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The 5, 40 and 80 MCCCT Ride
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[QUOTE="KTM Mike, post: 1289564, member: 22658"] [b]Day 4: Young Ted – “who needs a clutch anyhow” delSolar, Two Whoops Behind[/b] Day 4: Young Ted – “who needs a clutch anyhow” delSolar, Two Whoops Behind, Yet another beauty of a morning – a bit brisk early on, but nice – clear sunny skies. Out on the trail (uh…down the drive way that is!) shortly after 8:00. My Penton started up first kick (amazing what a little bit more air flow to the carb will do for ya!). We were all feeling rather good after a good nights sleep. I was so happy to finally be riding along with Ted on his Penton – the Penton part of this ride was back in full stride now! The first 40 miles or so of this day would be very familiar territory, the next 40 not quite so familiar, but trails I have ridden multiple times. About 6 miles of road to start with, then onto some two tracks, and single track MCCCT, hitting the northwest corner of the Hunt Creek Loop around 11 miles out from home. The MCCCT runs down the west side of Hunt Creek, then where Hunt Creek and Mio Loops are on common trail, the MCCCT heads east a bit, taking us down the east side of the Mio Loop, then hooking around west to the parking lot near Muskrat Lake. From Muskrat Lake, we would do a bit of two track and some back roads, and end up crossing M-72 just west of Luzurne and enter the Meadows Trail system, from there into the Rose City and Ambrose Lake Trails along with the MCCCT connecting them, and leading to the Ogemaw Hills trails to our day’s end a few miles north of West Branch. (at the last spot the trail crosses Fairview Road). This day has very little road, two tracks or ORV route – I would say the least of all 5 days of riding. Worse yet, it had the maximum amount of whoops. The plan was for around 108 miles of riding, but our actual would come in closer to 118 miles for some reason. (hello Willie?) Our ride down the majority of the west side of Hunt Creek was uneventful. We found the trail fairly well maintained, evidence of grooming in the not to distant past for a good bit of it. There was one brutal long whooped out section – straight as an arrow (it is on an old rail road grade I think) with DEEP nasty whoops – not fun on a modern bike, certainly not fun on a 31 plus year old Penton! This section has remained 100% ungroomed for the last 8 or more years that I am aware of – yet has super easy road access at either end. I don’t see why they would not at least do this section from time to time, particularly knowing that they have groomed other sections very close by multiple times in the same time frame. But we all toughed it out – part of the challenge of riding I guess. I don’t see how Ted does those whoops on the Penton like he does. That whoop section beat me bad! While still up on the Hunt Creek Loop Ted has a clutch cable break. We send Mark and Mitch to ride down the west side of the Mio Loop (shorter ) to the parking lot to get a spare cable Ted has in the van, and bring it back to us. Ted was going to attempt a clutchless ride with some help with a push for starting off, the boys would meet up with us after they got the cable, just in case. Now, it is just good luck Ted happened to have a spare cable with him. While we were planning this ride, just this circumstance occurred to me as a possibility. So I asked if he had any spares for the Penton (I did not) . His response was, yes he had some, but had not planned on bringing any, but as I had asked, would throw some in. Good thing I asked! So the boys rip off in search of the spare cable, I give Ted’s bike a big shove to get him rolling, while he slams it into gear clutchless. It did not take long for Ted to find a comfortable pace, doing clutchless up and down shifts as needed. He stalled a few times – so the shove and slam into gear approach got him rolling again. We did meet up with a guy on a brand new looking KTM 530 – nice guy who may pop up as a new user on DRN after I told him to check it out. He was quite impressed with seeing Ted out on the trail, but did not seem to familiar with the history of what a Penton is – viewed our old bikes as simply old bikes I think. We came to the point where the Mio Loop joins in with Hunt Creek – it is a confusing intersection. I had fallen behind Ted a minute or less as I had stayed to chat with Mr. 530 for a second – come into the intersection and don’t see Ted anywhere. So…did he stay on the MCCCT proper, or did he take the short way down the west side following where the boys went? We really should of discussed that plan before we all took off! I decided he would of taken the short route – go up the big hill. The trail actually breaks off to the right, but I had carried lots of momentum into the base of the hill, blew past where the trail breaks off, and continued up the steep part. At the top I see Mitch’s bike parked, but Mitch, Mark or his bike no where to be found! I shut the Penton down, and sit pondering what in the world is going on. Did Mitch’s bike break down, and he and Mark continued onto the parking lot two up? Did they get kidnapped by Willie? Oh nooooo…. About then, Mitch appears walking up the trail, followed a minute later by Mark on his bike. Mark had gotten hung up on the hill, Mitch had walked down to help him. “Where is Ted?” “I thought he was with you?” “He was, but we got separated – did you see or hear him come up the hill?” “No…but I did hear someone yelling just before you came up the hill”. Just then we hear this shout off in the distance – it must be Ted. We all head down the hill to find Ted waiting for me. He was not sure on the intersection, so had been circling around on a grassy area trying to not stall the Penton waiting for me – saw me go up the hill and started yelling. (good thing he can yell loudly). The boys go back up the hill to continue their ride to get the clutch cable. We get Ted rolling again, heading down the MCCCT towards the east side of the Mio Loop. Soon Ted and I were into the rock and root section of the Mio loop (the majority of which is on the part common to Hunt Creek and Mio). Honestly, I don’t find this section all that bad to ride – not even on the Penton – it is more demanding to ride, but in a warped way I find it enjoyable. It does help being familiar with the trail though, and if your suspension is not set up to handle rocks like this it can be miserable. A few mud holes would cause Ted to stop to size things up before tackling them – so we started a routine of Ted stopping in advance of the hole (hopefully on a down hill grade) scouting out the best line, me riding my Penton through, walking back to Ted’s bike, getting him rolling, then me walking back to my bike, starting it up and repeating. One spot to note – the section that used to be marked as the “black yuckies” on the map book, has (had) a stretch of decking over it. A 4’ long chunk of the boards of the decking is now missing, right in the middle of it making the decking unuseable. This forces you to ride around it – pick your lines carefully if it is still wet there. We have a few other riders come along towards us, with Ted yelling out “Coming Through, No Clutch” – thankfully, they would move over and (Respectfully!) allow Ted to keep rolling. The odd looks they gave Ted and my bikes as we went by was interesting – I think they thought they had hit some time warp in the trails seeing two old Pentons together. Eventually, Mark and Mitch come along riding towards us, clutch cable tucked away in a pack. Ted is rolling along nicely without the clutch and continues on, planning to do the work in the parking lot if he can make it that far. Mitch stops to tell me about how horrible our directions for them to get to the parking lot were – evidently they got lost on the way, figured it out and got the cable. We arrive at the parking lot to see it is nearly full of other vehicles. (interesting contrast to the empty Atlanta trail system not to far north of us) Connie and Sheila are there to lend a helping hand with refilling our camel backs and already have sandwiches made up for lunch (yup – we are spoiled rotten, and quite lucky to have spouses so willing to help out). Ted swaps out the clutch cable, finds the spare cable is binding up so bad you basically cant pull the clutch lever in! Though, as if to prove the merit of all his weight lifting work, Mitch pulls it in rather easily. Ted resorts to kicking the clutch arm in with the heel of his boot, pulls the lever in to hold the clutch disengaged for starting off etc. It was comical to watch his technique the rest of the ride – approaching a stop you would see his right foot come up, him wacking the clutch arm on the side of the engine with the heel of his boot – a mighty heave on the clutch lever, then down shifting coming to the stop. By now I could really feel the fact that riding the Penton is way more tiring than my KTM – but all in all was still feeling pretty good. Mark and Mitch seemed to be doing fine as well, as did Young Ted. That guy is amazing – here I was already realizing how much more tiring the old bike was vs my modern bike – after only 40 miles of riding it! By then Ted had around 450 miles in on his Penton for this ride, with no complaints what so ever! Once we crossed M-72, the fun part of this day was done. (a brief Soap Box Moment) The MCCCT through the entire Meadows system is a whooped out horrible mess. I know there is currently no way to groom 24” single track and keep it nice and tight. Clearly the ORV trail in the Meadows is groomed frequently though – what sections we did see were surprisingly well groomed, with few whoops – but of course was a mile wide. The MCCCT needs to be re-routed and the old trail retired. Join the new trail back into the old just before any ORV or road crossings to maintain them at the same locations. Or…someway to groom 24” trail, and keep it 24” trail needs to be found. (soap box mode off now) As this was a MCCCT ride, we strictly stuck to the MCCCT and did not fall to the temptation of getting onto the ORV trail to by pass the whoops. I even suggested to Ted we could do that if he wanted. He didn’t even respond, simply kicked the Penton into gear and rolled on down the whoops. In fact, at no point in the course of this ride, would we (knowingly at least) by pass any sections of the MCCCT. It was clear that our Fearless Leader was going to finish the MCCCT exactly as planned!. It was during this whooped out nightmare that Mark did a bit of re-wording to a Def Leopard song , Two Steps Behind. Where the lyrics originally said “ …two steps behind you…..” they became “two whoops behind Ted….” With Mark continuously singing those lyrics to help him tolerate the monotony of the endless whoops. I found myself playing goofy little mind games to help pass the time as well…I think we all were getting a bit punch drunk by now. I had some dandy conversations in my head with myself…or maybe it was with Willie? I suspect many riders doing multiple long days find themselves in this goofy mode trying to stay focused and positive on the ride. Eventually we found the end of this nightmare, got onto the Rose City then Ambrose Lake trails. These were in much better condition, and moved along more quickly. We did come across quite a few other riders in these trails. We had a few shorter appearances of Wrong Way Willie, and a few bits of soil sampling chew up some time for us, but we all recovered well. After the soil sampling, our pace slowed a bit to assure it would not happen again! The Energizer Bunny can even take a licking and keep on ticking! I was surprised with how the soil type changed as we came into the Ogemaw Hills trails – a much harder packed soil for the most part, with some rocks mixed in. Trails where generally wide, but enjoyable enough and showed plenty of signs of recent maintenance. There were a few guys out doing some maintenance work on the trail when we rolled through – one pulling a log out of our way as we approached in fact. We stopped at a mud hole as dusk was approaching – good excuse for a short breather, and to take some pictures. We did not realize we were maybe ½ a mile from the end of our day though!. Finally, the hell portion of the ride was over! What a relief it was. I would say this day was our worst day – it took forever and was quite tiring. Connie and Sheila were patiently waiting for us at Fairview Road, we loaded up and trailered into town to the motel. It was sad to see the motel we were staying at was basically empty on a holiday weekend. The owner commented business was quite bad for them, blaming it on the gas prices and general crappy Michigan economy. This seemed inconsistent with the number of riders we saw on the trails this day though. [/QUOTE]
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The 5, 40 and 80 MCCCT Ride
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