Another ST ride in Talamban area .... Staging area for starting ride .... We drop into known ST trails ... All the rain is keeping everything very green .... trails are a little hidden by all the growth Next, a cool creek ride for a 1/2 mile or so ... Here's why the creek is so smoothed out in places ... trucks are in it getting dirt ....
Native home just off the creek ... We hit some dirt roads for connecting to the next ST For what ever reason, this carabao was acting pretty wild ... maybe it was all the bikes but 99 out 100 of these guys never move a muscle when we pass ... Moving into a yard ...That is Lapu-Lapu in the background with Bohol in the distance ... Its really only a few miles across the water... Jumping over a few rocks ...
Cutting out via the garden .... Break time .... Dropping off into another creek ... Look close, there is a bike to the center of the pic in creek.. Park at a native hut waiting for the others to cross... Heading out through another garden ... .
nice, people would definatly be bitchin about ridin through the yards here. curious with alot of yalls woods riding, is there any snakes or anything like that you have to watch for over there?
Another creek crossing ... with a switchback coming out of it... Riders over the creek and up the hill side ... just out of view the trail hits a vertical uphill climb with a ~sharp cut back towards the top ... We stage here across from the creek directly in front of us waiting to attempt the next climb ... The first part of the climb is not so bad, only narrow, but where you must turn back to the left and drive straight up the very vertical final climb, there is no way to keep traction and the bike slides off the hill side ... That is about a 50' drop to our immediate right ... This bike is hung just under the part where the bikes slide off the hill side ... The only chance for a successful climb here is to cut to the weeds on the left side ... I might can make it next time We had to break out the rope to get the bikes over the top of this section ... The locals there were very helpful as always ...The final uphill there is about 1 bike tire wide ... No slips off the down side here....
Here is another uphill just past the rope pullin' section ... It was pretty cool.. pretty vertical, only about 1' run up unless you did a cool move crossing the creek at the bottom, a turn back about 4' up the hill and on to the rooted tree section ... At the top of this was another small climb and another uphill section with very big rocks and boulders ... and then much more ST ... After the rope pull, I was spent so no more pics ... I had trouble keeping the 08 TXC250 from overheating and it was work from here on out ... I started out towards the front of the pack and fell back... way back ... I made the ride but the week I spent at the track really hurt my trail riding ...I'll be making a trail comeback this weekend, weather permitting
No, in most cases they like seeing us ... We're out in the real sticks here ... And we are the circus... the little kids ESP get a big kick out of us ... The young girls are usually all smiles also ... The huts on top of that hill do not even have a road within a 1/2 mile or so ... I'm not sure if they are even riding their bikes very close to the huts ... It was very gnarly but just right gnarly except for that 2 feet section on that uphill ... I hope some one cuts us a small pivot point in the hill side before we arrive there again... There are snakes here because I have seen them in the roads dead but they are all non-poisonous as far as I can tell ... The riders I'm with never mention them so it is not a problem ... There are some sort of monitor lizards here also I see a few times a year but they know to keep outta sight or they will be dinner ...
It's my life and sometimes it does seem a little over the top ... But these riders I'm with have got it all wired ... They are very good on these trails ... If anyone needs help, no problem... many times someone jumps on someone else's bike and rides it across a section for him ..
That's the way it should be. Riders helping one another to keep the ride moving along as smoothly as possible. Since I'm short and not young anymore, I am often that rider that needs a push, a pull or for somebody to ride my bike through a particularly nasty section.
I've had to work very hard to get better at gnarly sections that just can't be blasted across .... Looking at a section and making a plan helps alot ... even to the point of planning where I'll put my foot down on each rock or tall root ... Making sure I'm up on the tank very far and using the clutch to control 98% of the bikes speed has helped greatly ... I'll leave the throttle in a set position and speed the bike up or down with the clutch in many places ... riding the clutch greatly to reduce wheel spin when starting off is critical many times ....
Great report and great photos Ray you're making me very jealous. Are those views across cebu looking towards Mactan, because they look very much like the views from Banilad were we were staying. It would be the heat that did for me. I can imagine what it must be like wrestling a bike through a snotty bit in that heat. You'll need to take on water regularly.
Right, that is Mactan out there and the northern tip of Bohol past it ... We're in the mountains west of Mandaue City ... My camera is really not doing justice to the views that can be seen with the naked eye in those pics ... Looks really cool to see the other islands across the pacific ocean .... The heat really gets to me also but most of these riders seem to handle it much better than me ... As long as it is dry, the ST is OK as most places are doable, hard, but doable ... But once I over heat like pulling bikes up a hill , I have a hard time recovering ... They sell the energy drinks here (10P) and I mix them with water to keep me going ... And I gotta be smart and let my 08 TXC250 do the work ... Its paramount that I make a very good effort on each climb as we normally have several each ride ... When it is wet... its bad ... we rode 2.5 hrs on Sunday and went about 1/2 mile trying to cross a creek and go up the hill on the other side ... never made it and turned back and went down the other side into a different creek ... ~45 minutes going 1/8 mile as it was very steep and wet rocks ...This is the stuff that is very hard on my bike ... It runs hot often .... Again, I have to be smart Some of the groups of riders here are of the extreme type ...I can hang with them but not so well when it get wet ... They just push into points where it is almost impossible to cross or climb ... Most have the smaller 2t machines that can be picked up and moved easily ... makes we wish I had a 150 Husky here also ... The first pic is of me getting over the step-up on the up-hill side that we did not finish last Sunday and the next pic is of the downhill we did tackled next ... My friend Jhun hired those 2 guys who were on the trail & carrying firewood home, to push\slide his bike down the hill as he took pics of the other riders ... He just put the bike in 1st gear and killed the engine ... it was so vertical, the locked back tire did not matter in most places ...
