Cow Mountain adventure last weekend Day one

I worked at the Sawmill Enduro motorcycle race last weekend in
Cow Mt. between Ukiah and Clearlake California doing Ham radio emergency communications for the race.



There was an 80 mile race Saturday and a 50 mile family race Sunday. We had to relay emergency traffic over three small mountain ranges from 11 check points in canyons and on top of hills and everywhere in between. It was quite a challenge but we were very successful.


Out of 300 riders Sat. and 200 on Sunday we only had one broken leg on Sat. and one possible fractured wrist on Sunday. Both incidents were reported and rescue operations were coordinated by us on the radios.


They sent me to some of the more remote check points because I had the 4x4 but the terrain wasn’t to bad.






We camped at the Red Mt. campsite and it snowed on us a little on Sat. night and was 22 degrees at 5am Sunday morning – there was ice on the inside of the windows in my truck. I was glad I brought the warm sleeping bag.


The best part was the kids racing with their parents on Sunday. These little kids on their 50cc bikes did 50 miles of single track and fire roads. Great stuff.



edit - re-added pics -m

ow Mountain adventure last weekend Day two

Second day was the family race –
Little wheels and big wheels –


Freezing in the morning –


Here are a few more pics of day two.
- the ham station


- and some racers
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Go here for all the pics - http://s383.photobucket.com/albums/oo275/elcabritos/Sawmill Cow Mountain April 08/

edit – to re-add the pics

Looks like a fun time.

Looks very familiar... Ive been wheeling up there for years, closest place that I can get off road for me!

Cool! Way to help out. :luxhello:

Thanks for helping out! I did the "real" race on Sunday, and some friends raced on Saturday. It was a great event, but super dusty (no surprise). NBMC puts on a great event.

Did you see the fire on Saturday? I heard that several people couldn't finish the race because the fire and smoke came close to the course. I know it looked pretty close when I rode through the West end of the course.

MountainBiker said:

Thanks for helping out! I did the "real" race on Sunday, and some friends raced on Saturday. It was a great event, but super dusty (no surprise). NBMC puts on a great event.

Did you see the fire on Saturday? I heard that several people couldn't finish the race because the fire and smoke came close to the course. I know it looked pretty close when I rode through the West end of the course.

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Yes the sunday race was really cool with all the kids - one kid was riding double with his dad.

The fire never actually threatened the race. As far as we could tell on the radios it was a controlled burn on private property. The CDF did not dispatch and apparently was aware of the burn. It did concern a lot of people though and there was a lot of confusion on who to call to report it, but the concensus was to continue with the race and not worry about it. It did seem to come pretty close to the race course but I didn't see it or the smoke because the check point I was at was in a valley.

-mg

Tell me more about the Pelican mounted HAM setup. Internal battery power? Custom jobber or commercially available?

cruiseroutfit said:

Tell me more about the Pelican mounted HAM setup. Internal battery power? Custom jobber or commercially available?

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That is my own custom Ham Go-box - it's sort of a work in progress and I am still trying to decide how to foam it out. - I have a nice big 12v battery inside that I got from Allelectronics dot com - It has a little LED strip inside for night use with the lid open. I use a custom J-pole for the antenna that I got at my local HRO and it's made by a local ham named Ed Fong if you do a web search you can see it. I drilled out some holes for the antenna, speaker, and remote head cable. I drilled the holes where there is a little plate that slides out under the handle so I can slide it back in to cover the holes when not in use. I would post a little write up about it in the Communications section but it is so raw and un finished I didn't want to post my sloppy work.

- mg