Rode six days in a row in Eastern Washington with Mark Belles and a shifting cast of characters.

We rode Bear Mt./Middle Fork Beaver Ck. (Day 1), the Golden Stairway (outside Concunully on the road that winds around the far side of the lake) (Day 2), Klone Peak / Middle Fork Tommy Ck. Epic (Day 3), Sun Mt. (Day 4), Cutthroat Pass (Day 5), and Bear Mt./Middle Fork Beaver Ck. again (Day 6).

My highlights were probably:

• breaking my helmet on a hidden branch on Bear Mt. on Day 1
• making the big rock rollover (which had lots of roundish, brain-like nodes) near the top of the Middle Fork Tommy drop on Day 3
• running away from everybody with astounding ease when I got on the Specialized Stumpjumper FSR XC at Sun Mt. on Day 4
• following Mark Belles all the way down from Cutthroat Pass at full rip on the Cannondale Jekyll (last year, he had left me within 10 seconds on the fly down from Klone Peak)
• acing the 2 1/2 foot root/rock drop on Middle Fork Beaver Ck on the last day (Cathy was my witness) which had hammered my nuts on Day 1

Steve Hindman had the funniest line of the trip. It was the second day and we had just caravanned into the tiny town of Okanogan so I could replace the helmet I shattered the day before, and there on the main street was a beauty parlor with a large hand lettered sign that read, Whack 'n Yack. I thought this was pretty funny, but when I looked over at Steve Hindman sitting next to me, I almost drove the car off the road. Steve started pantomiming masturbation, or whacking off, and said to me in his best conversational tone, "So Bruce, have you read any good books lately?" Whack 'n yack, indeed!

Approximately 18,000 verts combined over the six days.