Good day all,
This is a little story about an event that happened to me this weekend. I went out riding with a friend of mine on Sunday afternoon. It was a place not far from the city but away from it all none the less. All was going well as I let Renee, my riding friend around the loose sandy trails. I'd been to this particular place a couple times with Steve and sort of knew where I was. Well, it started to get late and the sun started to head south in the sky signaling time to head back to the truck. On a washed out uphill she somehow popped the chain off the rear sprocket and wrapped it around the front one, really wedging it in there. I worked on it for about 20 minutes trying to get it loose to no avail. Had a toe strap and towed her down the trail towards one enterance (the place has 2 and we were parked at the other one). So I got her down to the access road and tried to pull her up to the main road because they have been doing alot of work around there and I wasn't sure if the enterance was still open. After she crashed about 6 times I had enough. I rode down and checked to see if the enterance was open it was so off I went down a trail that I knew would take me to my truck. The sun was down now so I was following the light colored dirt. It was getting darker alot faster than I thought it would. There was a little light reflecting from the lights of the city so I could see the lighter color of the trail. The problems I had were with a couple uphills that were washed out and add that to the fact that I couldn't see and it made it tough. I knew I had to keep going because I'm just that hard headed. Anyways, a ride that has taken me about 20 minutes took probably about 1.5 hours. There was a downhill just before my truck that I had been riding up and down a couple days before so I knew what was on it and that's the only reason I made it down without busting myself all up. Got down, loaded up and got over to pick up my partner who was quite shaken up by the whole sitting in the dark thing. It seemed like a much more stressful event at the time but as lame as this story was, you just read it. What can we learn from this? If you're out riding, the strong will survive. Hope everybody properly maintains their bikes:) I did have a light with me and plenty of water so I wasn't going to die but it reminded me of something that most of us usually take for granted. Even on play rides, be as prepared as you can and be safe out there!
I've had a couple of "get home in the dark" rides before.
Seeing as this ride started off with somebody named Renee, I was expecting a "happier ending."
Dont worry, I'm making up a much better story. Check the next edition of Playboy. Heck, I might even put you in the story. You can be mistery rider #1, you never take your helmet off so I can't identify you. Then of course Nick will be in there too. I mean, we have so have someone of his background there. Love you Nick. I'll let you all know when it hits the stand