June 22, 2011 Thunder Mountain

Fred at Baldy Falls at the end of the ride. Baldy Falls

Fred on downhill of steepest part of ride.

Looking up the STEEP part of the ride.

Fred's trusty steed with CCS and GRR in the

background.

Fred on top of Thunder Mtn.

Never thought I would see him pushing a

bike up hill, on either dirt or pavement. LOL

Fred's bike with mine hiding in the corner.

My ride.

Work getting done on the first tower below

the Notch.

Another ride of firsts. Fred up at 6 AM for a ride, and him doing something I never thought I would see. More about that later. He was good to his word that he would be ready at 6 AM, ready to roll right when I pulled up. Fred is not an early riser, as anyone that rides with him knows. We hit Manker Flats and where on the bikes right at about 7 AM, early by even my standards. The first paved part of the ride had me huffing and puffing, as starting at over

6000 feet elevation always does to me. Took me a while to catch my second wind, but even then I couldn't keep up with Fred, which is usually the case. We had the road mostly to ourselves with a few hikers thrown in to make sure we were paying attention. Made the Notch in one piece, and found a source of water, which was a good thing. After resting for a short while, we took off for the top. It wasn't too far up the road before I hit soft sandy areas and had to walk a few short stretches. Man am I OUT OF SHAPE. LOL And throw in being over 8000 feet now and you have a recipe for some very heavy,short breathing. Trying to keep Fred in sight wasn't even a consideration, as I had told him earlier to not worry about me and for him to ride his pace. After getting off and on the bike at a few hard spots, we finally got to the base of the crux of the ride, the last quarter mile to the top of Thunder. Fred saw it and just laughed. I had already known about it, but he didn't know just how steep it was going to be. Well he found out soon enough. Even he wouldn't think of trying to ride up it, as steep as it was. He had told me he had pulled back on his handle bars lower down on a steep part and got his front wheel off the ground, and there was no way he would be able to get up this even steeper part, so we hiked the bikes. Even doing that was harder than hell. Push the bike up 3 feet, put on the breaks, then haul ourselves up 3 feet. What a way to go. After what seemed like forever, but was only maybe 10 minutes or so, we got to where we could see the top of the ski lift at the summit and claimed our prize. The view from the top, quite spectacular. After hanging out for a while, we headed back down, taking a different way than going straight down that ridiculously STEEP part. Once at the base of the steep, we hopped back on the bikes and headed down. The upper part of the ride, above the Notch, dowsn't get as much use as below the Notch and the road is a lot sandier and loose in places, so paying attention is mandatory. Had a good ride down, interrupted by meeting 2 guys that we stopped and talked to for a while. They were hiking but rode bikes also. so they were interested in what we had done. After leaving them, it was only a matter of minutes before we were back at the car. Nice day in a great place, even including all the bugs. Yucchhhh.