rachel & leah's excellent adventure

I've brought home a bit of west coast laid back vibe. Somehow, the trip brought change; i like it. For example, being the planner that I am, I haven't planned anything much more than a day in advance and i've been taking each day as it comes... finding time to ride and catch up with friends as the day progresses. seeing who I run into and letting the day unfold. I showed up for a 130 mile ride on 3.5 hours sleep after being off for 2 weeks, with a few protein bars and some gatorade not thinking twice about the challenge of a long day.

sweet.

In the spirit of minimal planning, my dear friend rachel and I met up for lunch the other day and decided to head out to the forest for some cross action. we chose a ride that I knew would be a good 2.5 hours - maybe more given my broken down legs and rolled out not thinking about sunset and the fact the forest gets dark with a quick light switch flick. The first part of the ride was awesome. We saw a great blue heron at the lake and caught up given weeks since we've seen each other. Boy how I missed my friends.

We hit the bottom of gettis - a rocky double track section just as the light was starting to get dim.

Rach got a snack - "i think we're ok", she said.
"yea, we're cool - plenty of time". i was in no rush.

As we began to climb we quickly realized light was becoming scarce... we could barely see the rocks as we crested the first part of gettis; I was bouncing all over the place not knowing what i was riding but managing to stay upright. While in the past I may have found this disconcerting, I was now amused. Our little ride was turning into a mini after-work-excellent adventure! rad!

We made our way down wampler. I know the roads well and tried to recall where potholes and rocks were for Rach who's xray evening bat vision was a bit impaired. It got darker and darker (see picture below). As we climbed up the last hill - bear meadows - rachel's silhouette in front of me turned into a black blur of darkness. i called to her. I heard her voice so i knew she was there.

it was special.

It felt like we were riding on gravel so I was confident we were in fact on the road. good enough.

we made our way down bear meadows taking our time as by this point the sun was sound asleep and the road in front of us was soley illuminated by a glorious crescent moon (picture follows - camera phone, like us, struggles in the dark). we could barely make out the light gravel from the dark surrounding forest. there were moments where dense forest canopy yielded a completely pitch black path. we saw nothing, but kept rolling.

Rach busted out her infra-red high beam - in the form of a tiny LED light. I was blinded by its greatness. (see pict below) we stopped and got off the road when cars past - as fun as this adventure had become, we figured getting taken out by an f350 after all we'd gotten through wouldn't be so great.

slowly we made our way down bear meadows... through the fen, over the bridge, past north meadows... At this point rach was behind me trying to follow me given my super-xray bat vision that i developed in yosemite when....

"whack!"
woah... what happend" rach, are you ok?"
"i just got whacked by something flying across the road" she yelled.

say what??? yup, apparently rachel was bitch-slapped by a kamikaze bat (it refused to identify itself - rude!) on bear meadows road. Yup, you read that right. we're not totally sure what it was to be honest. it smacked her glasses into her face and got the heck outta dodge.

ahhh... the memories. We made our way back to the lot, thankful that we managed to remain upright and intact. both of us had notes on our cars when we got there. Apparently not only was our ride special - but so are we. awww shucks... Laughing hysterically, we said goodbye.

Hi rach! written in rocks. classy.

My friends are seemingly less classy - but that is precisely why they're my friends. Thanks guys - yes it was as good for us PLUS in the dark. nice.

A lesson learned - you really don't need lights to go on a night ride. You just need a couple of forest-ready bikes and two girls who care about nothing else than enjoying good company and time spent in the woods. certainly, another mini-epic adventure awaits...
good times.