The Cascade 150 Dualsport - Saturday
This was the second year of the Cascade 150, hosted by the Oregon_DSR Group. The two lead guys, Gary and Dale did a splendid job of laying out a great course. I showed up rather late on Friday night after a nightmarish drive to avoid a parking-lot situation on I5 leaving Portland. Upon arriving I was greeted by Gary and then Danno had a spaced reserved for me and my little Skank Trailer. Upon getting set up, it was fun times around the campfire with Jim, Sharon, Danno, Dawn and anyone else that cared to join us. The night ended with Mt. Scott's Steve and Mike joining Danno and I around the campfire in a competition to see how off key we could sing, no doubt much to Jim and Sharon's chagrin.
Saturday morning my trailer door was being knocked by my gracious neighbor Jim, since he and Sharon already had the coffee pot on, which got me the kickstart I needed. After visiting, it was time to help Gary setup for his Cascade 150 signup and get ready myself for the ride. It had been raining during the night, but was showers instead of a downpour. By signup time it was merely a mist, which set up the dirt to be perfect - enough water to settle the dust, but not create slime. After the rider's meeting, Danno and I did our usual snail's crawl to get ready and we were barely off before the sweep crew - doh!
I picked up a cheap helmet cam the day prior and this was to be the maiden voyage. It was cheap, but was worth a try to see if I wanted to get a nice one. Danno and I took off and headed South into the mountains. We eventually stopped, I toggled on the helmet cam, and then followed him up a fun, little two-track ditty towards the summit.
CLICK HERE to watch the video. It was our first time with this thing, so gimme some slack!
(Note: I just noticed that YouTube condenses the video, which incorporates a weird, red blotch on the screen. Odd and annoying, but oh well)
At the top of the section, we came upon Joe and Don, who were just packing things together after fixing a rear flat on Don's big BMW. Also at this point, Bruce (from Grants Pass) showed up. Then Danno and I took off with Bruce in our wake. Up at the top it was quite dark and dank with mist peppering the goggles and the occasional rain drops popping my helmet, but as we started back down towards the valley, it started to open up a bit. We could even see blue skys - yes!
We stopped at Dale's Check, then did a pavement scrape to the bottom of Sardine Creek. Danno said he hadn't been on it, but heard it was cool. I again set up my helmet cam to record and had Joe and Don get in front, followed by Danno and Bruce. For some reason the cam would randomly shut off after a bit (don't know why yet), but I did get a bit of video of it.
CLICK HERE to watch the video of us starting up Sardine Creek.
Unfortunately the cam stopped recording by the time we got to the really good stuff - oh well. We then went along the tops of the mountains, took a few pix, and I entertained everyone by doing a dork maneuver of falling over backing off a small mound of dirt. Cool, got my crash out of the way, so I was good for the rest of the day!
Continuing on, we passed by Opal Lake and that's when we had the surprise of the day. We came upon three guys dressed in full-on “Rendezvous” gear straight out of the 1700s! I just couldn't resist and asked if I could get a couple photos of them with us. Sift through my collection of pix and check these guys out - too cool! Then Dive asked if he could shoot one of their cap-and-ball relic guns - now THAT was funny, I don't care who you are! What the heck is a Rendezvous, you ask? I found this link that sort of describes what it’s all about: http://www.over-land.com/rendez.html
CLICK HERE to watch Divey pop his gun!
Danno, Bruce and I then sailed on down the road, found the coffee can remote check of trinkets, stocked up and took off again. On the way back, we decided to side step the route and rode to Gates for lunch at the local Mexican Restaurant - tasty.
At the finish, they had some seriously, fun games, such as golfing with baby toys, blind-man darts, and Julie's classic ball-swinging game - big fun!
CLICK HERE to watch Bruce swing his balls.
After the points were tallied, the winners were announced, and for some reason, I actually won the event overall - woohoo! Richard won the GarminV GPS - nice! I'd like to specifically thank Gary and Dale for their huge efforts at setting this gig up and for the good times setting it up too. Mad props also to the other Oregon_DSR peeps who helped with the rest of the event - thanks! No if's, ands or buts, Gary and Dale WILL host the event again - right guys?
"Coach" Ramey hosted an extremely informative "How To Ride" seminar during the evening. I've always heard about his expertise and knowledge regarding your body and how to make it work better for riding, and his seminar did not disappoint. Thanks Coach, you rock! And thanks for answering my silly questions.
The Scaredy Cat Dualsport Ride - Sunday
Once again, Jim came knocking on my door at 6am, but this time with a full carafe of java. What great service! And rightfully needed too, as my girlfriend, Ellen, showed up Saturday night and we both didn't sleep too well, so needed the kickstart on our tickers.
This was another of our NW Tour & Trail events, set up by Danno. At signup, Danno had all his ducks in a row, and at the rider's meeting he patiently explained how his event worked. To summarize, it was a dualsport, geo-cache, treasure-hunt type of event, and last year was the first of its kind. I like how Danno thinks outside the box and added some variety for the riders. During the meeting, George shared his bruises after running into the back of Jim!
After the riders left, Danno, Dawn, Jim, Sharon, Ellen and I all headed up to the town of Detroit to run the checkpoints, which were divided up in the town. After breakfast we spread out and watched the fun as the riders came trickling in. At the Scales Check, the riders were extremely creative on how they weighed their bikes and their efforts to add more. Ellen and I mainly hung out with Danno and Dawn at the Trash Check, and once again the riders didn’t disappoint! Bruce was lucky enough to find a hidden hubcap for max points, whereas Gary found an actual spare tire to turn in, also for max points – too funny! Hard to believe, but I actually forgot my camera heading to the checkpoints, so only was able to take a couple shots with my wimpy cellphone camera – sorry.
At the finish, I set up a slow test to challenge the riders. To add flavor, I added a four-by-four that the riders had to navigate over, while going over the course. This test was wrought with entertainment, like George, who ran over the parking-lot log.
At the end of the day, there was a two-way tie for first between Dan M. and Mike. The tie breaker was for both guys to ride Danno’s wee 50cc Yamaha in another slow test and Mike won by a scant one second!
Danno can chime in on the rest of the ride, so post your input Danno! You riders do the same thing! Good job, Danno, and I look forward to helping you out again when possible.
CLICK HERE to see all my photos.
See ya’ll at the next ride!
-Tom
