Friday, July 10, 2009

Cycling to one's doom

Last night Corbett and I went for a bike ride. It seemed innocent enough. Up towards the Pottery, as we've done before, then over to Centerville Road (means nothing to most of you), to the Jolly Pond loop. We've heard many people talk about this nice ride around Jolly Pond, and I've heard the sentence, "If you're a biker in the 'burg, then you've been to Jolly Pond," more than once.

What was always left out (except for a story Chris told us long ago, when I wasn't really paying attention to the location) was that the road is blocked. If you are aware of this and not worried, you can just go to the blockade, and pass right through it on your bike, yet not in a car. Last night, we didn't know this, and we hit a point (4.5 miles from where we entered the road) where there were signs saying the road was closed 0.8 miles ahead. Do we try it, or just turn around? We decided to just turn around, as it was already eight o'clock, and the sun was falling fast. At best we were still almost an hour from home.

So we turned back, noticing the omnious cloud ahead. This was a nice storm cloud, and it filled much of the sky, but I didn't worry. "Come on," I said, "we can see all the edges of the cloud. We won't get rained on."

So it started raining. It was at this point I started to give up. The darkness was closing in, and it's not surprising that we then started hearing gunshots. Yeap, all those cute deer we had been seeing were being hunted. As we rode, we were getting closer to the sounds of rifle fire. The rain plus the darkness plus the gunshots made me wonder why we didn't just stay home and veg out in front of the television.

All in all, though, we got back home before the sun was completely down, and the rain didn't last long. (Most people in the 'burg I've talked to said they didn't see any rain. As far as I'm concerned we must have been the only two people in the city to see it.) In the end, we rode 32 miles, nonstop (a couple of minute-long breaks to drink water, and that's it). I was happy to get home, shower, and watch who got eliminated from So You Think You Can Dance.

by Topher at 2:35 PM |