Mission Impossible!

Been away for most of the week, so no night ride and only the Sunday am ride under the belt. MLW spent the weekend in George Washigton State Park on a ladies MTB/yoga retreat! She came back after a couple of big time technical and long (3+h) rides to annouce she wants a new bike. Needs full suspension to achieve her full potential apparently - we'll see.

Without MLW the Sunday ride launched from the PnR - fairly low turn out just Sean, Dan "the decider" and me (DB). After the usual decent into the park we climbed the trail up Soapstone rather than the fire road - that wrmed us up plenty - the new fallen tree was still in situ so at least we had an excuse to stop 2/3 the way up. Then the usual BC trail past the Community College and then the rocky uphill. Instead of down House of Pain we hit Superhighway and ended up on Charcoal trail - all rerouted the other week so the mission (if we chose to accept it) was to find the new link to the trails leading to Mission Impossible/Sudden Impact/Double Drop (all trail names changed to protect the guilty - and cos I don't actually know the real names). Mission accomplished when we found the new Sawtee [sic] trail and eventually found ourselves at the base of Patarini Hill with a choice to make. Even Dan "the decider" was unsure so in the interests of stupidity we took the hardest possible option and headed down Mission Impossible.

Just as the trail started to get tough who should breeze past like he was cruising asphalt but Eatough himself and team mate (second Eatough sighting in two weeks). He even stopped to mention to Dan (sho was a little way back) that the trail was the toughest in Patapsco. His meaning was probably "hey you guys have no business being here, get back on the nursery slopes", but he was too polite to say this and we were/are too stupid to take the hint.

All goes swimmingly - with a lot of pushing of bikes - until after the now legendary "24 solo-log" which Dan actually doesn't even want to walk over much less ride over, though we could clearly see the tire tracks from Eatough et al (smart arses) over the log. Shortly after however disaster strikes. Sean gets a bit optimistic on a steep downhill, Dan is in his way, Sean dabs his brakes and..... next stop crashville. Sean comes down HARD on a nasty rocky section and my first though is "well that's his shoulder F**ked". Fortunately I'm not completely correct and after 5 min or so lying on his back groaning and allowing his body to carry out a "systems check" Sean says he is pretty sure nothing is broken and is ready to continue. It becomes obvious very quickly that his shoulder is an issue however and he can't pull on his bars. So in the interests of being sensible (a one time thing only I promise) we take the road back to the base of the climb to the PnR and head back to the cars.

Sean is bemoaning being "stupid" for trying something he shouldn't but hell! Stupidity is what is is all about! If we wanted to be sensible we would be tucked up in bed with a cup of tea at 8:30am on a Sunday morning (especially when the temp is in the 40's) not throwing ourselves and our bikes down (and up) the Patapsco trails.

Till next time

Stupidity rules!

DogzBollux