The Epic Adventure not Epic Ride.

This ride was to be an Epic ride that we did not know if anyone had done, we were going to do · Liberty Furnace Loopfollowed by Big Schloss Loop. (http://www.more-mtb.org/forum/showthread.php?t=6675)

I did this ride with my Big Bear, 24 Hours of Allamuchy teammates. So we started up liberty furnace which has this killer climb in the beginning, I mean you have gone 1 mile and it feels like you have gone 10! That hill is steep took about 35minutes to get up it(2.5miles). I did better this time then last, I was able to do the ride with only two walking sections. The only issue I had with the bike after I had spent $190 to get it fixed A fork rebuild followed by a new damper in the fork, and had the brakes re-bleed. Greg at Conte’s knows his stuff, but it can be expensive! Scott the owner of Contes was like,”well it is cheaper then a crack habit” was my tube in my tire blew out of the tire which was strange. I put in a new tube and we were off. We got to the start of the Big Schloss Loop and the trail was sweet until we had to hike a bike for like a mile through some sketchy rocks. I was slipping on the rocks in my stiff carbon mt. bike shoes. There was one section where we actually handed down our bikes to one another cause it was too steep to hold your bike and walk. The view was really pretty and then the downhill was nice as well. We then got to Wolg Gap park, and went up that hill, and that one was a pretty good climb almost cleared it, and I think I could next time, cause the last steep part, I didn’t know was the last steep part so I got off to save some energy. We were riding the ridge up there, riding these crazy rocks, that made me thank the gods I ride a dual suspension 29er. Jay was ripping it through these guys and I was holding my own. My stomach was not L I think it was the water we got from the Wolf Gap picnic area, had too much minerals in it. So we stop for a sec and I tell Sid to go in front of me cause I felt like he was breathing down my neck when he was behind me. He is going through the rocks pissed off, and then I hear him fall, and he really hurt himself. The chain ring on his bike made a chainsaw cut. I could see fat inside his calf. We had to get Jay who was way down the trail, he had the first aid kit. So Jay with my help put his wound together and then ace bandaged it, and then duck taped it for good measure. We had to get Sid off the mountain, so Jay and I road ahead and Steve and Sid were behind us. The downhill we had just come up was a sweet one going down, the kind that is long enough that your calves hurt. We were really lucky that there was an older couple in the parking lot who helped us out by taking Jay to the car and Sid to the hospital. Well in the end Sid got fixed up in Reston since the Woodstock hospital had a 4 hour wait. The Reston emergency room gave him 16 staples inside and 8 outside as well as good drugs to deal with the pain. Hopefully he will be ready to ride at Big Bear. So we road a total of 12-14miles took us 2 hours, so no epic ride but a good story. I think we will try to tackle this again sometime, cause this was Jay’s second attempt, and something stopped him this time too. So maybe the third attempt will be the one that actually makes it through the whole thing. Next weekend is the Mt. Bike festival at Stokesville should be a good time!