The trail is pretty good and flowing, but the top is where things get really interesting. Mike King and some other guys took it upon themselves to build a gnarly few miles of heavy terrain so that Freeriders and Downhillers could get their adrenaline fix. This was pushed due to the closing of downhilling at Big Bear Mountain around the same time.
You could bring your heavy-as-all-hell bike there and really push your limits. The two top shots are of my friend Brent "Bikey" Zemel, and he earned his name by really enveloping the whole bike lifestyle. He bought a white Ford cargo van, put racks in the back and rode a downhill Karpiel bike that was so ridiculously heavy that I still get amused by it to this day. Brian Botts in the bottom shot is an ex-pro snowboarder that moved back to the San Diego area after living in Salt Lake City for years. He's a pretty crazy guy and makes me laugh a lot. He's got a lot of natural athletic ability and took to mountain biking easily.
These shots were done around 1998 ish. Back when Freeride bikes were just getting figured out. Our bikes were really pushing it if we had 4" of travel and triple clamp forks were the only way to go. We wore pads and often full-face helmets and had a lot of fun. On this particular trip, I decided to take my camera, and if you can imagine, its not that fun to take your Nikon F5 film camera with you with a flash, different lenses, etc. It's heavy and you run the risk of crashing with the gear, but I felt I had to document our adventures once in a while.
Carl you yourself have learned a few things at this epic church of trails...post more pics and dig deeper! Please?
ReplyDelete