Trikefest 04 DiaryWell since TF04 has come and gone I thought I'd make an attempt at writing a recap of what went on. If you werent there, please keep in mind its very hard to keep track of everything that happens and happened while your there, your just to busy having fun. Day One, Thursday June 3rdI pulled out of my House here in Live Oak, FL at approx 3:45AM on Thursday June 5th. The previous evening Myself and some friends had loaded up my 16ft enclosed trailer with 2 4x4 quads belonging to friends, my Tri-Z, all of my camping supplies, toolboxes, spare parts, riding gear, clothes, ice chests, nut/bolt bins, Fold up table, 2 spare tires for the trailer, extra gas cans, All the essentials of a 750+ mile journey to 4 days of riding. I swung by my friend Ric's house at about 4:00AM to pickup him and his nephew Ryan. We finished loading some stuff into the trailer like a grill and all their clothes and ended up pulling out of his driveway back onto the hard top somewheres around 4:30AM. On our trip up we stopped for fuel 3 times in my Dodge 3500 Diesel pickup, Seen two different traffic accidents, countless amount of cops with people stopped, Several towns with names in relation to ones here locally, And missed the bypass around Cincinati which took us right through downtown, definetly not the intended destination. I neglected to bring my directions to get us from Laurel to Haspin, but I told Ric I thought I remembered the area pretty well from the aerial views I had looked at previously. We found it pretty easily, After I seen the bridge over the river I knew we were really close. Right on the other side of the river was the "Haspin Acres" sign and we followed the road up to the sign in building. By the way, speaking of that driveway, coming from Florida I'm almost sure thats the steepest drive my truck has ever been up! As we were coming up the road I immediatly noticed the "3Wheeler World Trikefest" banner Howdy made several years ago. I also noticed the "Yamaha Three-for-all" banner that Tri-Z_Jim owns hanging up on pavillion. When we got out of the truck we were greeted by Tri-Z_Jim in none other then a remake of Howdy's half car! After we signed in and got our Haspin passes we drove on down to the camping area and pulled up to the pavillion. We were greeted by Howdy, Trikeaholic, Tri-Z_Jim, 350xin'NY, Greenboy, and a bunch of others I can't remember (Sorry!) After we unloaded most everything Tri-Z_Jim took me for a ride to see the fabled Devils Backbone and other places at Haspin including the Shoe Tree. Pretty wild looking hill climb from the top with the rocks and all, Didn't look easy but it wasn't impossible seeming either. We got off and took a walk down to the bottom and checked things out from down there. The Devils Backbone is divided into 2 sections, a top half, and a bottom half. The bottom half was by far the hardest part because you have less then 30ft to get enough momentum to make it up the whole thing. Not to mention all the deep washouts, crevices a tire could fall into and the rocks. What made it even seen worse is there are about 6 old wrecked cars down at the bottom that just scream "No return" at you. We walked back up and I told Jim I thought I would pass on the backbone for now since I was on my Tri-Z that didn't have any front brakes, skid plates, and was wearing 18 inch tires. We rode around a little more and he showed me this creek bed that you can follow down to the bottom of the devils backbone. It looked like a cool trail, lots of big rocks, couple of logs, and several ledge drop offs all meant skidplates and ground clearence were a requirement. We turned around and headed back to the main road and went on to the shoe tree and a few other places and headed back to camp. When we got back to camp I made my way over to TimSr's camp and introduced myself to him and talked about to him about his Quad-Z and other stuff. I also signed myself up for the Saturday afternoon trike motocross race. I moseyed back to my camp near the pavillion and gave Bruce (350xin'NY) a hand with his 350X on bleeding the brakes and some other stuff. When that was all said and done, I grabbed my 250R and followed Tri-Z_Jim back to the creek that led to the bottom of the devils backbone. We started making our way down it, my skid plates dragging on damn near every inch of ground that I went over. Alot of front brake and clutch work was required here, not to mention body shifting. About 3 rock ledge drop offs, several logs, many many larage diamater rocks I made it all the way to the end. The only thing that really gave me much problem was one hole that my left front tire dropped into which in turn made my right rear tire come off the ground. I shifted my weight around and got the rear back on the ground and throttled up and got the front out, making sure that the back didn't fall in. When we finally got out of the creek area and into the bottom of the devils backbone, we turned around so we could face it. I watched Jim take one line over to the right up, and when he got close to the end of "The bottom half" his right rear wheel caught a rock. It looked bad but he saved it like a pro and went on up. I gave the throttle a crack and dump the clutch and followed the same line. I tried my hardest not to let my wheel hit that rock, but I did. I immediatly shifted my weigh over to the left side to componsate, made it past that! Jim wasn't quite all the way to the top yet, I went on to go up the top section and the frontend was staying aweful light. I made it about half way and it started to wheelie to much. I let off the throttle and grabbed the front and rear brakes as hard as I could and hopped off. By this time Jim was back up at the top and had seen I didn't make it all the way up. He came down and we got the R back to the middle section that is more flat. I got the R cranked again and this time I kept alot more weight on the front then I did before. Frontend was still very light, I think the front tires were off the ground a few inches the whole way up. After I got to the top I figured I wouldn't push my luck going up it anymore so instead I watched Tri-Z_Jim go up and down it several times, he's definetly got that thing mastered. After we came back Ryan and I attempted to put the tent up with a limited amount of success. When we had finished fumbling around in the dark setting the tent up and getting the lanterns primed with the help of Virgils dad, I headed over to the Swinehart camp on the other side of the lake. Spent some time there talking and hanging out with the guys, and had a couple hot dogs. At this point MIK6 and his crew was still MIA, and I was one of the few people that had read his post on the forum about having all the trailer problems. I wasn't sure he would make it from what I read on the board before I left Thursday morning, but sure enough late Thursday night they pulled in. I was pretty tired from the 15 hour drive and decided to call it an early night around 11:00PM. I slept that night in my jeans and t-shirt with 2 sleeping bags in the tent and my southern butt froze. I could swear the weather was into the low 40's that night. Day Two Coming soon. Click Here to go to the Trikefest 04 Media Page. Buy the video, The Photo CD, or BOTH! |
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