Saturday night I start calling the posse' but fall asleep, due to excessive trail maintanence with THCM and BM..  I call Ankle Biter, to temp him with dirtying up his wheels..  AB's been hittin the pavement more often than rookie hits the pipe..   So AB is anxious to ride but has no bike and no car, THCM is sleeping like a dead rock, I ass-ume', leave a message with barbie who is probably drunk waterskiing or something dangerouse..

Sat am, I try calling more peeps, TTT's phones busy, AB is putting his bike together, Barbie and THCM call they are in..  So pick up AB and we get to see pre-ride carnage - blood bath on the garage floor - AB was so impressed that he put his entire drive train on with a diving knife..   So we meet at the commuter lot, swap AB over to THCM, and speed over to wendy's where I eat AB's bacon cheesburger delux..  We hear rumbling in the distance, but deem it very large trembling sheet metal..  Onward, AB and THCM almost get in a fight with a motorcyclist dude wearing a funny outfit with firemans yellow hat - he yells at them for cutting him off - AB calls him a dickwad, can dress him up in spandex, but you cant take him out..

To the parking lot, Barbie shows and we have a team, hear rumbling again, but it must be barbies hopped up audi..  Ok, its now thundering, what should we do??   We gather everyones knowledge of the dangers of lightning ("your safer on a bike, in the woods, than in a car, because metal attracks lightning", "As long as we are headed into the woods, and not a field we are fine" "the rubber tires will protect us" "if you count the seconds between the rumbles, thats how many miles away the lighting actually is, but, lighting can travel 10 miles, so we are focked" - Too funny, just as I wrote that I heard thunder outside, this recap is ALIVE..   So that being said, we follow directions up to the TOWER..  Its a climb, but AB loves the road..

Get to the top, there are like 3 towers, directions say to take the trail by the tower, hmmm..  One tower has a sign that says it is "UNSAFE" so Barbie being the suicidal blonde indestructible blow up doll that he his, starts climbing rungs and poses for the camera that is in the Xterra..   So we take the ST, Pretty sweet trail, wet, really wet, one short up, to road just as we suspect.. BUT and its a big BUTT - this is the trail we went up!! Confusion, start heading back up hill and im immediataly apprehensive - "I didnt see no stinking trail up here"..   Finally everyone beleives me later, go back, find the left on singletrack and head out..  Pretty bushwacky, but turns solid..  Good trail..  ONe section im looking at a drop, and almost go ATB in the rocks, AB does the same, but GOES atb in the rocks, lands on his assienipple..   Keep getting out the 5 lines of directions, that say the same thing each time, 2.5 miles downhill with some forks and turns..  Great, so descriptive..  Find our way, way downhill to a high tech wedge wier, then no tresspassing, backtrack, to UPHILL trail, HAB that turns to nice Singletrack twisty trail..  Barbie had some great cartoon character moves on this section, the wet slickrock stationary bike trainer move, and the falling on face for no reason after rest move..Follow all the way down, and end up, 50 feet from the car..  So we hang at the lot - contemplating more riding on the east side..  2 girls come by, say hello and leave there bikes on someone elses car, take off, we are confused, must be a NY thing...  So AB is fighting Barbie for the slowest flat repair, with a floor pump I might add..   Its HOT..  THCM out of water already, I give him some hepatitis D agua.. 

PMD wasnt entirely satisfied with the tower side, PM letting her down again, at least you could fake it..  Back up the trail to slick rock, riding very tentaviley..   At one point, "where is PMD? is PMD coming", then I hear in the distance "ahhhhhh  fock" - there she is.. Barbie cleans the slick up in QM2, AB also gets it, second try's a charm for me.. Slip slidding away.. Bugs are out, back to main fire road, barbie andi I hit the wet log ride, heading back home on A-frame trail, find 2 spurs, one with new stunts, 4 footer, log ride, crazy ramp, another plank gaper..  

Back on trail, I play chicken with the WET A-frame - Ankle Biter rides it with style - PHEW, im thinking, I hope barbie got my Que and is skipping it!!   I look back and there is barbie riding it, looks good, hes going fast, TOO fast, hes hucking it!!   No hes not hucking it, hes not on the plank, hes rolling it, hes rolling the 5 footer, Everything goes slOOOOOOW MOOOOOTION, Front wheel dives off the log, AB and I half cover our eyes, his bike is vertical as his front wheel hits the ground, He tucks his head into his chest as his entire bike (is a blur) and he does a complete FLIP, landing on his back, camel back, kicking his bike off his feet and putting his hands up in the air as if to block it from landing on him, but it lands about 18 feet away and almost takes out PMD as she's riding by, but gets deflected from a poor helpless tree and bounces several times once it hits the ground..  The amazing thing, he gets right up, not even holding broken appendages, Hes fine, his bike is fine, his wheels are fine..  He must hot have gotten one of those santa cruz production models that were built on a friday afternoon like HLM!!!   Ankle biter already had his keys out to drive him the the ER and he doesnt even have a car...  We all thanked him for the show and for not dying, as james bond said - "die another day"  Mini towlets for everyone, we are drenched..

Back to car, we meet up with farmiliar faces - the K-crew - Gary, ish and company..  They lead us into temptation (to a local pub) - turkeys ready air conditioning , so ankle biter delivers us to evil and we end up at the greek diner instead.  AB needed to rush home to keep track of his new woman..  A record 3 1/2 week relationship.   This was bad from the start, the waitress is like follow me, with menus, and walks into the kitchen, then stops and says "wait", (probably stopped to think, and forgot to start again) comes back and sits us next to the elderly, and extremely disabled table of 24..  So this legless guy in a wheelchair has some sort of double jointed neck and lack of toungue control problem, whenever he hears our table conversation, neck rolls 90 degrees and toungue hits the gound, im already sick to my stomach..   The rest of the table is just rolling there faces and hair in there luke warm soup..  So anyway, we finally decide what to order, we even order off the menu..   She came back 3 times to check our complicated order..  Hours later our food arrives, 2 orders were correct, apparently grilled chicken = chicken salad.. Whatever, PMD and Barbie return, I eat my meat for fear of more contamination in the kitchen..  So the waitress is a totall C-bag, barley appologetic for her lack of a brain, we should just call her scarecrow..  So the scarecrow is filling up our water glasses, and pours too much into PMD's, so takes her USED lipstick stained water glass, pours some back into the picture and spreads all her germs to other tables..    I assure everyone that the HEP- D cankersoures are not that bad, you just cut them off with a rasor knife..   Meanwhile the escaped convict across the way keeps pulling this band off plastic across his forehead, and some other old guy is wandering around our table talking to himself.. Welcome to carmel NY..    We leave the watress the biggest most bestus tip she has ever gotten, so she can retire and never fock up our food again..  Not that we are ever coming back..  Ninham, nearest food - saratoga springs??   Actually the pub we started at might have been good, next time..

Other notes:  AB brought his pads for the road ride, in case he had to blow any other roadies on the way up the hill..

PMD did not complain about her bike being heavy ONCE!!!  Im so proud..

Ankle biter pulled an LB and ripped his seat apart to skip ride 2, forgot I had duct tape for all trailside repairs..

THCM has some old license plates - HIV A QT, which would explain some things..

AB is selling his intense, low miles, just a couple DENTS, only been hucked off 10 footers and below, very few crashes, less than 10 per ride, bike holds up to tons of abuse, high quality components such as gripshitters, XT hubs (yeah they never fail - ask focker), one sweaty, moldy delapadated seat, 2 seatposts, one thompson, one stubby that is covered in smelly brown stuff, sticky tires, (because before his women came along, he came on his bike), ok that was harsh and unfair, I dont know what kind of tires they were, new drive train that NEVER makes this noise (snap, clunk clunk clunk, patwang, click click click thud and patwang again..   Drop him a line and give him an offer, frame alone cost 2,000, but Ill bet hell take $2500 for the whole thing, so he can buy more roadie clothing and bic razors..  Ok im done..

Rating, 5 buckets of elderly druell, thats what they use in the deep fryer at the dinner, floating in the druell buckets you find, beer vomit batter chicken tenders, ass-cheese-cake, some pubic-crout, and bed pan french toast, with cankers and saddle soars sprinkled on top, for good measure..  Transation, 5 complete meals at the carmel diner, bet the cook has 5 fries up his ass as we speak..

PS - barbie - are you alive??

PSS - 10 miles 1533 vertical