Bogley - Nelson Hills 5-2-11
So Garbonzo called the other day and said he was coming to Vegas on Sunday to hit up a few strip clubs and asked if I wanted to get together for a ride. He was staying at the Texas Station (GHETTO) so I told him to leave his stuff in my garage and we would get together on Tuesday for a ride. We loaded up Tuesday at noon and headed out to the Nelson Hills. Mark had been out there briefly Sunday night to check it out ‘cause he’d heard it was pretty gnarly and he ended up in some of the harder stuff but I assured him we would take it easy and have a good time. Now I was a little worried about meeting a guy on the internet and then going out in the woods with him….I was afraid he was going to hit me with a rock and go all Deliverance on me. So I tried to never let him get to close to me out there! My buddies here in town started calling it my bromance and asking if I was going to be okay. They just don’t understand how awesome UUtah is….er I mean Bogley!
We did our typical 40 mile loop though I decided to bypass some of the harder stuff on the back loop since I think we were both getting a little tired towards the back 10 miles. I’d obviously been on the loop multiple times before but it was fun to see Mark having a blast. Our loop consists of a lot of ridgeline singletrack separated by high speed desert washes and cross-desert whooped out connectors. Mark seemed to really enjoy the stuff. He was wearing a GoPro the whole time so there should be some great video coming, though It’ll be fun to see if he edits out ‘certain parts’!
I think he caught one of my near wrecks on video where my front tire tied to wash and buck me in one of the tight turns going up one of the washes. I know that he CONVENIENTLY had the camera off when he ran into me. We were going up a steep hill and I started to lose momentum (bald rear tire) so I started to clutch the smoker and Mark must have been trying to show off since he attempted an ill-advised mid hill climb pass that managed to get my handlebar stuck in the freshly burned hole in his tool bag behind the seat which of course pinned the throttle and nearly made us both launch off the hill. The burned hole in the tool bag is another story that I’ll let Mark share. Ask him how far he had to backtrack to find the tool bag remains…..
Overall we had a good time. Lots of fun, I never wrecked so it was a good trip for me, but someone else wasn’t so fortunate. The weather was nice and we had the area to ourselves so no worrying about launching over the hilltops. We hit some good trail and had a great time talking about all sorts of things at the stops. Good times, good people, and good riding. What more can you ask for on a Tuesday afternoon?
I didn’t take any pics but I know Mark is going to post some video in the next day or so that should be awesome!
I tried to get the map to embed but for some reason it's not working. Anyways it shows our tracks and my speed at each mile.
http://maps.google.com/?q=http://sha...10503-1347.kml