TheAngryTomato

Just a minute, the hill was HOW steep? 70 degrees is nearly vertical. The steepest streets in seattle are only 20 or so degrees. It just dosnt make sense to me... It's a dirt road. Yeah, I would be confused myself if it was a street.

Two or three weeks ago I was out caching on my mountain bike with my friend (luckily) and we found the cache just fine. On the way back, we decided to go down this nice dirt hill. It was about 50 feet down and the entire descent was about 250 feet, the first 80 or so being about 65-70 degrees down in angle. It may not seem like a lot, but thats about 10 feet down for every 25 feet of travel. I got down the hill fine - stable and everything, but at the bottom there was a small washout with sand a good 1" - 2" deep. The handle bar and front tire started to woble. And I started to freakout, considering I was doing about 25 and the trail was about to T off 200 feet away. Now, before I continue my story, I must explain one thing - The bike I was riding on was new and equipped with Tektro IO Mech. disc brakes (which are the same concept of braking power found on most new cars). I am used to crappy brakes, considering that my old bike was a $150 discout bike with brakes that barley worked. That out of way, let me continue. The wheel started to woble and I panicked. In possibly the stupidest thing I've done in a long time, I slammed on the brakes. Not just the rear brake, but the front brake. The bike flipped over and made a dead stop in about a foot. I was launched off the bike and tumbled a good 15 feet. The bike just kinda flipped over and landed next to me. The only thing I remember about the actual crash is slamming on the brakes and laying on the ground sreaming for my friend (I remember not crying - It's not physically required by your body to cry when injured). I later have come to realize that the handlebars slammed into my chest and I passed out, so my face took the beating. After I crashed, and was screaming for my friend, he came running over and then I passed out. I woke up with water on my forehead and on my back with my feet elevated. I was really dazed and noticed that my lip was swolen and bleeding a bit, as well as my forehead. I swished some water around in my mouth and spat out all the sand that was in my mouth. It tasted really bad with the blood. Kinda being able to think, I told my friend to call my parents. I told them what had happened, where I was and how to get there. Luckilly the road wasn't bad at all, because we have a Honda Odyssey. Superior street car, terrible off-roader. After hanging up, I blacked out again. I woke up and asked to call my parents - again. I pretty much (from what I heard) repeated what I had said eariler. My mom started to freak out because I forgot that I had called earlier, and it took a bit of effort to remeber that I did. Lukily, my dad pulled up so I could go. He picked me up and loaded the bike up in the car, and off to the ER we went. I was extremely tired on the way there and wanted to sleep like nothing else. My dad forced me to stay awake. When we got to the ER room, we did...ER stuff. I got a couple X-rays (nothing broken) and a CAT scan (nothing wrong). Then, they took me into a room and cleaned up my face, caked in a thin layer of dirt. For a couple days I could barley walk (the pedals most of slammed into my leg) and it hurt to put any force on my hand, which took a long while to heal. Today, I am in good condition with only a scar on my mouth. Which sucks cause everyday I have to put this cocoa butter vitiman-E crap all over it. I am back on my bike, but just on the streets - and after a $5000+ ER trip, I don't think I'll be back mountain biking for a while. Well anyways, thats my story. -TheAngryTomato

My friend and I go out caching on mnt. bikes and do about 25 miles at least. Its pretty fun. Were planning a 50 miler. I was just wondering if anybody else are like us with no car cause your only 13. Ok, you can be older than 13, but do you ride a bike to caches?

Well I had one called Egg Toss and my friend has one called Funky Man...and I've seen one called Nuclear Candy...

sorry testing one more time...

0MFG!!!!! TEST

Alright, I think I'm going to go with a Venture CX, MapSource 8.0 or whatever, and a 256 micro-sd. I'll get the TOPO at the end of this year. Is that a good idea or are all the cx's crap when it comes to reception?

Thanks for all the comments everybody. There are two problems with getting that GPSMAP. One, I don't like the size. It's too big for what I do. Two, I don't have a full-time job. I'm still in middle school....so over summer I work. Yeah...I am kinda liking the venture....does anybody know how acurate the venture is? I have the regular eTrex right now so I can deal with sub-par signals.

Alright, having read all the things about the legend being inacurate, I decided to take a second look. The GPSMAP series was a bit out of my price range, but I am looking at the venture right now...and it seems like the only thing differant is you dont get a card (which are cheap as crap) and you dont get tide prediction. I can get a 256mb microsd for 17 bucks, and the price differance between the two units is a lot...hmmm....anybody else want to give me an idea? EDIT: But, after looking more closely, I find the venture dosent come with a bike clip...which I REALLY need and dont want to spend more to get both parts (I already have the mount)

I'm thinking about buying the Legend CX with MapSource v8, Garmin TOPO, and a 256mb microsd card. Anybody have any stories about these? Should I get this, or should I not?

If you are still in the process of finding it: "What are you doing?" "Looking..." "Look for what?" (stare at them with huge eyes) "IT." -If they dont leave you alone from there...- "Whats it?" "I cant tell you." "Why noy?" "Because THEY will destroy me..." They will probably leave you alone. If you are opening the cache up then (esp. an ammo box): "What are you doing?" "I suggest you stand back." "What? Why?" "I cant remember if its the blue wire or the red wire you are supposed to cut..."

I have been put in charge of arranging a campout/geocaching thingy for my boy scout troop, and i have no idea where any campsites are that have a lot of geocaches near them. Were probably also going to be taking quads/atvs so a place with that avalible would be good. Any advice?

yay! cool, thanks.

ok

Sorry if this has been posted before but the search is broken and ive been digging around for a while with no results. I went caching today and hit two caches that used a magnetic key thing and inside they both had the same template log page. Where can I find this template and where can I find the others if there are any? Thanks for any help.

Ok last saturday we found it so just lock this topic if an admin/mod is in here.

Will do. Btw we already put it somewhere else.

excuse his note, hes my friend. he was just being stupid (we do this a lot ) he found it at paw paw rah and hes not going to tell you where hes going to put it next because hes cooler than you.

thanks

How do you get those icon things that go under the buttons where you log a cache/etc if your making a cache? The ones that tell you if its 'kid friendly' or 'can be completed in one hour'? Any help would be great. I'm new to this so...yeah.