Night rider

On about 15 hours of sleep total in the past three days, I set out with riding buddy Steve to go mountain biking last night. We decided to do the trail we did last time, which is a 17-mile, 2-hour loop.

It was like a different trail. I felt a little loopy from lack of sleep, so it took every ounce of concentration I had to stay on the trail. On top of that, I hadn't ridden my own bike with clicker pedals in two weeks. I felt like I was relearning how to click out. Consequently, I did take a nice spill off the side of the trail into some tree bark. Luckily, I only suffered minor road rash and a nice bruise on the back of my thigh. For some reason, it's always my right arm that takes the hit.

After only five miles riding along a culvert, I was wondering if I was going to make it. I tend to get really spacey when I'm that tired, so I kept doing stupid things like unclicking my left foot when I needed to undo the right. At one point as I wrestled my bike through a downed tree, Steve started laughing and said "You are acting a little punch drunk."

On a series of hills, though, I got my second wind. It was a good thing, because that was about the time it started to get dark — mile 10 of 17. By the time we got down to the bottom trail by the river, I could barely see Steve in front of me. Of course, we both were wearing all black.

It had been about three weeks since we have done a night ride. Last time we started at about the same time, did a three-hour ride and managed to finish just at dusk, so we thought we should be safe even though it's getting dark earlier. Guess not.

Fortunately, the trees are semi spaced out and most of the trail is a white dirt, so we just followed the "stripe." Sometimes though, I would enter a patch of thick trees and suddenly Steve would completely disappear. I just started following the creaking of his bike, but that was a little like the blind leading the blind. Suddenly every little rut in the trail become "like the Grand Canyon," as Steve put it.

Towards the end, the stripe wasn't visible, so we got off and walked. It felt like we walked forever, but it was probably only about two miles. On the bright side, the stars made a nice backdrop, even if they didn't provide much light.

We cheered when we saw the posts marking the end of the trail and decided that this trail should now be reserved for weekend rides.

Lesson Learned: It's time to dig out the headlamp.