[Bent] Round Valley Report

[Chris Spollen]

  Rich Sadler pulled off yet another great ride at Round Valley; weather 
   was picture perfect brilliant sunshine and fantastic autumn colors. 
Steve, Don, Rich and me, three home builds and one F-40 set off on a 
wonderful twenty-eight mile journey. The down hills are total white 
knuckle with amazing turns and roaring speeds. Rich passed me at 
thirty-nine MPH; I was holding for dear life at thirty-one and thirty 
two MPH, eyes tearing and heart pounding. Thanks to my neighbor Eddie I 
now have a set off new (never used) break pads and they actually work 
nice to have breaks that actually work! My machine tends to get a 
little squirrelly at speeds over thirty. The climbs as everybody knows 
on this ride are extremely humbling I suffer here because I never 
encounter hills on my day-to-day rides at home base. So rather then 
kill my screaming leg muscles by climbing at four point two mph,
I prefer to stretch out my legs stand up and climb at three point two 
by walking no shame here. Boy if I could get my hands on a four point 
five pound electric assist, to provide seven seconds of climbing power, 
I would gladly drop my one-pound water bottle.
  No body got hurt or lost and nothing broke, and on several occasions I 
witnessed trees that were so brilliant awash in orange that they were 
seemly vibrating against the screaming blue sky.
  Funny many things come in go in my daily life but these images are 
forever burned in my mind great stuff real adventure.

Best
CS