Lessons twice learned

Apparently, Steve and I didn't learn our lesson. Tonight we went for the same ride we did last time, and you can guess how it ended.

For those of you who didn't read that post, Steve is my mountain bike riding buddy and a couple weeks ago we miscalculated how early the sun goes down now and ended up riding half of the loop we were doing in the dark.

Tonight we did start earlier and end earlier. In fact, we did a lot better. We didn't have to walk the last few miles. When we got on the final stretch it was pretty dim though. I think because we had done it before, we both realized that it is worse to walk your bike in complete, dead-of-night darkness than to ride in dim light, so we picked up the pace. The key is just to stay loose. That way you can absorb the bumps, rocks and dips that you can't see. It was actually kind of fun. Luckily the last stretch isn't that treacherous. There were a few tricky spots, only because we couldn't see them.

My trick was just to watch Steve. I figured if he all of a sudden fell over, I should slow down.

The only downside was that we are experiencing a little bit of a cold snap. By the end of the ride, I couldn't feel my fingers. Nothing a little Chinese food and a beer couldn't cure.

Lesson Learned: Again, it gets dark at 7:45 p.m., not 8:30.