Lumpy Gravy – A Ride in the Pine Nuts
Saturday, my buddy Scott (the one working on the Bike Carson logo) and I met at the Pine Nuts for a ride. It was sunny and clear with a decent breeze; perfect riding weather. We headed out from the main parking area where they stage the races and followed the road for about a mile before splitting off for some single track. In no time, we hit snowy sections and mud. Lots of it. Recent motorcycle traffic meant it was muddy and rutted. The undulating terrain was such that even non-north facing areas had snow and mud and just when it seemed we were on a good section, we’d turn a corner and be staring at snowfields and mud. It was very distraughtening.
A mile or two of this and no improvement in the conditions, we took the next jeep road which was dry and rode up that for awhile on a slight climb. After a lot of slogging and stop and plops thru snow, this was nice and it cleared the tires. We followed the road uphill for a mile or two and tried to figure out where some drier single track might be. Where the road split we found an impromptu landfill and stopped to consider the route options.
Unfortunately, the rear bumper on this old Ford was missing/was buried in trash, otherwise I might have found a Keep Nevada Rural bumper sticker. You could however catch up on the Febrary ’05 issue of Mountain Bike Action if you missed it.
Scott knows the trails out here quite well and thought if we continued on either fork of the road, up into the canyon, we’d likely run into more snow and mud, even on the road. So we turned around and backtracked until we reached Pine Nut road, hung a right and about a half mile up, crossed to the other side and picked up a narrow double track that segued into a good long, dry section of single track with great flow. This was a fun section, fast and packed with tight turns, rollers, whoop-de-doos, short climbs and some fast downhills.
We followed this all the way back to Pine Nut road, directly across from the parking area. By now, the bikes were mostly mud-free and put away when a heavy thirst set it. This was slaked by a brace of Dale’s Pale Ale and a Frank Zappa’s Lumpy Gravy ale from the Lagunitas Brewing Co.
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Lumpy Gravy…what a perfect name for the mud out there. That lumpy gravy polished the underside of my fork crown to a nice shiny silver!
That must be a new (old) truck. Never saw it before.
Amazing how much fun one could have at a small landfill. Usually one finds magazines of a different caliber in those locations…
Did you run into Dinah-Moe-Humm in that Cosmik Debris?
Can I interest you in a pair of Zircon encrusted tweezers? Here, lemme sterilize ‘em for you; gimme your lighter.
Will it help cure my bromhidrosis?
Yah know, my python boot is too tight. I couldn’t get it off last night…
That’s not the only thing that’s too tight.
Just think, that POS once sat on some new car lot all shiny and proud. Some greasy salesman was touting its towing capacity and reliability to some guy who needed to haul stuff. All just someone’s distant memory, an internet photo and a target now.
The riding looks great despite the cosmic debris. Who you jivin’ with that cosmic debris? Just me and the pigmy pony, I guess!
Potter just applied rotation on my sugar plum… I feel icky.
is that some bovine perspiration on your upper lip area?
Well, next time your out there remember to watch out where the huskies go. Myself, I got no natural rhythm, but I do go dancin’ every night.
Dude. What’s with flashing a snapper of Dale’s so far out of it’s natural habitat w/o saying where you got it? Is that available @ wallyworld down there?
-M
wolfy, i wish the dale’s was available here. my brother smuggled some out of CO to ID over xmas and i spirited it across the border into NV. turns out it’s available in idaho now too. despite my best rationing efforts, the current supply is dwindling.
I was wondering what ever happened to my old blue sofa…and boxes of stuff.
[...] weekend of April 18th, my buddy Scott (from Lumpy Gravy) and I converged at the Sea Otter Classic at the Laguna Seca Raceway. We were registered for the XC [...]