Yup....once again for all of you that chose not to join in on the Maple - Motorway night ride.....y'all missed out.
I rode decided to ride in from the Tree Farm....gives me time to get the legs warmed up before we start up Maple Springs. Parking at the top just kills me.
Steve pulled into the Tree Farm just as I was about to roll. He was gonna wait for
@Grego , do some bike maintenance, then drive up to the Maple Springs gate.
I made it up to the Maple Springs parking lot only to find the gate closed. The few parking spaces up there say "No Parking Sunset to Sunrise". Since there is zero cell reception back there, I back tracked down the road a little bit to the first place you can park on the side. While waiting there a friend of mine pulls up.....fancy meeting you out here today. "Is this where we are meeting Steve?" "You are doing the ride with us......sweet". He said something about someone had to slow me down.
Steve and Grego pulled in right after. We were off. We rolled up to the gate....all 4 of us took 4 different ways to get past the gate. The ride up the pavement went by really quick this time. We were not pushing the pace, but all the conversation kept us pre-occupied. We hit the dirt and daylight was beginning to melt away. Even though the gate was closed, we did run across 3 County of Orange vehicles on the way up. They were all courteous...not the regular "where's the mud" yahoos I would have expected out there.
A little ways up....'anonymous' rider and myself started to pull away....we were catching up, hadn't spoken in a while. We regrouped at the upper left guardrail turn. Finally had to turn the lights on. Shorty after we reached 4 Corners....again, it seemed to go by pretty quick.
Short break at 4 Corners....temps had cooled down a bit, threw on the arm warmers and we headed off. Main Divide got a fair amount of rain...sections that were smooth a week ago, were a little more "weathered". The powderpuff/silt beach section was hardpacked.....it had all been washed away. However those sections were once again pretty raw....but fun as usual. We did run across a few puddles and only one 20' section of unavoidable mud. Up the first of the 2 big climbs....just grinded it out. On the traverse over to the second climb, we rolled into a section that was a bit loose.....I had trouble making the turn....only to find out that Grego and Steve had a tougher time behind us.
At one point 'anonymous' rider was back with Grego....I told Steve that he was just toying with us....had he been on his own, he'd be done already. Sure enough, on the last climb, he finally put the hammer down mildly and pulled away...."I guess he was done toying with us"
Motorway is Motorway and it just keeps getting better. It did seem like a couple of the water bars were a little worse...but still a great time.
Great night out on the mountain with a fun group.
I just can't get past 'em....
They were free. 
I like'em. 
. MD was a ghost town. Cool views I haven't seen in sometime 
I started pushing up Lynx, but they told me he did it on the rutted section above Lynx and above the fire-road. At least that gave them easy access to exit the park and get to their car on Canyon Vistas. Nothing I could do to help so I continued on.
No matter.
