Yes folks that is Rebbeca Gross
Several of the riders that went for a second epic ride on Sunday
This is Mik our guide on Saturday and Sunday
Well if I continue to ride these trails out here doing the climbing and downhilling that is part of standard Mountain Biking in Korea I will definitely be in the kinda shape that would make ORAMM much easier. Went out to the city of Daechon this weekend to do some riding and camping and got a good dose of both of them. The camping part was good food, good beer and good friends all hanging out together. These guys and gals in Seoul that ride do this right, trailer Bar-B-Que grill, enough food to feed a small Army and one great cook who came down to camp and cook for the rest of us riders.
The riding was what I now realize is typical for Korea, the trail warm up is usually a climb that will get your heart rate up to max, levels out for a little and then climbing again. We then decided to do a downhill run before we went up the hills in our groups. So the original statement from one of the female riders was that the downhill was nothing that a beginner with a little bit of skill couldn't handle. As we are sitting at the top of the hill the DHers all start busting out shin guards and elbow pads, I ask "Hey if this is so easy why all the hardware??" oh just in case don't want to get scratched. I am thinking ok what are we in for? Sure enough it starts out mellow enough but gets kinda hectic pretty fast there where six foot drops rollers off of roots going vertical and stairs that were enough to make you teeter/tooter your bike on the wrong line(guess where I was). I once read that riding downhills that had erosion and washouts, ruts was to make you feel like you had a bigger pair than you actually did, well if that is the case then they are all walking around Korea thinking they have elephantitis of said body part.
Anyway after making it down the first run without wrecking the bike(I tried at a really hairy and rooted section but the bike wouldn't go down) we started back up the hill. This time we climbe up to the point we started the downhill at and then mapped out the climb to the fortress on the next mountain over so we could get there. The climb on the fire road wasn't to bad when we hit the point that started the single track I could tell this wasn't going to be good. Now our guide up what was going to be the most irritating, challenging, tourretes inducing, single track climb I have encountered since.......well I can't think of a climb this difficult in my extensive 6yrs of riding, not even ORAMM said yea this is rideable except for a couple of parts. My impression was those couple of parts where the beginning , the middle and The End. At times I had the bike by the handle bars and stem dragging behind me as I used my other hand to pull me up the trail. Add to this the fact that the favorite Korean past time is hiking and that puts a whole new dimension of difficulty in technical single track.
When we finally get to the top of the climb from hell, Mik our guide looks at me and ask "Are you ok?" well you can imagine the response that got. Anyway I have to give him credit though, short of the view over the Grand Canyon this was the most B E A utiful view I have seen in any country I have been to to date. I am pretty sure I could see Seoul and that was over a 100 to the north of us. Without a doubt worth the effort to get to the top. After a couple of photo ops we do some fire road back down the hill and meet up with some of the other riders on the way eventually meeting back at the point where we did the first downhill. A couple more runs down and back up the hill and we called it a day and headed back to the campground. No ride would be complete without one wipeout which I did as I made the second run down the hill on the very end of the downhill section that combined roots, washout and ruts all at once for the trifecta of downhill challenge. While I am waiting for one of the riders who was out there with us to email me some pics, Wong from Malaysia, I have a couple from the Sunday ride the group did. I wasn't part of this ride but the view is pretty much the same and some good pics so thought I would include them. So Keep the rubber side down and keep riding!
