The Gate...at night

The night riding season is now upon us.

Timmy came by my place tonight and picked me up for a night ride at The Woodlot. I was on my Rune and he was on his Norco Six with some nice 888's he'd just picked up from yours truly.

The sun is setting a lot earlier so when we arrived and were starting our climb at 7:30pm, we were almost needing our lights immediately. On the way up we discussed among different things, the state of trail maintenance volunteers at The Woodlot. I've had many offers of help, but in the end nobody is stepping up to help. Lots of take, take, take but not enough giving back.

We were getting tired of doing some of the same routes, so we decided to try The Gate tonight. In the dark it is not an easy trail and given that it is not getting ridden much and the log rides are slick and slimy, making them down right scary. There were also several broken features which made this trail a bit of a let down.

I slapped my camera on Tim and he did the filming tonight.

Tsuga was fun as always and flowed well with it natural terrain an exposed rock.

Snakes was a hood as always. We rode non stop to the decommissioned log ride and then ripped the rest of the trail to the bottom.

After that, Shotgun was not so good for me. #1 I got a big chunk of dirt in my eye as I was hitting a jump that I had to abort due to zero visibility. #2 I hooked a pedal......really bad and it bucked me a good foot in the air and I then came to a dead stop. I looked down and knew things weren't good. One pedal stroke and I confirmed my fears....bent pedal threads....time to get new cranks, grrrrrr!!!!!!

At the bottom we looked at my cranks and they cannot be fixed...oh well, $hit happens right!?! We did have time to review some of the video footage which was pretty funny at times.

Not the best ride for me due to my mechanical, but overall getting out and riding in the dark was a load of fun.