Ever do one of those things you really didn't want to do, but you did anyway, because, what the hell, life is short and eternity is as long as eternity is....uh.... long? Of course you have. Seems like half the crap I do falls into that category.
I had ridden three out of the previous four days and logged quite a few miles and ounces, and honestly, my legs were, as they say, feeling it a little. And yet there was Dave pulling into the driveway, and there was I, all geared up like AquaMan and ready to go. Of course (you knew this was coming), the end result was a good time and my ass dragging at work today. The game plan was a simple road ride to Hinckley and back, Dave on his (what I'll call) Picker Special, and me on the trusty old Raleigh XXIXer.
I was starting to worry that riding the cross bike was turning my thumbs permanently forward. So we set out, properly supplied, of course.
We decided that we would make the call when we got to Hinckley to either do the ballbusting climb up State Road (north) or swing through the park and take 606 up to Kellogg and stop at THE SECRET SPOT I rediscovered over the weekend. Man, what a difference between the Phantom CX and a single speed 29er. On the backside of the Hillary Step, my legs felt like they were illegally pedaling a fat bike on a mushy metropark horse trail. So I decided to draft Dave on the descent, and oh what fun we had blasting right through the four way stop at Ledge and State. It sometimes occurs to me in the middle of such stupidity that what I'm doing is really stupid, but usually (as it did last night) that thought is fleeting, ephemeral I dare say, as a fart in the wind pocket created by the person you are drafting as you fly down a hill on a cold, dark January night. On the upside, both of our bikes were equipped with not one, but two blinkies, because SAFETY ALWAYS COMES FIRST.
Dave got all Steinbeckian and found a mouse at the Brooklyn Exchange Cabin and crushed it by petting it too hard. I told him I would get him a pup, but if he killed it, I wouldn't let him tend the rabbits. He actually killed the mouse. He really did! I made the rest of that up. It's going to become part of my Great American Novel, and high school kids will be forced to read it like The Hunger Games, but instead they'll secretly be playing Fun Run on their phones with nearly everyone else in school, except me because they told me today that if I downloaded Fun Run and started playing, then it will no longer be cool, and they'll just go back to texting the answers of all my tests to each other.)
VOICE FROM BEYOND: "Why did you kill that mouse, Dave? Why, Dave?" - God.
So we decide to not take the horse path, and not pedal through the mush, and not ride all the way up to Kellog Road through the woods, and enjoy the peace and serenity that my tax dollars pay for. No, we didn't do that. And therefore I honestly don't remember how we got to Kellog Road, officer. We must certainly have taken the road, because riding in Hinckley would illegal, and we're not down with that. At all.
But alas, my friends, the draw of the SECRET SPOT was simply too great for our frail, mortal hearts. Good thing, too, because we got to hear a very loud owl calling to us very near the sweet single track (albeit muddy) that has heinously been abandoned for quite some time.
In the process, Dave loses a glove, then rides down a steep hill and nearly right into a creek.
After the supplies were utilized (ever read The Sun Also Rises? the characters do plenty of utilizing in that book), Dave realizes that, being in the Death Zone, there was a good chance that he could lose his hand from frostbite if he tried to ride home with just one glove. I assured him that my toes were already basically frozen, and that if we stayed there much longer, I'd have to make a decision to either save myself or stay with him there and we'd both die. Now, my nose is already rather bulbous and slightly crooked, and so the prospect of having it go all steinBeckian Weathers
was not being dug by me at that particular juncture, so we sallied forth into certain doom and oblivion.
Low, my friends, the glove is miraculous found!! Right next to Prickly Pecker Falls and The Droopy Rhododendrens.
Since Supai likes to rip ass on that trail, we decided to name it the Supe Trail to commemorate the happy occasion. Not too often are we in a naming mood (ok, we always seem to be in a naming mood) but not too often do we remember the names we come up with (or what we did that night) to the point where they stick.
PROCLAMATION: Let it be known that the place where Dave found his cherished, allegedly 50-year-old "goretex" glove shall hereafter be regarded no longer as THE SECRET PLACE but as Prickly Pecker Falls on the Supe Trail (next to The Droopy Rhododendrons).
POSTSCRIPT: Had Dave not found his glove, his dessicated remains might have someday been found in the distant future, like Mallory's, by a hapless but hopefully well-supplied adventurer of our particular idiom and ilk. That would be nice, and would make up for that dead mouse.
BTW, to the lady who bitched me out as we rode past the middle school: I'm gonna look for your car, and find out who your kid is, and make sure I have him/her in class, and spend all period talking about mountain biking and your kid will totally dig it and quit the football team and men's chorus and be satisfied with a mere A- in my class: much to your horror and dismay. Karma has a way of taking care of things like that - and gloves and fools riding down hills on cold, dark January nights.
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