well guys i know most of you think my bike is "girlie" but i just want you to know it does have a heck of a MAN behind those girlie tires. i gotta call yesterday morning saying load up we're going riding so i went and put my tires on and yes they transform a bike
we got to the place and started heading out here is another of my buddies that has an 09 mudpro
the first part of the ride was fast paced spirited trails running high range blasting thru open trails. we were on multiple thousands of acres and covered quite a few very quickly. we finally came up on a storm drain that runs under a 4lane highway. i reckon its about an 1/8mile long or so. my buddie with the mudpro and i were side by side just to take a pic of the HIDs
after the long tunnel we came out to a big rifle range where it was all open and some guys got to race and play
and after all the playing we went back in the woods for some technical creek riding. and BOY was this the tough part. we came down a LONG switchback that had alot of washes in it and was so technical that i could not catch pix otherwise you would have seen a wash out we basically had to fall off into which scratched up my new 3 day old plastic. coming down the long washed out run led into the creek which was our riding destination. at the base of the big wash is where these next pictures are. the washout was wide enough to get a bike in sideways and was silty mud like quicksand. you had two options, ride the left bank and nearly flip over, or ride the right bank and put your plastics into the left bank. i myself chose to ride the left bank saving my plastics but had to keep my right foot out to keep from flipping over. my buddie on the mudpro tried both ways and ended up coming down on his left side riding the right bank which nearly got him in a bind and pushed his plastics against the left bank wall.
AND a brute force that did not fare so well!!! watch closely as the vid gets near the end. ever seen a belt throw ashes out!!! haha
there were a few bikes that could not make it down this wash without getting stuck and since i was one of the first thru it i was down in the creek pulling people out. it was so far of a stretch from where everyone was getting stuck that their winch cables would not reach the nearest tree so i had my cable hooked to a tree on the other side of the creek bank and was letting folks pull to me with their winch to get them out
now here is where the REAL fun began. once we all got down into the creek, we immediately had to move a tree to proceed down the creek. this was NOT a small tree this was a 30" oak that had fallen across the creek. we put my new PROMARK 3500, my buddies ranger 4seaters 4500LB WARN, and another buddies 3500LBWARN to the test. we hooked our bikes winches to this tree, and hooked our bikes to other bikes and all tried to winch this tree out. we finally got it out of the way after some hard snatches.
the warn 3500 burnt up trying to pull the tree but he helped us by ramming his bike in reverse and snatching the log. the ranger with the 4500lb warn burnt up at the next hole where he got stuck, so i was the only one left with a winch the rest of the bight and BOY what a night it was. we ran up onto another tree across the creek. it was about a 20" tree. the majority of the canopy was in the creek and without a chainsaw we had no choice but to break off each limb one at a time in order to try and move the tree. i burried my bike in the sand, locked my brakes, and winched for almost a solid hour non-stop breaking off limbs one at a time untill we could then try and pull the tree out of the way.
i finally got my wife to snap a few pix at the end of the ordeal but you can see how each limb was snapped off the tree, and eventually after de-limbing the tree, i was able to move the trunk of the tree as well so we could proceed thru the creek. my winch pulled non-stop for over an hour, and NEVER burnt up. my battery survived, my winch survived, and the PROMARK saved the day. we were not done yet.... after i got that tree out of the way we ran into another one and decided to just get out of the creek so again i had to put the ole PROMARK to the test. i winched myself up out of the creek bank, and winched almost all of the other bikes up out of the creek . so for almost 2 straight hours, the winch never got a break except when free spooling out to hook to another limb/tree or bike. i know if i still had my warn on my bike, it would have burnt up just like everybody elses warn did last night. after this ride, almost everybody on the ride was talking about how awesome the winch was. it got us all out of a bind last night and it is still working today! here are the pix of the creek bank. my bike and a buddies polaris 850 made it up unassisted, my wife took pix as i was walking up the hill. once i got back up the winching resumed pulling up other folks up the hill
the aftermath, just a muddy bike.
for those of you who would like to know, my winch is a promark 3500 outback series. it has held up thru some TOUGH stuff. last night proved its durability. it pulled for almost 2 hours straight, it got a little warm but you could still touch it with no problems. the motor never bogged down, the winch never stopped pulling. it did just what it is designed to do, and when you compare it to my warn, you'd think the warn it just designed to tear up.
<message edited by Adam Harvey on Sunday, May 02, 2010 12:22 PM>
