The Old Goat Rides on. And what a ride it was for sure and what a posse we had. For years now the ole Soulmaster has been having the annual Old Goat Birthday ride so named for me now the Old Goat and also being Capricorn. I'm not old yet but someday before I dare imagine, that there old age thing is going to set it. But it aint yet and half the fun of this ride is diggin' the fact we're all pretty young and most all of us still riding' tough.

Over the years the Old Goat has seen groups of big and small but this year was the biggest by far with a trail gang of 18. Imagine that smack on in a record breaking stretch of rain, which I think stands now at 30 days straight, all these folks showing up to ride. Amazing what a peak a boo view of the sun and free Espresso will do to lure out the trail hounds. But whatever it made me feel pretty good ya know Almost As Tall like feeling to have all the bros and sis's around to rally.

So we all powered up on the Spro a bit too much and got the whirlies (my name for being way to beaned out) had our shop sundries and rolled out. Trail of 18 Dirt Pigs rallying up the switchbacks of the climb. It was cool to hear all the different conversations going. The Wildabeast rappin' with JC. DC at the back shootin' video, the Kona Clan spread all out and all the rabble and rouse in between shootin the breeze. Bunch of Dirt Pigs out for good times.

As is the way on the Old Goat I put together a route of the nastiest greasy single track I could find. Being it's January in the Northwest you might as well embrace reality right? It going to rain so go with it learn to love the mud. And with all the rain the mountain did not disappoint.

I was pretty surprised at how good all the old school trails like the Three Pigs were for heading up. But it was still pretty heinous especially for the Single Speeders. It's nice to make them suffer once and again on the climbs too cuz they kick my ass on so many others. Ya know what I like about Single Speeders ? They never bitch about their one gear whether they are spinning out, pushing up or just rallying-a-long. At least not with the geared geeks around. Every now and then you can hear them whisper stuff off in the bushes together like I really should have grabbed a 17t or what the hell ever stuff like that though.


But they had nothing on SUPER DAVE. Talk about ride of the day. See SUPER DAVE busted his 15 year old hand me down Syncros Aluminum two bolt seat post on the oldest of old school trails the Lost Giants. I guess pretty proper place for it to give up the ghost. We all bummed for a bit and I offerred for him to roll back to my pad and pull a post out of one of my rigs. But he said all like ahhhh well I'll just see how far I can roll it out. DAMN if SUPER DAVE didn't rally the whole remaining 3/4 of the ride 2 hours plus, minus seat a post. That's right, Towers Road, Wonderland, Oly, 187, Cabin all DAVE ALL DAY. SUPER DAVE RULES! Old Goat history made there no doubt!

That's just but a bit of the fun we were having that day. It didn't rain the whole ride and their was this really weird blue thing above our heads. We think it may have been the sky. Been raining so long we're not sure. Along the route we all had different stuff to do and folks split off at different times. Lots of folks off to start the beers flowing for the Seahawks game (they won) and others off to kid duty.


By the end of it all the crew was down to about eight and it was all just flowing. Sweet Singletrack at high speed with not much of a care. Me and old Shit Ball Assembly Guy (SAG) were just railing it with me doing my best impression of the Eddy lines I learned. I was totally sketchy at best on the Intestine full two wheel drifting waiting for traction. Couple of times I was getting a bit "creative" with the lines and I could hear Odie and Marteeen hooting behind.

It was super cool everyone showed up. Big thanks to them all for making another Old Goat ride one to remember. Can't hardly wait till next year.

It was a lot like old times but new like and still really, really good.

Damn I love bikes.

Peace,

MP