A year later, and it seemed to be a whole different trail.   And not being totally shell-shocked, i got to appreciate the appropriateness of the name and just how rugged Goat Camp is.   i also had a pretty good time!

Alex, Ray and I piled into the New Old truck (with room for 1 more and their bike!!!   ) and joined an MTBR ride out at White Tanks.   This has been a once-a-year ride for me, which is just right.   The 60 mile drive completely across the Valley, traffic on the West siiiide, the total lack of shade, and the abuse on body and bike make it hard to do it more.     I snapped a bolt holding the triangle around the pivot, same as I had done at Rancho Relaxo 4 last year — guess i did the other side this time.   Last year, the Goat was the hardest DH I had ever done.   Still is, but damn if this time it all didn’t slow down and I could see my progression and see how 1, 5 or 10 more runs and I’d get better each time.   Not surprising – a year, 15 runs down 24th St., and numerous other gnar on Corona Loma, Geronimo, National and so many other steeps were good training.   The Goat is still the King.

I knew about half the gang, and the 1.75 hour, 10 mile climb rolled off me pretty easy.   That was encouraging as I’ve been trying to stop being such a fat sack of crap post-holidays.   The scale says I’ve dropped about 2.5 lbs, but the legs said it much more emphatically.   I had a nice time going from the front to the back to the front again on the climb, great weather and chatter, and the Goat never started bleating in my head as we armored-up for the drop-in.

Mind over matter, don’t let the fear in, there is no spoon.

I’d like to say I had huge get after huge get, but I’m happy to say I had fun and stayed relaxed.   The initial drop in is one of the worst few stretches — super-steep, totally loose, drops, turns…only flaming pools of oil and piranas could make it harder.   I hit what I could, I walked what I couldn’t, I did not dwell on it.   Then its loose and chunky leading to the Spiral Staircase.   The staircase has about 5 moves, the 4th is a tight switchback lining up onto a nasty rock chute…if you can come off the first 3 bouncy jagged moves with enough poise to roll the switchback and carry momentum into the rock chute…you will not crash.   I look at it this way — after the first move on my first two tries i thought gawdang this is chunky, but by the 3rd try i was saying – ugly is the operative word, roll on. I think next time I will get it.

I had a great karma moment here too.   Louis (SunDog) was having mechanicals and was out of water – I had a bunch left so gave him a pint.   No big deal really, but it felt good to do him a solid after he was so patient showing me around Area 52 a year earlier and helping teach me how to jump.

The next couple minutes are big chunky drop after drop, and coming after 10 or 15 minutes of gnar and the Spiral Staircase, the challenge is to stay focused for move after move.   I did good, I found a place to fight the battle that was relaxed and wary and aggressive all at once, but i was really glad for the breather when we stopped to hit Jackhammer.   I gave it one shot, I saved myself for the last third of the downhill.   The pitch mellows but the rocks become embedded and there are no breaks for relief.   And then you are done, back at the parking lot, just like that.   Its 40 minutes riding time down, took us 1.5.

a vid from Kathleen of some of our adventures can be found here: (sneaky DG moved her vid off vimeo!)