited….
We walked back to the creek and cooled off in the water a bit…
Then the flowing creek sounds were interrupted by a motorbike.. here they come! We saw A_SAPPER rip through the creek, he even tried to splash BigDog as he pretends to throw a rock at him.. (watch the video). The rest of the gang comes through.. then we hear A_SAPPER take off.. the rest of the guys fill us in on what happened. A_SAPPER hit a large rock, no boulder in the trail and it sent him flying!! He then noticed he was low on fuel AND now, after the get-off, he’s leaking gas. The fellas said he was in bad shape.. we all wished him well and hoped he made it back ok. Later on, he would post up what happened..
Sorry for taking off like I did after the crash, the bike was leaking fuel pretty bad and want to run out on the trail. I hope the message got back that left with some other riders I went on. I rode home 90 miles, had to stop 4 times to get gas.
Went to the hospital to get checked out, worse damage than I thought, a laceration of the kidney and spleen, bruised rib and lung. They transferred me to Springfield from ft Leonard wood spent the night in ICU moved to regular room last night and pump full of drugs. Sounds like I won’t be on the bike for awhile. Again sorry for taking off from the group I was riding with.
No bigger than the crash was sure wouldn’t think I would be in bad as shape as I am in now.
So glad he made it to the hospital…. wow! Heal up buddy, it was great riding with you!
A few miles down the way.. we meet up with a couple guys that were in our group for a bit, and now they were on the side of the road. One guy was giving CPR to another guy in the ditch.. well at least thats what the person who called 911 told the dispatch after seeing this..
Later the guys would tell us two Sheriff cars and ambulance, sirens on and everything would come check them out. It’s nice to know someone cared enough to call 911 but not enough to stop and help!
We were but a few miles from Mammoth Springs, AR.. when I come ripping down the trail….
And see BigDog stopped pushing his 690 over to some shade..
He done ran out of gas! Since putting on the new tanks he wasn’t sure how much gas would be left in the tanks before he’d run out.. well now he knew! None of our group had gas or a syphon hose. RoadDad and another fella would head up to town to find some gas.. so we just waited, hoping the riders behind us could help..
Shortly, a group stopped and we asked them.. “Do you guys have a syphon hose?” “Nope”, “No, sorry” Then ADV_Grizzlee on his Husky Tera 650, pipes up, “I ain’t got no syphon hose, but I got some gas in these MSR bottles!” We all crack up laughing!!!!!!! It was enough to get BigDog going.. we’d run into RoadDad on his way back to help us, he’d found a syphon hose but we didn’t need it. It was nice knowing he had it for the rest of the ride though!
We got in our motel room, grabbed a bite and a shake before the heavens unleashed a furry of rain! But it would serve us well in the morning… trails would be less dusty!
Tomorrow.. we’d head back north through Eminence..
Continue to Sunday…
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