I pushed the mountain today, and the mountain pushed back. On the loose descent from the concrete block hill, I met the Earth on a deep, personal basis.
I met Root, JT, and Ckucke out at Ditch for an afternoon spin. The air was still and the skies overcast. The humidity was almost unbearable. We duplicated the now normal Government Road, side loop, Ditch, upper trail, cardiac climb, concrete block, shoulder knocker, big tree, fat guy, inner loop, and out circuit that has been the standard for the past several rides. This week felt good. The heat was oppressive, but I didn’t feel worked like last week. Must be an “every other” ride thing – I felt fine two rides ago.
Soon after starting the climb up Government Road, some tinkley ethereal faerie music emanated out of JT’s pack. The spirits were calling him on his cellphone! We went on ahead while he answered the call from the other world. I had neglected to eat anything in the morning except for a couple cups of coffee. I was all jittery, and had no legs for the climb. All the standing climbs on Friday probably didn’t help any.
At the weird ti plant clearing on the side loop, JT stopped suddenly and started digging through some detritus on the trailside. He uncovered a few old bottles. A quick visual survey revealed that the whole little depression was an old trash pit. Old bottles, chinaware, bones, bricks, and galvanized metal hearkened back to the day when the ditch was active and there were probably a bunch of small farmhouses scattered throughout the area. A concrete bonsai pot and a plastic fire engine put the last trash in the later part of the 1960’s, but who knows when it was first used. There were what looked like old Primo bottles, but when Indiana Scat examined them, the top was marked “Clorox”. I don’t think I ever have seen Clorox in anything except the familiar white plastic gallon jug! He initially wanted to take the fire engine, but there was an eerie vibe in the area with all the ti plants and all, so he changed his mind and we left everything as-is and vacated the area.
Someone (not me) had apparently taken a dose of vitamin rip before the ride, so it was all pain and suffering out along Ditch. I got some food in me when we took a rest break at the love toy junction, where JT regaled us with an embellished retelling of the infamous, “you look like one of those geisha girls,” story. If you don’t know the story, you’ll have to get the skinny from Scat, since it isn’t fit for elaborating on here!
With some food in me and the coffee jitters subsiding a little, we continued out along the trail and milled our way up the freshly hoof-rutted upper trail and cardiac climb to the top. There was a slight wind at the concrete block, but the heat was still oppressive. After a rest, we dropped the eroded groove. I was the last one down. I rode the left rim, then pipe-dropped the tranny into the normal left-side (good) line. The rain at the end of last week had washed away most of the powdery stuff, so the surface was hard and reliable. The first section went fine, then I transitioned to the right and hit the root drop halfway down as a jump. I knew I took off bad, and landed in a right roll on the off-camber and low-sided into the wall of the groove. My tire made that horrendous rolling off the bead noise, and my right hand and barend went augering into the soft hillside. I slid down the hillside on my shoulder, carving a deep groove in the soft dirt and knocking loose a giant clump of grass. Ckucke thought my head was doing the augering, but there was no dirt on the helmet, so it was probably my shoulder.
The remainder of the ride went smoothly. The inner loop had been raked sometime during the week. I was really dirty when I got home. There was dirt inside my gloves. When I unloaded the bike, I found that the front tire had indeed rolled off the bead – there was a 10cm section that had become unmounted! My shoulder was a little sore, but there was no broken skin. I’ll probably feel it more tomorrow…
D = 11.97 km (7.44-miles), Vavr = 11.9 km/h (7.4 mph), Vmax = 37.5 km/h (23.3 mph), T = approximately 1-hour, 10-minutes (actual trail time about 3 hours) I forgot to start the computer at the trailhead, so the numbers might be a little off.
More pictures here
No more “Geesha Girl” stories!!!! Too creepy.