Kenny Carlile

We headed out to Diamond Mill today to try to cash in on a rare beautiful day in February. I'd never been to Diamond Mill, but I was quickly impressed. The trails, while sparsely sprinkled across the map, are pretty good. The day started out with a brief mechanical problem, but we resolved it and were under way. Pax and rode around the staging area while Dena watched him and the dogs since she didn't feel like riding today.

We hit snow a few times, but nothing major. The biggest obstacle was running into closed trails. There was a lot–scratch that, a TEXAS BUTT-TON–of downed timber from this winter's storms. We hit probably 5 dead-end trails because of down timber, which sucked because they looked like great trails. Still, we had a great day. Thanks to Paul for leading most of the day and navigating me around this new (to me) area.

This was also my first ride with the new DRD exhaust…and holy crap was it awesome. The bike finally has the power I wanted. It rides more like a 300 or 350, compared to the 250 that it used to be. Or rather, it probably just rides like a properly-breathing 250, more like the CRF250R version. I have no problem lifting the front wheel now and it has the grunt in corners and hills like I want. The DRD and the HotCam stage 1 are an awesome combination.

One thing that I need to remember is to take a photo of my GPS data at the end of the day. There's no way to save the real-time stats, like miles-per-hour, etc., and even though I turned off tracking, the real-time data kept going. Garmin, you should fix this in the next software release. Let us save snapshots of the real-time data, or at least freeze it. Still, I love this thing. I'm really enjoying learning how to use it and mapping my rides.

Hopefully later in the year there will be more open trails. I'm anxious to head back to Diamond Mill when the weather is warmer and I have a full day to explore.

Diamond Mill 2/21/09 Morning

Diamond Mill 2/21/09 Afternoon

To celebrate the anniversary of a friend of mine surviving and recovering from a paralyzing neurological disease, Dave took Brandon and me on his annual "sick day" ride. Dave picked Shotgun Creek in the Cascades, SE of Albany, which was a bit of a drive, but well worth it to ride some new trails that I'd never been on before. I was pretty tired and sore from my crash the previous day at Giles' track, but I couldn't pass up Dave's ride. It was 34 degrees when we got out of the truck and very humid from a lot of recent rain in the area. Still, we bundled up and headed off with Dave as our guide.

Dave rides a Husky TE450, which is technically a dual-sport, but you'd never know that from the way he rides it. Some of the trails were mildly tacky and other trails were downright brownies soaked in chocolate pudding. Hillclimbs were a challenge, but so were steep downhills. It's hard for me to give a good, honest read on the trails since they were so slippery and rutted. I think the place would be a blast in the summer and early fall when it's much drier. Still, it was a great day of riding. We saw some beautiful scenery, including an amazing view from a trail along a cliff. It really walked the line between "wow, this is beautiful" and "holy crap, this is scary".

Toward the end of the day, my bike died on a small hill. At first, I thought I just didn't get enough of a run at it and failed with the clutch, but then the rear end wouldn't roll at all. I dragged the bike the short distance back to the main road (the hill was right off the road) to try to figure out what was wrong with it. With the bike in neutral, I tried to spin the rear wheel, but the chain was locked hard. I could see that the chain was bulging away from it's normal position on the countershaft sprocket. Brandon came back to check on me shortly and he had some tools with him. He pulled my case saver, which gave the chain room to move and I spun the wheel dislodging the rock or stick that was under the chain. The chain had raised up enough that it bit into my case saver and just locked in place. Thanks to Brandon for having tools with him and helping me out!

Throughout the day, we staged some great photos. Dave is an amazing photographer and it was a blast to have him out there with us. (Dave Schelske Photography) You can see some of his photos below the slide show of my pics from the day. At one point, we staged a great photo, but I tipped over right after the awesome shot (see below) and Dave caught me rolling on the ground laughing. It looks like I'm in agony after hitting the tree, but I'm really just laughing at how silly it was to tip over after an awesome shot.

I wore my Leatt Brace all day and fell pretty comfortable with it. I had to adjust the back piece so that I could stand and look far enough up the trail, but that was pretty minor and I needed to do it anyway. I'm still really happy with my Leatt and I definitely feel safer. This was also my first time riding with my new Garmin 60CSX GPS unit and as soon as I figure out how to export the routes, I'll post our morning and afternoon rides here.

It was muddy, slippery, grueling, tiring, and we only went 29 miles in 6 hours…but it was a great day of riding. Thanks, Dave.

Shotgun Creek 2/8/09 Morning

Shotgun Creek 2/8/09 Afternoon

A friend of mine had invited us to come out to his private track for some riding a while back and we were unable to make it that day. Last Friday, I got my suspension back from Pro Motion Suspension in Vancouver, WA after having new Factory Connection springs installed and having the forks and shock rebuilt with new valving and new seals. This was also my first time wearing my Leatt Brace Moto GPX Club.

Pax had recently decided that he wanted to start riding again, but the track was a little too much for him yet, so he just putzed around on Giles' property. Dena tried out the track, but it was pretty slippery in places and it was not a terribly beginner-friendly track in places, especially while wet/muddy/icy. That said, it's a great track, especially for a private track in your front yard. I'd give my third kidney to have a track like that at my house!

Having home court advantage, Giles ripped up the track, including working on his nac nacs over the 90 foot stepup jump, the biggest of three stepups on the track. I had a great time, but struggled a bit. I just didn't feel confident between the slippery conditions and the more advanced doubles. Still, I had a great time riding the track and trying out my new suspension. It was definitely an improvement in handling to be able to ride the bike in the sweet spot of the springs.

Toward the end of the day, I decided to start going for the smallest of the stepups, which is still about 50 feet. Giles said something to the effect of, "You just have to come out of the corner and pin it in third and overjump it." After a couple less-than-ballzy attempts, I decided to go for it…and I overjumped it…and apparently my shock was a little stiff because I rebounded up into a ledge, hit a tree, flipped over the bars, feel off the 6-8 foot ledge, and landed flat on my back/neck/head. The bike fell down off the ledge and then flopped on to my leg, which didn't hurt, but did pin me to the ground as I was sucking wind trying to get my breath back. I got my bell rung pretty good too with an instant massive headache.

Eventually, got got up, restarted the bike and headed back to the truck. I was done for the day. I don't know that the Leatt Brace prevented me from breaking my neck. It's probably unlikely that I would have broken my neck based on how I landed. What I do know is that it's 5 days later now and my neck is still stiff and sore. I'm glad that I had my Leatt Brace on. I have no doubt that it lessened the injury I would have had. I'm very confident in this product and strongly recommend it to everyone. I know it's expensive, but your life and your neck are worth a lot more than a few hundred bucks.

Thanks again to Giles for having us out to our awesome track. Maybe next time I'll be able to take advantage of it more.