West Thompson Lake 10-6-09 RAW - Twilight/NIGHT ride!

[drjeff]

Wasn't sure I was going to make it out today as my work schedule was ridiculous Thought I was going to make it to the parking lot about 5, which in actuality was 5:55. I had the handlebar + helmet light and me and one of my hygienists husbands turned on the lights and hit our usual orange all the way out to the cornfield and back via the orange - yellow - orange. Night riding is VERY COOL! Definately rode more cautious than in daylight as it's amazing at how much quicker things come up on you in the lights. Got out of position crossing a diagonal downed log on what is normally an easy section of trail for me and went down over the bars as my front wheel slid down the log and out from under me - and later I found out that the spill resulted in a portion of my right outer calf getting a shave in the post ride shower as when I hit the ground I got a big clump of sap ladened pine needles stuck to my leg

Ended up with 5.98 miles in an hour in 5 minutes and just under 1400 feet of climbing and A LOT of fun memories of my first night trail ride!

 

[Marc]

That orange trail can be confusing... I thought it was just a loop north of the bridge, but there's a blazed spur that goes all the way up to Red Bridge Road.

 

[Marc]

PS, last Thursday I cracked my knee on a rock, so I won't be able to get out until probably late next week at the earliest. Sucks, because I was psyched about having someone to ride with local...

 

[drjeff]

That orange trail can be confusing... I thought it was just a loop north of the bridge, but there's a blazed spur that goes all the way up to Red Bridge Road.

Yup, the Orange almost got us last night just South of the cornfield. Even though we've riden it a bunch of times, there was one segment where the trail markers (which forunately ARE reflective) weren't visible and we started off down one of the side trails for maybe 50 yards before we realized that we were off the main trail. Just one of the fun things of night riding I guess.

Sorry to hear about the knee Marc. Let it heal up and we'll ride.

 

[Marc]

Yeah, it's confusing because a lot of the trails back there, including the one they blazed orange, used to be just ATV trails, which a lot of locals still use as ATV trails even though they're not supposed to. I ran into a group of 3 of them last year with my gf... nice enough people, but not very nice trail users, leaving ruts, not yielding to legitimate users (i.e. me), etc.