Hey! This is Brian and Josh's ride report. Stop trying to one-up everybody for a cotten pickin second!

 

199's a puzzy cat. If you are ever there, you gotta do it. I didn't really find that it was that bad this time around, not like last year. I think a lot of it is psychological. It looks very hard, but if you just hit it and maintain body position and balance, you'll go right over that stuff. But since it looks so treacherous, it psyches you out. Just don't think about it and you'll do fine.

Thanks Deej for linking it in the ride reports thread.

Eric, I tried to follow your link, but it says I need a login. If that's your report, maybe post it here on KF? I'll see about signing up at rufcut later tonight to read it.

I'll have more photos coming in the next few days as I sort through. Here's one that I missed getting in last night, this is about 1/3 the way up 199 where trail 197 goes off to the left. We went on up 199, turned around and came back down to this point, and then took 197. I have to say that 197 was a disappointment by comparison - nothing difficult, and mostly overgrown with briars. If someone were to clear out the briars, it would make a real nice fast flowing trail, though.

 

Nice!!!!! 199 looks painfull lmao

 

Looks Like alot of Good Times

 

That looks like so much fun! Your fortunate to have a fun spot relatively close, and to have a riding buddy with interests, skills, and equipment on par with yours.
Thanks for takin pics.
Dan

 

There is alot to be said for having buddies to ride with... we are consistantly having 12-20 guys per ride now...

 

I have downloaded the helmet cam clips off the camera and they look pretty good. There's a lot of video, though, so it will take some time to edit it down. I might separate out trail 199 by itself to fit more footage in, it turned out pretty good. As usual, though, the camera never quite does it justice, but it should be pretty entertaining anyway and give a better idea of how cool of a trail this is than the stills alone.

I've got some quad carnage coming up soon, too. HardTaco and I were taking a break and we thought we heard someone yell and then a crash, but it was a good distance off. We didn't think any more of it, but as we were descending one trail we came upon a whole bunch of quads with winches and ropes strung all around trying to winch up a big quad that went over the hill. Luckily, the rider bailed off and didn't go over the hill with the quad otherwise he would have been messed up good.

Also, at the place we stayed there is a river that goes by and a pretty deep pool crossing a channel. I actually crossed it on my KTM, not realizing it was so deep. Last year it was just a wheel or so deep, but the town flooded badly last year and must have washed out that channel. Coming back across was pretty sketchy, I thought for sure I was going to drown my bike, but I made it.

Anyway, I've got some shots of some guys on quads hitting that at high speed, I'll include those too. No photos of me doing, though. Sucks when you're the only one to bring a camera - you never get any photos of yourself doing stupid ****. That can be a good thing sometimes, too, I guess but that would have been pretty cool, though, the water was easily up to the seat and Josh said the rooster tail was about 20 feet high.

 

Thats a lot of guys !! I am not sure if I like bigger groups of riders, more people to keep track of, more problems that can happen. I seem to like when there is only 3 to 6 guys, but, either way, its all good as long as everyone is having fun.

 

We're going tommorrow ! We were there in April and it is an awesome place. We always hit Little Coal River on the way down for a 3 or so hour ride then stay til Saturday.

We hit that trail with the pipeline last year. It stopped us at the top and we had to turn around. I've only been riding a couple years and that was too much for me and the KLX suspension. We did most black trails on 4 of the different systems so we're not that bad but WHEW that power line was tough uphill. Is it easier in the other direction, I know we can go DOWN that !!!

 

Yeah, the stair step pipeline is trail 176. It's all pretty easy except for that one part near the top. I had a tough time of that one, too. The steps are pretty tall and if you lose momentum, you're done, because its nearly impossible to get restarted in the uphill direction. The front wheel is being blocked at the same time as the rear wheel, so you have to somehow overcome both simultaneously, all the while on a very steep incline that you can barely stand on with very little traction on the rock faces. Like I said on the other page, it was *hard*.

I'm guessing it didn't used to be that bad, but after years of erosion and narrow line selection going up, it's down to the bare rock and square edged stair steps, a lot of it loose and unpredictable. I thought that section was the hardest of the trip.

We eventually made it up, though. It comes out at 151 which is real nice. If you follow 151 out to the left, that comes out at the trailhead for 199. They're now putting in a pipeline at the top of 199. Here's the view from the top. This hill looking out is wicked steep. If you slipped up there, you wouldn't stop untill you rolled to the bottom however far down that is. Down at the bottom they have it blocked off so that people don't attempt to "hill climb" it. You know some idiot would try it.