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Mountain Parkway Offroad Center It all started with a post from "srenfro" on my favorite atv kentuckyriders.com. He had Wednesday open and for some reason the "MP" was open. Their website states that they are only open on the weekends but like their trails their website has little to none maintanance. Srenfro assured me they were open and that he had talked with the people who man the house. I had talked with him on the phone and he told me about his "crew" that was coming with him. All of them had utulity ATVs but one only had two wheel drive. This concerned me knowing the MP as well as I do. There are plenty of sport quad riders who can handle that place but most simple don't have the talent for it's rough and steep trails. That's why I have four wheel drive.(smiles) I went to the park with my main riding buddy, for legal reasons I we refer to him as "beki". While he rides one of those 800cc can-am renegade i'm on a 400cc kodiak. It works out well, I don't want to hurt his feelings when I stomp him on the trails.(/sarcasm) We got there early and started riding around and for the first time in a long time we found a new trail. Near the track there is a turn off from the "iron man" loop that takes you up to the top of kencade mountain. It's a tough trail and I look forward to going back to explore. There were several trails off of that trail, a cornacopia of new trailage. Srenfro finally showed up AFTER all the rain finally stopped. Good timing fine sir. With him there was another Honda rincon like his and two "kids" with him. The kids were on a new wolverine 450 and the other was on some vintage honda two wheel drive mini utulity quad. The little honda was cute but I feared it would be useless against the slimy clay that we would be up against. Beki and I tried to explain to srenfro that the right side of the gravel Is fairly ridable after a hard rain and left side would be a muddy disaster to ride on. We headed to the left....this will not end well. With the Rincon brothers up front with the Beki and me back with the kids we started in on the worst section of the MP. Srenfro took as on a great ride on the left trails. While normally this trails are so rocky and nasty all that rain had turned it into pure mud and the ride was pretty damn smooth. The highlight of these trails was by far watching the kid on the vintage honda fly up some of the sickest muddy hills. Talent per CC this kid was the greatest rider I had ever ridden with. Stopping at the end of the race track.
We headed down to the track for a little water riding, we "tried" the loop going clockwise. This can't be done that way and we had to turn around and do it clockwise.While sitting on the end of the track I was lusting over that little honda, I placed my foot on the rear tire and the damn thing almost fell off. It had a new tire and VERY loose lugnuts. We got that fixed and headed to the loop to get back to the creek. It's a pretty crazy trail with the steep hill cimb and then the drop into the creek. Yet again we all were pumped when the little honda made it to the top. The drop down into the creek is a pretty hard fall but it will look like childs play compared to what we ran into later.
We screwed around doing the iron man backwards but had to turn around near the top. We would be
back later to this area but it will not be pretty. Some of the trails were in such bad shape
we spent most of the morning moving trees and going comando through the woods.
After a good workout Beki and myself came to
the conclusion these guys can really ride and were ready for the crazy stuff. Ironicaly the kid
on the vintage honda was one of the faster riders that day. We had to stop a few times to help
him but only to drag it over a log or something. On the massive hill climbs it was all him. Everyone
was getting hungery so we decided to take the roller coaster back to camp.
Beki took off and I follow with the kids right behind me. The rincon boys fell behind and took the gravel back. Those kids where nuts, they followed me up some CRAZY hillclimbs and where hungery for more. We finally got back to camp and Beki and the rincon boys where already eating lunch. The kids jumped off and ate their lunch in about 2 seconds and where ready to roll. Beki had to get home so we offered to take srenfro's crew for one last ride before we left. We decided to take them on the full iron man loop. This was the beginning of one bad desistion after another. Within a few short moments Beki was crossovered on a trail and we had to drag the renegade out to get it back on the trail. This was not a good sign. The kid on the vintage honda thought it was so cool he decided to copy and do the very same thing. For the first time ever I lead the way up the mountain climb up the iron man. The trail is already getting VERY rocky and rutted and will only get worse until it becomes unridable and just sits unridden until the next race comes along and the bulldoze the trail again. Until then be warned, it is getting hairy up there. The hill climb to the top took several riders out on my last trip there and this time the condition were near unridable. fortaintly everyone made it up and all we had to get through the ridge line run and down "the drop." The ruts on the ridge line had turned into valleys many of the ride arounds have become unridable. The ridge took a long time due to constant hangups and people nearly rolling of the mountain. It was not easy for any of us. At the end of the ridge is a long drop off to the right. Everytime I go down this trail it gets worse and not it's a 2 foot sheer drop on top of the steep rocky decent. No one wanted to go back so we forwarded on. Beki went first then myself and the kids in tail. After the kids made it I thought the ricon brothers would do fine based on their ease of riding all the trails up until this point. Rincon number 2 went first with Srenfro watching from the top. I'm sure he could write a story about the next few seconds but in the end he flipped it forward twice and landed half way down the trail. He took a bad hit but luckly he had some new body armor that saved him. Srenfro shaken by the crash still had to decend the drop. He quickly manned up and went for it. Not wanted to repeat he grabbed and fist full of throttle and roared down the cliff. We finished the trail with no other events and went to the roller coaster again. By this time Beki had ran out of time and us two headed home. Rummer has it that Srenfro and crew will be down for the aug. 8th ride to brimstone with us. I for one am looking forward to riding with them again. Great guys and great ridings!
This is Disturbed Society post over at the rinconriders forum.
Srenfro, 4 of his friends, and I went back to Clay City again today. It was a great day to ride, we got there right after a big downpour so the trails weren't dusty. Had a great time up until I rolled the Rincon again. We were doing the "Ironman" trail and we came upon a hill that had "Danger" on a sign above it. There was about an 18" stepdown off a rock and then it was pretty steep after that for about 30 ft then made a sharp right still going downhill. Everyone else made it down fine until it was my turn. Srenfro spotted for me on the stepdown. After you dropped the front tires off the rock, you had to give it some gas to keep the back from coming up. I made the stepdown fine, but picked up too much speed before the turn. I paniced and hit the brakes a little too hard ( 4wd and used both levers) and the back end came up and flipped end over end once hitting me, then it was coming down on me again and I kicked up at the last minute sending it sideways with the floorboard landing on my midscetion. There was a little dip there so that didn't hurt too bad.
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