Night Ride From Hell!

With the trusty old Monocog out of action there were only two choices (i) bag the weekly night ride completely or (ii) ride MLW's bike - as if there was a choice! O.K.'d it with MLW and all was set. It's not as though I've never ridden MLW's bike - it was the bike I started Mtbing on 4 years since, so I had assumed that after a brief period of reaquaintance it would all be good and that I would achieve a "karmic-oneness" with MLW's Litespeed.

Karmic-oneness my arse! The damn bike clearly hates me and did everything in it's power to bloody kill me. My Grandad always said that there was "no such thing as bad beer", some beer he would concede was better than others but none of it was bad (wise fella my Grandad), I (in my turn) had adopted a similar philosophy towards bike rides. Well this night ride was as close to a "Bad ride" as I have every come.

The portents were poor from the off. We hit Small Intestine first and the trouble started immediately, I assumed that with all that "gearness and frontshockicity" at my disposal I would glide like a "glidy-thing" over the obstacles and no hill would be too steep. Instead I found the lack of rigidity at the front end very disconcerting and the gears just reduced me to a fumbling idiot changing gears at random on the off chance that I'd get it right (think monkeys, typewriters and Shakespeare). And to cap it all off MLW's bike decided it would grip my cleats with a sloppy vengeance that would make unclipping impossible. Beautiful.

Over the Belmont Road and I hit a mud puddle that buries my front wheel to it's hub and stops the bike on a dime. My body meantime tries not to stop at all and wants to fling itself over the handle bars, oh but that would require unclipping wouldn't it!! Instead I land in the mud puddle still attached to and twisty tangled in the bike. Well at least Brian enjoyed it, he being the absolute Gentleman he is realized at once I was having "bike issues" and insisted on staying with me to (i) make sure I didn't get lost/hurt and (ii) laugh when I fell off (I don't think he has ever laughed so much).

The pattern was established, every obstacle I would make a complete dog's breakfast of, fail to unclip and fall over. Great fun for all the family. I even managed to fall off on some completely flat sections for good measure. It was so bad that I avoided any obstacle that I could and progressed at a pathetically slow pace. The ride took us the usual big loop Rockburn Branch, Ridge and Cascade. Half way round Ridge on a sharp uphill I fell badly for the first time of the night, misjudged gears and fell on the end of the handlebars! I repeated the effort 20 min later by which point I was thoroughly disheartened and just wanted to go home, it's amazing how having the end of a handlebar jammed repeatedly in your groin can reduce the fun from almost any activity. The Guys were golden in the face of my ineptitude, abandoning there planned ride (both sides of the Park) and instead riding a very "Vanilla" route on HC side back to the cars. The Litespeed's attempts to eviscerate me have left me feeling like I have been gored by a bull and I never, ever want to ride that bloody bike ever again! If that is what gears and suspension feel like then you guys can keep em!

I'm sure the other guys (Todd, George and Brian) had a pretty miserable ride too (but they probably are not as sore as me this morning).

Cheers

DogzBollux