It's been ages! Weather and scheduling issues have kept the Night-Ride group for convening for what seems like a bloody lifetime. Well that all changes last week, emails, texts, smoke-bloody-signals, whatever it took were exchanged and resulted in George, Brian and DB meeting up finally for a good old fashioned blow out.
Todd was absent partly due to some exams-thing coming up in the next few weeks but more importantly due to an ankle injury picked up during the Bike Polo escapade up at Ganoga - Bummer!
Ride started as any good NR should, with a trip up Small Intestine. Disaster is narrowly avoided as the rickety bridge is not so much rickety but more collapsed! Fortunately having got the new light i had just enough warning to both brake myself and to shout a warning to the others (close on my heals) before we all disappeared into the abyss. The section just after Small Intestine (with all the sticks/logs laid on the trail) was in pretty dodgy shape too, yielding the first fall of the night when George lost his front wheel on a log lying across the trail at about 45 degrees.
As it's been so long we were all full of enthusiasm and after a short confab decide the "Old Ridge Trail" uphill is in order. Tough, tough, tough! Fortunately we have Brian with us to show us how it is done. thence onto Ridge and a foolish decision (by Yours Truly) to take the descent from Ridge(just before the Cascade rock garden) down to the road! This descent scares me rigid in the daytime so at night I am a nervous wreck. George and Brian disappear into the gloom and leave me picking my way down pitifully slowly. This descent was the inspiration for the "SloMo Endo" post as a little over half way down I perform this little stunt to end up in a tangled mess amidst frame and undergrowth. Nothing too major though post ride checking reveals I've removed a fair amount of skin in various (some rather delicate) area of my body!
Once at the road it's over the Swing bridge and up what has now replaced Vineyard as my favorite climb on the BC side - the Convent climb! No dogs about this time to make friends with. Then it's a circuitous route to Bullrun and then we head back to HC via the waterbar and take Morning Choice back to the cars. Fun, fun, fun. About 2 hours worth of solid effort - feeling quite good (limitation of beer intake for past month is beginning to show effects both weight and fitness wise) and we have certainly earned our beer and pesto-bread "post-ride repast". Surely there should be a law about having this much fun - Oh yeah I think there probably is!
Till next time
DogzBollux
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