I signed up to ride the 50 Fri. and Sun. Figured if it was feeling like too much I would drop to the 25 on Sunday since same entry fee. I had kind of blanked out that K never did get to marking trails super well, her BiL was her trail master after the first 2-3 years and R was superb. First loop was not too bad, I and 2 folks riding with me at that time got tripped up by a loop that had legs in an L. We went ok 12 to 11 we are good but we were supposed to take a left and go on the other leg of 11. That is at least partly on the BLM, I see no reason they could not have renamed the straight leg that just continued in direction of 12 to be 12.
But that intersection was not made super obvious as a turn and the markings were so sparse between turns that we didn't know we were not correct until we got to an intersection that didn't match the map or directions at all. I was hurrying back to where we should have turned and Tanza caught a hoof in a rut and fell HARD. I flew off and because of his speed was thinking "roll out of the way in case he flips over" Which ended up with me not hitting hard at all. Tanza was okay and we rode on and the vet didn't see any issue at the check.
Second leg was marked by M and she uses lots of ribbons and pin flags and makes it obvious that you are still on the correct trail. Tanza was showing soreness on the shoulder he fell on at VC 2 but vet said we were OK to go on. The third leg I had some DIMR I suppose and I kept wanting to get lost. Between volunteer "flag back there, no flags here" and my mis-reading of the map which was not obvious for how long the 89 section was we turned around. Then those companions found a trail that would take us where we needed to be w/o just doubling back. That was probably not any faster than if we had doubled back but we got to see a cool section of trail. A couple more times I would have messed up but they were trusting themselves. At one point I went to the road which directions said to do where they stayed on the correct trail Was no biggie the road had a 2nd leg to the correct trail. At another point I thought we were retracing the way we went out on the 1st loop but we were not. I semi-trusted their judgement and followed them while finding that spot on the directions and confirming they were correct. Tanza was still sore, but not more lame than 2nd check and we got the completion I was feeling not so great metabolically although Tanza was great but I was able to do his trot out myself. He has 2050 miles now.
I wan't trying to sandbag to get tail-ender but did end up with it. Sis came down the 2nd day on my rest day and we went for a short pleasure ride together. It was going to be even hotter on Sunday so even if Tanza had not had the fall I would have hesitated to do so much as an LD after how wilted and puny I felt by the end of the ride on Friday so sis and I did another pleasure ride. I thought one trail would just go back to the TH a different way and took us to edge of Sturgis and we had to take a bike path (nice gravel next to the concrete bikeway) back to Fort Meade. But sis's knee held up, it was not a big deal.
Then had unplanned adventure on the drive home. I had a p/u tire blow out. A gal, older than me asked if I wanted her to stay. I was getting all the pieces to get the tire off and said "no I'm good" When the spare came down and I pulled the lever piece and anti-theft 'key' out the key went flying. I couldn't see it anywhere and convinced myself it was still in the plastic tube. I now believe it was not but I no longer have the key. I have found a youtube and should be able to pop off the plastic tube and the 'lock' so that the tire can just be let down with the lever piece. I will try that in a bit. Stupid key can cost as much as $100 and cheapest I saw was $50 on Ebay. I don't want to mess with that and possibly end up with wrong key, they have 16 patterns according to one of the 2 YouTube videos I watched.
A group of hunters stopped and helped me get the tire changed. Was very nice having the one guy lift the tire onto the bolts. With my limited arm strength I always have to use my legs and struggle to get the alignment correctly. When my tire blew out it took out my trailer wiring so I didn't have signal lights or trailer brakes. I drove slow (slow for WY anyway) to Lusk. Stopped on the truck stop and they were only .02 cents more than I had seen at the next town so filled tank. Backed trailer to edge of the truck parking area and unloaded Tanza. I asked the young cashier if anyplace there or next town would be open and she had no idea. I decided I needed to be thorough and went across to the cafe. Asked a guy who looked like he was on lunch break from working if he was local, he was and if anyplace was open. No but he worked for 24 hr towing and some roadside repairs and went to their shop to see if they had any tires the right size in their 'tire trailer.' They did so I paid them $100 for the tire and $25 to mount plus insisted the guy who had gone and checked and driven back to let me know a $20 tip.
Felt better having a spare tire in case the other p/u tire decided to go and drove a bit faster the rest of the way home. I didn't turn the GPS on in time to not get tripped up by 85 in Greeley where there is one spot where I think one has to take 'business 85' and ended up on 34 heading east. That is just a few miles to 'Weld county parkway' that is a really nice road, and then hits 76, which I needed to take a couple miles But dumb Colorado has removed the old junction to get to the frontage road. I could have gone thru a few blocks of residential, they had signs for no semis, but my trailer is not a full on semi but still I hesitated to go that way and ended up back on 76. GPS is out of date for that change. I ended up going through Lochbouie in the dusk w/ no trailer lights. Didn't get a ticket so its ok.
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