Dark

Friday Roadie Steve and I took a friend on his first real mountain bike ride. Being the kind and considerate people that we are we may have gotten down to the shop a little bit late, but we decided to make this up by driving to the top of FS 90 rather than making our poor newbie ride from Damascus to the top. After taking our friend's truck to the top of the mountain and getting the bikes off we set out down the backside of FS 90 and I was immediately struck by how slow our newbie was going... this was going to be a long day.

As we hit the first bit of single track my outlook changed, Roadie Steve shot off the front and I held the rear to clean up any messes but he did just fine. We moved slowly but consistently for quite some time, and it wasn't until the rocks got off cambered with roots cutting through than our newbie even put a foot down.

We continued along feathercamp ridge for quite some time watching the sky get darker and darker, and I must say regretting the fact that I hadn't tossed the trinewt into my bag, it's not like I don't have space. The trail was getting harder to see, and often I was simply trusting the bike to take the bumps that my eyes were failing me on. At this point I knew that we were in trouble, because we hadn't hit my favorite trail yet, and it gets dark early on beachgrove.

At the top of beachgrove it was beginning to transition from dusk to dark, still I announced, though I'm sure nobody cared, that I was intending to get down this thing without tapping. I took the lead and was heading down the trail at approximately 1/5 of my regular speed. Despite my care in picking lines, on the third switchback I put my foot down for the first time. The trail was dark enough that I was only picking up vague shape and contours with my eyes and was then using my knowledge of the trail to pick the best way through (and to figure out where the heck I was). Once I got through the last rock garden, where I had to tap twice, I started really moving for several reasons:

1. I was almost out of here

2. It's relatively flat from here on out

3. The moon can get through the lack of leaves down here and now I can see a little bit better

As I'm sure you know from watching Robin Hood Men in Tights, thinking you can see and actually being able to see are two different things, which is why with about 200 yards left to go on the trail I hit something, locked up the back wheel trying to save the fall, and then ended up spinning out the bike. I ended up hitting a tree sideways... with the back wheel of the bike pointing down hill and the front pointing up. Once I got over the "what the heck happened" aspect of not being on the ground with the bike in the wrong direction I uneventfully made it out to the road, where I had to wait for quite some time before our poor abused newbie and Roadie Steve got out.

With only 4 miles on the Creaper Trail between us and the shop and enough moonlight to almost see we cruised back into town, often two abreast... although incoming headlights on more than one occasion threatened to cause me to ride off the trail and trestles were not much fun.
To be honest with you as a mountain biker I considered this to be great fun, and while I am hitting myself for not having my light with me... there is not guarantee this won't happen again. As to the all important question of weather Stephen will ever ride with us again... well that remains to be seen, but come on don't you want to join us on our next ride. OK, not the next one, Steve already wrote about that.

Lost

After the group ride yesterday (which Jared might post about later), Jared and I agreed to get up this morning and hit the trails in Bristol. A little moist after an evening of rain, but otherwise beautiful on a crisp, fall day. The only constraint that we had was that I had to be back on campus by 2 for a group project. Not bad seeing as we left my apartment at 10 am.

We arrived at the trail head map and sketched out a nice little loop to ride. Setting out, I felt good. We did the normal hike a bike thing (Bristol's trails have some unridable features such as steps on climbs and horrible erosion). Then we settled into some fun descents and a few decent climbs. Then we came to an unridable descent. But I noted a second almost trail that seem to wind up at the bottom. After finally getting to the bottom of the crazy descent/ sketch trail, we had several option.

A) Go strait up the next hill... completely unridable.
B) Go down trail next to creek bed ... if it was a trail.
C) Take clearly blazed trail... that led in wrong direction.

We chose to A and hiked our bike to the top of the next ridge. And kept hiking. And then made an important discovery. The "trail" that we had come up was actually a really bad run off. This is where we began making decisions. And by decisions I mean bad ones. We decided to not go back the way we came. No... we had worked too hard to get to the top of the ridge (20 odd minutes of climbing). But if we kept going on the ridge line, we felt we would find a trail for sure. Unless of course you can't walk along the ridge line because of all of the thorns.

So why not go for that trail at the bottom of the hillside? Ok.

So down the hillside we slid. Only to find it was a drainage ravine.

Lets follow this ravine down to the lake? Cool.

Lets keep with the creek to the the lake? Fine.

And that is how we wound up back where we started, with choices A, B, and C. This time we chose C. And C involved lots of hiking, curing of erosion, and little riding. One fall on the already sore knee later and we found a trail juncture.

Right or strait. Strait.

Right or left on a gravel road. Right.

How come I can see the speedway and Volunteer Parkway?

And that is how we found ourselves on the backside of the park.
We (rightly) chose to ditch the dirt and take to the pavement to find the car again. So 40 minutes of riding through Bristol later and I was more excited to see Jared's car then I ever have been in my life. Next time we do a morning ride, I am eating a lot more then 2 toaster struedels! Needless to say I was way late for my group's meeting (which thankfully was canceled. This brings Jared and I to 2 death marches in 2 days. A feat which I hope I never reach again. (Want to do it again next week?)