Brushy Mountain Motor Sports Park
#1
02-24-2009 | 04:55 PM
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Brushy Mountain Motor Sports Park
I didn't get any riding in this weekend because the wife and I went to the Atlanta SX. So to keep from having withdrawals, I took Monday off work and HardTaco and I went to Brushy Mountain Motor Sports Park here in North Carolina. Neither of us had been there and we wanted to check it out.
http://www.bmmspark.com/
I left my place around 6:30 am and got back late last night, around 10:30 pm. I'm beat, and very sore today.
If you like challenging singletrack, that is a good place! We did all the hard stuff, very tight and gnarly with lots of log crossings, rocky hill climbs, slick rooty hill climbs, twisty laurel thickets with rocky rooty hill climbs, you get the idea. They have an "A Rider Only" Enduro Trail that's about 7 miles of some of the hardest stuff I've done on a bike. I was able to do it all except for one very difficult log crossing toward the end. It was a large log, no apparent way around without back tracking, and it was an uphill crossing, so a whole lot of momentum would be needed to get over it. After sizing it up for a few moments I went for it, got my front wheel over and the bike balanced on the skid plate, but after that, the rear wheel was at least a foot or two off the ground on the downhill side. I spent the next 10 minutes dragging my bike up hill on over the log the rest of the way on its side. I think my heart rate hit 200 at least. Whew.
When we came to the log crossing, it was close to the end of the day and I was tired, my arms and hands were worn out, my right knee and leg had suffered some blunt force trauma and were aching and getting stiff, and I was having painful muscle spasms in my back. But I was still enjoying myself and riding OK. But the log nearly broke my will. I was pretty much spent after that. And then we got lost, lol.
All through this "A rider only enduro loop" there were "Sissy shortcuts" to bypass the nastier stuff, and the non-bypasses were marked with "Extreme Danger" double black markers. We did not take any of the short cuts, but following the whole trail had us getting late in the day as we were finishing it up. Then we kind of got lost and took a while to figure out how to get back to the parking area. The park closes at 5pm and we didn't get out until around 6pm, so it was getting dark, the park owner was nice enough to wait on us. Glad we didn't have to spend the night in the woods like BouncingRadical. It was pretty chilly with ice on the mud puddles.
I will also be getting some knee guards. My boot protected my lower leg pretty good, but even so my lower shin is extremely sore after a sharp jutting edged rock out cropping reached out of the ground and got me. Gashed my knee pretty good on the knee cap, and lots of bruising around there, and even up into my thigh. I had to walk that one off for a few minutes. I hate to think what my lower shin would look like without the good pair of MX boots I was wearing. But instead, I was able to limp away, bruised and sore, but nothing broken. It feels worse today as it is both sore and stiff.
It was a great day of riding, those "A" trails were very challenging, and were the highlight of the day. I biffed it more than once, but was grinning under my helmet the whole time, except that damn big uphill log section, that was a bitch, it nearly broke my will. There was a bypass for the log section, but it didn't look very well used so we figured the log couldn't be that bad. It's probably not that bad if you are an "A Rider", lol. But once I was there in front of it and looking up at it, I didn't want to backtrack back around to take the bypass, I thought I could make it, or give it a good try at least. After getting the front over and the bike far enough over to balance on the skid plate, I thought it wouldn't be so hard to get the rest of the bike over. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I guess I was too spent at the end of the day, but I eventually managed to get it over.
In hindsight, I may take the bypass next time. That log broke me. Or maybe if we do it earlier in the day instead of at the end of the day, I would have more energy for it.
If you like good single track, and are nearby western/central North Carolina, Brushy Mountain Motor Sports Park is a great destination. KLX's would like this stuff, but I would definitely be taking any blinkers and underhanging plate hangers off, I doubt they would survive. I removed my license plate and hanger from my EXC and was glad I did. And definitely get some real hand guards and a skid plate if you don't already have them.
Sorry no pictures, I brought my camera but forgot the memory card. I did get some good video from the helmet cam, though, but it will take quite a few hours to go through it all and shorten it up to something presentable. So a vid report will follow in a few days, hopefully.
EDIT - Here's the video to go with this ride:
http://www.vimeo.com/3422235
http://www.bmmspark.com/
I left my place around 6:30 am and got back late last night, around 10:30 pm. I'm beat, and very sore today.
If you like challenging singletrack, that is a good place! We did all the hard stuff, very tight and gnarly with lots of log crossings, rocky hill climbs, slick rooty hill climbs, twisty laurel thickets with rocky rooty hill climbs, you get the idea. They have an "A Rider Only" Enduro Trail that's about 7 miles of some of the hardest stuff I've done on a bike. I was able to do it all except for one very difficult log crossing toward the end. It was a large log, no apparent way around without back tracking, and it was an uphill crossing, so a whole lot of momentum would be needed to get over it. After sizing it up for a few moments I went for it, got my front wheel over and the bike balanced on the skid plate, but after that, the rear wheel was at least a foot or two off the ground on the downhill side. I spent the next 10 minutes dragging my bike up hill on over the log the rest of the way on its side. I think my heart rate hit 200 at least. Whew.
When we came to the log crossing, it was close to the end of the day and I was tired, my arms and hands were worn out, my right knee and leg had suffered some blunt force trauma and were aching and getting stiff, and I was having painful muscle spasms in my back. But I was still enjoying myself and riding OK. But the log nearly broke my will. I was pretty much spent after that. And then we got lost, lol.
All through this "A rider only enduro loop" there were "Sissy shortcuts" to bypass the nastier stuff, and the non-bypasses were marked with "Extreme Danger" double black markers. We did not take any of the short cuts, but following the whole trail had us getting late in the day as we were finishing it up. Then we kind of got lost and took a while to figure out how to get back to the parking area. The park closes at 5pm and we didn't get out until around 6pm, so it was getting dark, the park owner was nice enough to wait on us. Glad we didn't have to spend the night in the woods like BouncingRadical. It was pretty chilly with ice on the mud puddles.
I will also be getting some knee guards. My boot protected my lower leg pretty good, but even so my lower shin is extremely sore after a sharp jutting edged rock out cropping reached out of the ground and got me. Gashed my knee pretty good on the knee cap, and lots of bruising around there, and even up into my thigh. I had to walk that one off for a few minutes. I hate to think what my lower shin would look like without the good pair of MX boots I was wearing. But instead, I was able to limp away, bruised and sore, but nothing broken. It feels worse today as it is both sore and stiff.
It was a great day of riding, those "A" trails were very challenging, and were the highlight of the day. I biffed it more than once, but was grinning under my helmet the whole time, except that damn big uphill log section, that was a bitch, it nearly broke my will. There was a bypass for the log section, but it didn't look very well used so we figured the log couldn't be that bad. It's probably not that bad if you are an "A Rider", lol. But once I was there in front of it and looking up at it, I didn't want to backtrack back around to take the bypass, I thought I could make it, or give it a good try at least. After getting the front over and the bike far enough over to balance on the skid plate, I thought it wouldn't be so hard to get the rest of the bike over. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I guess I was too spent at the end of the day, but I eventually managed to get it over.
In hindsight, I may take the bypass next time. That log broke me. Or maybe if we do it earlier in the day instead of at the end of the day, I would have more energy for it.
If you like good single track, and are nearby western/central North Carolina, Brushy Mountain Motor Sports Park is a great destination. KLX's would like this stuff, but I would definitely be taking any blinkers and underhanging plate hangers off, I doubt they would survive. I removed my license plate and hanger from my EXC and was glad I did. And definitely get some real hand guards and a skid plate if you don't already have them.
Sorry no pictures, I brought my camera but forgot the memory card. I did get some good video from the helmet cam, though, but it will take quite a few hours to go through it all and shorten it up to something presentable. So a vid report will follow in a few days, hopefully.
EDIT - Here's the video to go with this ride:
http://www.vimeo.com/3422235
Last edited by Nobrakes; 03-02-2009 at 05:07 PM.
#4
02-24-2009 | 09:17 PM
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Total immersion - it forces you to push everything except riding out of your head. Makes you completely forget about work or any other day to day problems. Completely. Let your mind wander to those things even a little bit and you'll find yourself on the ground.
#6
03-02-2009 | 05:10 PM
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Here's the video to go along with this ride:
http://www.vimeo.com/3422235
Sorry it's a little long, but I got a lot of good footage and couldn't decide what to cut, even though I cut a lot anyway, it turned out pretty long. Anyway, hope you enjoy it.
Also, sorry it took so long to get it up. I had the video done Thursday evening, but Vimeo has been having problems and it took several attempts to get it up on the site. The conversion quality doesn't seem to be quite up to par either, I think Vimeo is having some back-end conversion problems. The original is much higher quality. I hope they get it sorted soon.
http://www.vimeo.com/3422235
Sorry it's a little long, but I got a lot of good footage and couldn't decide what to cut, even though I cut a lot anyway, it turned out pretty long. Anyway, hope you enjoy it.
Also, sorry it took so long to get it up. I had the video done Thursday evening, but Vimeo has been having problems and it took several attempts to get it up on the site. The conversion quality doesn't seem to be quite up to par either, I think Vimeo is having some back-end conversion problems. The original is much higher quality. I hope they get it sorted soon.
maybe its just me though lol
#9
03-02-2009 | 06:51 PM
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Posts: 6,656
From: West By God Virginia!
its just black,, It buffers but its just black,, no sound no visual.. It might be a problem on my end lol..
like I see your bike, but once I hit play it just stays black lol
#10
03-02-2009 | 07:00 PM
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Hmmm, not sure what it is. It does take a few moments to start once you hit play, but it should start going. If you feel like it, you could download the underlying clip, see near the bottom right where it says "Downloads", you can download the M4V file, this is the same file I uploaded, but it's nearly 1 Gig. Also, you'll need an M4V player, iTunes should work, but other players should work too. Hate for you to go to all that trouble to download and not be able to play it, though. If you wanted to test that, you could download "Rekluse Clutch Install" which is much smaller first and verify that you can play it before downloading the larger one, it is only 100 MB as opposed to almost 10x that:
http://www.vimeo.com/3195738
http://www.vimeo.com/3195738