Barnwell Mountain Memorial Ride

I'll be up in Gilmer with a bunch of KTM Talk people for a memorial ride for Christie Poe. If anyone in the Houston are is interested in attending and want to "truck pool", let me know quick. If it's just me, I'll leave after work on Friday. With someone else, I'm flexible.

Sounds like a good time for a good cause, Bob. I'm sure the rocks up there will give the fresh pogos a good workout. I've got remodeling, yard work, a graduation party and MTBing with the wife planned for my weekend I'll be back at it @ SHNF next week, though. Post up some pics/vids of that singletrack when you get back After I find and move us into a new house, I think I'll have earned a good road trip

As soon as everyone can get enough of a weekend off, we'll be riding together again somewhere..CCP, SHNF... I haven't been to SHNF since the end of January.

This ride is to dedicate a new section of trail in the name of Christie Poe who was killed in a car accident a few weeks before Christmas. Her husband Terry worked really hard with trail building over the years, she did too. They both were heavily involved in the sport and racing. Very cool that Barwell was involved with helping cut that section of trail and erect a trail sign in her honor.

You make it up there Bob? How was the singletrack? Crowded?

There was a Texas Jeep Owners gathering up there and there must have been a couple hundred 4WD vehicles up there on Saturday. Some were just outright monster crawlers. But there are special trails for them so we only had to keep our eyes peeled when our trails crossed with theirs.

As for the single track...it's the roughest stuff I've been on to date. Barnwell is basically a mountain top and all the trails radiate outwards from the center. So you go down then up and down and so forth double backing up and down the mountain. It's all red layered rock formations with trees on top. Big chunks of rock everywhere and some red dirt holding it all together. The climbs and descents can be pretty hairy. Imagine CCP's rocky sections with 250 feet of elevation difference and 1/4 mile climbs.

They have a rating system from 1-5 diamonds so you can keep yourself from getting into too much trouble. We all did some pretty technical stuff. As everyone there was a racer, C and B class mostly with 2 A classers, I was the least skilled out there, but we were riding 2 and 3 diamonds all day with the occasional 4 diamond.

I even took a solitary excursion on some jeep trails that weren't rated for MCs at all. That almost turned bad. You start off with fairly steep descents then wiggle around up and down 8 ft wide rutted out trails for a while. Lots of climbing. Getting back out is another story. When the 4WDs climb out, they spin the tires and create a shelf at the top. It start out fine but the last 100 ft gets extremely steep and have big loose rocks everywhere. The first climb out started at about a 15% grade and just got steeper and steeper until I finally looped out. I had 50 ft to go. Fall #1 for the weekend. Realizing no amount of momentum would get me out of there, I went looking for another exit. I found 2 more that resulted in the same thing minus the loop out. Finally I found a gas pipe line path that was like an endurocross event for about 1/4 mile and created my own trail out of there. Whew!

The rest of the trails were a hoot. Very technical. The trail dedicated to Christie Poe was very nice. Fast and flowing similar to what you would find at CCP. My favorite by far, but I liked them all. I only had to cut my own trail out one more time. It was a 4 diamond climb that was littered with rocks and turns the whole way up. It was just me and 2 A riders... they nailed it. But knowing my limitations. I opted for something more scenic and met up with them.

A much needed getaway. A good turnout with good people.

As soon as I'm over the soreness, I'll be back on the bike. I haven't used my muscle groups that intensely before. I need to plan on getting out once a week. I may start going after work one night each week as well.

Sounds like a good time. Glad to hear there's some singletrack up there, and everyone made it back healthy. So there's about 25 miles worth?

Not sure how many miles, but it took everyone the whole weekend to do it all.

Glad y'all had fun, Bob.

I have been telling people for years that the singletrack at BMRA is saweet.

Thanks for posting up!

Did you see a goofball on a big dual sport with bags? That was me. I rode out Saturday for a visit with the Lone Star folks.

I was planning on bing there for the trail dedication, but I got my wires crossed on the days and already had Sunday committed once I found out the oops.

Bob, it looks like y'all had fun. Here is a link to a slideshow posted over on KTMTalk from the ride. Slideshow link

Teeds said:

Did you see a goofball on a big dual sport with bags? That was me. I rode out Saturday for a visit with the Lone Star folks.

Click to expand...

Tony, if you knew what Terry Poe's toy hauler looked like, you could've stopped by. Difficult to miss a large pack of KTMs, though there were some red, blue, yellow and green bikes there too.

Look at the slideshow link the other Tony posted. That is just Cody Young's pictures. No action photos this weekend by anyone. Too busy maintaing control of the bikes. Would've liked to have had some though. I left my camera at home knowing I'd probably bust it. I probably would have on my "loop out!"