More to the story

Okay, so you know we made it down alive. Now you need to see a few of the pictures.

We rode up in Coyote's extended VW van. It was a good long ride up to about 10,000 feet of elevation. Now we all knew that we were going higher than the top of Porcupine Rim at 6,500, but ten was news. Even though it was raining on the way up, we were all smiles and ready for the ride. Jesse gave us a solid briefing at the top. Climb from here (9,600) to the top, exactly 10,000 then down a rocky trail called Hazard to the Kokopelli. Then across the burn area where a tractor destroyed the trail and on to UPS, NPS, LPS and finally to Porcupine Rim. This is the longest vertical down of any bike trail at 6,000 feet.
It was sleeting at the top and we were freezing. We lost about a half hour after Darren's rear derailleur hanger broke and Matt and Ryan performed the field repair. Ryan rode the disabled bike which became a chain-less downhill machine.

We then hit the tractor path in the burn area. I was sooo cold that Katsie was vibrating with the shivers. We all gave her hugs of warmth to keep her going as well as some spare clothing.

The fresh cut of the earth exposed the stickiest mud and clay on this great earth that I have ever seen. Now I am talking sticky. We all were riding along then one-by-one, we just came to screeching halts. The mud gummed up our bikes so much that the wheels would not turn. Let me say that again; THE WHEELS WOULD NOT TURN! We scraped and pushed; carried, scraped and pushed; rode, carried, scraped and pushed for at least 90 minutes to get passed the tractor cut.

Savor the mud!

Do you think this mud contributed to my brake failure???I didn't even try to shift gears.
After the mud, we had some good downhill runs. It began to warm a bit, but we were so completely exhausted from the first three or four hours, we were looking for the bail-out point.
My brakes didn't last long on the down hill. I was managing on the single track, but once we found the dirt road escape route, I rode the brakes hard. It quickly got to the point where I had full brakes on full-time to keep from going out of control. I even used my shoe for additional braking power. I stopped twice to tighten the brake cable, and quickly bottomed the levers on the grips again.
Then Ryan warned me of a truck coming. I controlled my speed as best possible and kept to the right. Then when he passed, I said "I should flag that guy down for a ride!" Ryan jumped into action to catch up and Tara and Darren ahead got him to stop. I piled my bike and self into the bed of Kyle's truck and said "Hallelujah!"
So I bailed well before the Porcupine Rim. It was the right thing to do. I got back to camp about 30 minutes ahead of the gang and then we all toasted a beer to the day. (l-r Rob, Ryan, Matt, Katsie, Darren and Tara). We will remember this forever!
The hot tub after was absolute heaven.