General 'Routledge' discussion thread

[hurricane harry]

I would never had attempted something like that on my own.
But looking back on it now I am glad we did it, something I am sure none of us will ever forget.

Yes the rest of my weekend went great, down through Nighthawk border crossing, and North Cascades home. Stunning scenery in BC and WA.


Cheers to you Peter, and all the rest of my Canadian friends.

[JavaJude]

I had a fantastic 2011 Routledge Run! . It was great to meet up with old friends and make new ones.

I was part of the best riding group: Ian, Randy, Nick and Dave (had to leave early due to an injury, photo to follow)

Here are my photos:

I had the best job as I got to meet everyone who signed in


Beautiful start to a beautiful day


Starting to get a bit warm so it was time to remove a couple of layers


The start of the first hard option



Dave took a bit of a spill (this hill is steeoer than it looks)


Once we got Dave's bike fixxed and got him back down to the main line it was time to continue


We came across all kinds of wild and not-so-wild life


The hard way up Apex



Part way up Apex


Hhhmmmm bear claw prints . . .


Beautiful views


Awesome trails


Some pavement


Coming down Nickelplate

[radek]

Here is my photo stream. Great trails and I was super stoked on the snow traverse. It's not something you attempt everyday and it opened my mind up what is possible with some hard work and determination.


Bikes lined up outside


The first snow hit on the climb up


At first it was easy enough to power through it


Then everyone needed some help to get through the deeper uphills


The bigger bikes would sink in

Then we hit an area with a bunch of wind or avalanche fall wich needed to be cut, cleared, and passed.








A small patch of dry at the peak. It is all downhill from here, right? wrong


At first the downhill was rideable.


The grade flattened out and the snow in the valley became softer.




A call was made to move each bike one at a time with a team of 3 or more.

Finally the downhill grade increased and we could roll though the snow. Even though we hit dry patches, some corners we would get stuck at some deep snow.
Then we were rolling down the trail which pretty much was a small river



And then we made it to dry ground.


It was about 8 hours to traverse a few kilometers. Unfortunately shortly after this I decided I wanted to go a bit faster and made a mistake on a corner and tweaked my leg. Coming around a corner ,half the road which i was on was bombed our with logs, I avoided the logs just in time, but dabbed with my right leg at speed and I think it bent 90 deg side ways. I thought it was busted at first.
Xrays are ok but probably mcl is done.

I always ride with a good safety margin and I have never had an accident in the years of racing and riding motos, but this day something was off. Sometimes it's not the bike or the trail that gets you but the mental state. It's an odd thing, but for some reason I thought that I should be riding faster and make up time or something silly like that.

My bad judgement and I feel pretty bad about it.

Thanks for the good times guys, I wish I would have made it further. Great event and trail.

Radek

[tomcycle]

That snow was too much, even for an optimist like myself

What doesnt kill us makes us stronger.......right?

Hindsight being 20/20, we should have turned around when we hit the trees. I also notice the faces showing signs of stress as the hours went by, not a good sign
Everyone held it together and persevered to get through, two thumbs up to all of you I would ride with any one or all of you to anywhere, at anytime to anyplace.

You all are stand up kind of people (even those who took big bikes) Thanks for what could have turned into a disaster and made it a triumphant success

Tom

[Bora20]

I would ride with any one or all of you to anywhere, at anytime to anyplace.

LOL, but would they ride with you? If they do, they will definitely bring BBQ sauce next time just in case...

[Big Boar]

I guess you guys in the snow did'nt get to complete the loop? Were you going to go through the old townsite of Blakeburn? The reason I ask is I was camping at the lookout on Friday, Sat., and Sunday and saw some trails marked right past our camp.
Big

[Fbomb]

LOL, but would they ride with you? If they do, they will definitely bring BBQ sauce next time just in case...

Fava beans and a nice Chianti

[radek]

Have a bunch of videos from the ride, I'll get them up here as I upload them. Here is the first one.

http://www.pinkbike.com/video/205181/

This is the first climb out of boston bar.

[SouthPoint]

Here is my video of what I consider to be some of the highlights of the C route. With all that amazing scenery, it was hard to render 2 hours of video down to about 12 minutes.

That wasn't really a crash that occurs at 10:17. I just got mad at the ground and decided to jump off the bike and body check it. Just ask Farp and offworlder. They were at the top of the hill watching.

The camera lens is about the size of a nickle. Why do the bugs always go "splat" in the centre?

Once again, a BIG thank you to all of the sponsors, organizers, volunteers, etc. that worked so hard to put on this fantastic event. I'm looking forward to trying the B route next year as my knee should be up to the task by then.

[Farp]

Another great job Ted, thanks. Next time instead of body checking the ground just stomp on it, works a lot better.

John

[SouthPoint]

Next time instead of body checking the ground just stomp on it, works a lot better.
John

It might work better, but you gotta admit, the body checking method makes for much better video!

[KTM-Bryon]

I edited my video into these two:

Day 1 - The B-route. AKA -the hard route. Now know as the snow route day.
http://youtu.be/b4FX85Ud6Po

Day 2 - Single track, quad trails, and FSR's on the B-route.
http://youtu.be/fBCzEsOCdMo