[Rick Lee]

One guy had a KLR and he only dumped it once. I think the two KTM's were the only ones not to dump their bikes at all, or else they were so far ahead of us when they did, that we didn't see it. But those guys do these rides every weekend and have been doing them for decades. They are so hardcore. I'm only two years into serious riding. And no, I had NO idea what I was getting into when I got onto this trail. I heard it was a 7 out of 10 and I was pretty sure the last few I did were 5's and I didn't find them that bad. Lesson learned. For me this trail was an 11 out of 10. Going up hill was never that bad, other than the clutch smoke. Going down was the pucker stuff, but I don't think I dumped it once going downhill. I really think all my drops were on easy stuff and I handled the hard stuff pretty well.

After more drops than I could count, I was getting so frustrated and just wanted to see pavement. Imagine how I felt when we came up to a fork in the trail, no signs and my GPS said we were still 2-3 miles from pavement. We took wrong turns that dead-ended twice and that was in the dark. Man, it was tough. Once we hit pavement and I got to a gas station, I called my wife and asked her to meet me for dinner in Tempe to break up my ride home into 70 and 30 mile segments. She brought me a dry shirt, winter riding jacket and a daytime helmet visor. That ride home after dinner was like getting a massage compared to the rest of the day. My hands were cramping at dinner and I couldn't use my chopsticks. What a mess.