Tank Badge Idea for Paul

My riding friend has been looking into tank badges lately.  Being as he's an avid fan of "all things Welsh," I thought this might be a great place to start!  Here's a nice Welsh mock-up tank job for you Paul.

The New KLX250S: "Each Smear Under $5,000"

You have to love Japanese translations!  I just lucked upon a small article on the upcoming Kawasaki KLX250S for 2012.  Click the following link to learn how "...handlebars pull all together for a long, happy days on the road and sour." 

  Rooks reery good in red.

Itching to Try Blackjack Ridge Routes

Paul:  I'm checking out these trails up Blackjack Ridge:  "A" is a right turn at the Y where we last found the alternative to the Tank Traps.  It goes way up the ridge and it looks like a pile of fun.  "B" is a dead-end route up Blackjack Ridge that looks like it could be a great view point and a fairly easy steep ride.  Have you done either before?  I want to try these one nice day when the snow clears!

"B" is a 245m climb over 1.5km

"A" is a 589m gain over 8.26km

They look really good in 3D!  :)

red/cyan glasses needed

red/cyan glasses needed

Stupid snow!

Tank Traps, Shmank Traps: A Second Route Emerges

It was a nice cool and clear Sunday so Paul called me to arrange a ride.  We met up at one of our local SBucks and disappeared off towards the usual Weigles Road entrance.  After stopping for a few minutes so that Paul could adjust his Nancy Boy vest heater we bumped into a another bike rider who described an alternative route we could use to avoid the tank traps entrance into the logging roads.  We decided to go in via the traps with the possibility of exploring for the alternative after fishing at Boomerang Lake.

Here's the route we took (1 to 14):

(Click to Enlarge)  The Route from Points 1 to 14

The Route (Zoomed Out)

We got through the very sludgy tank traps after stopping to remove small logs from the nastier section that had been left there by quad riders. We continued along our standard route to the back of Boomerang Lake.  What a surprise when we got there:  Whoaaaaah, who built the dock?  Someone has driven their 4x4 piled with planks of what looks to me like yellow cedar, and they've built an outstanding little fishing ramp/dock on the back side of the lake RIGHT AT MY FISHING SPOT.  I almost wrote them a thank-you note! 

The New Fishing Dock

Way more people out here than usual.

Paul's Broken Rod!  "Oh, it's okay," he says, "I have another just like it at home.  They're my daughters'."  (Say no more).

The Legendary "Gandalf Cast"  Using a Traditional Magic Wand Length Fishing Rod

After having little luck, he later changed into his Hogwarts gear for some heavy duty "Gandalf Casting"

We got fed up after breaking a rod and catching no fish, (although Paul did find some great looking chanterelle mushrooms while off sulking in the woods).  It was time to go exploring and see if we could find that alternate route back to Weigles without using the tank traps.  We rode around Boomerang and kept left at the Y past the lake's standard "boat ramp."  A further left took us through a complete loop after which we explored three more spurs off the main logging road.  The first spur lead to a small quarry area where sandy gravel is taken presumably to build and grade the logging roads.  This area has many hundreds of empty shotgun cartridges where frustrated hunters go to blow off rounds of ammunition for no reason.  The second spur took us above what I am dubbing "Thruxton Lake" after my fantastic Triumph, (although if Mark R. reads this blog it will surely become "Mark Lake" since he has promised to try and join us in the spring).

Overlooking Thruxton Lake

On we went, using Paul's amazing iPhone to point the way towards Weigles Road.  We screamed up a pretty steep hill towards the end which Paul recognised as one he had travelled in the opposite direction with Ryan on a previous ride.  At that point we knew we were pretty close to one of the yellow gates at Weigles Road.
 

Steeper Than it Looks!

  We came out through the same yellow gate that Ryan had taken us through towards the end of the summer.  It was a terrific ride.  I'm not sure that it's any easier than going through the tank traps, but it was a lot of fun and we'll likely take this route many times in the summer.

(Click to Enlarge).  Here's an elevation profile taken from Google Earth.  The chart shows the red "alternative to the tank traps" route from left to right.  It begins at the large red arrow, (393m) and runs the length of the alternate route until it reaches Weigles Rd.

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3D Photo:  View with Red/Cyan 3D glasses.

The Steep Hill in 3D.  WoooooooW!!!

They're Not Roman Candles...

Man, that was an interesting ride!  I just went out for a quick ride to see if I could access the local logging roads using the Vipond Rd. entrance.  I was hoping to find an alternative route to the standard "tank traps" entrance which has become boggy and more difficult to get through these days.  I didn't find one up Vipond Rd. way.  The road terminates in a Y; the left gated entrance looks very private and well-groomed (not an option), and the right is an extremely well-blocked logging road gate.  I decided to ride up the boggy trail to the tank traps with a mind to turn around if the rain should start up.  Rain be damned... it hailed, and the wind picked up to the point that it was clearly time to return home.  This is where the ride got really interesting.

I returned along Biggs Rd through an instant and quite nasty wind storm that had just started up.  I could see smoke directly ahead of me and a mixture of redish and green colours rising off the road.  "Bloody kids," I thought, "they're lighting roman candles on the road ahead."  (We're still finding the remnants of Halloween fireworks around our house even though Halloween is supposedly done).  As I rode closer I discovered it was in fact a very large tree that had just come down seconds before.  It had crossed and completely blocked the road, bringing several substantial power lines down with it.  A large fire started up around the coloured flashes and a distinct electrical fire smell filled the air.  My first thought was "Ooooh, that will look good on my blog," but I considered the insulative properties of my tires and I wondered if my shoes shared the same poor conductive properties on the wet road.  I turned the bike around and viewed the fire from a safer distance, putting my feet on the ground this time.  I didn't take a photo.  :(  It was a much safer idea to just get the hell out of there and report it).

I passed a fire truck closer to home.  They had blocked Mostar Road to clean off branch debris that had landed in the area.  I stopped and reported the fire and downed lines to them.  Finally got home to a power outage.  Vicki told me the instant wind storm had hit at home too.  Power just came back on a few minutes ago.  Bike's still out... Better go put it away now that I can open the garage door.

All the Routes So Far

With all of this wet weather it looks like a good time to collect an inventory of the local trails I've ridden to date.   Here's the collection, minus a few little spur trails here and there that didn't get recorded:

 
Click to enlarge.