We got dressed & headed up the road towards the first climb of the day. As we approached some houses, we wondered if we would run into our golden retriever friend, Baden. A couple of years ago he came along with us on a ride. We thought he would turn around & head home.. but around 18 miles into the ride, we finally called his owner to come pick him up. Surely we wouldn't see him & if we did, he wouldn't remember us. As we approached his house, he came bounding down the driveway barking his head off. We called to him & his bark turned into a friendly greeting session...he seemed to act like "Where have you guys been?" "Are you ready to go? Huh? Huh? Huh? " We knew we didn't want him to come along today because we planned another epic ride. While we were stopped, I decided to change my jacket so I would not get overheated on the climb. I dropped my El Toreo vest on the ground & Baden picked it up and started to run away w/ it. Fortunately he brought it back & dropped it at my feet. It was all a big game to him. Baden's owner called for him....He seemed a little torn because he really, really wanted to go with us....Finally hubby rode up to the house & Baden followed. Hubby mentioned to Baden's owner the adventure from 2 years ago..His owner remembered us.
Once Baden was safe & sound & I had a lighter jacket on, we started to climb...and climb, and climb.....and climb some more. I think the overall elevation gain for the ride was around 4400'....That's a lot on a single speed. Upon reaching the top, I put my dog slobbered vest on over my camelback. I looked like the hunchback of Arcadia. It was quite funny....but I was warmer.
We descended this horse trail. It was pretty rough going because the ground had frozen, then thawed, then was frozen again. Plus there were a ton of leaves on the trail...in some places it was hub deep so you had no idea what was beneath. Big rocks were hidden in the leaves so you got a jolt each time you hit one. We approached an area where there was a big hole covered by leaves. Adam & Hubby rode it. As I got closer, Hubby exclaimed: "Get your weight back, there's a hole!".....I thought, I have a 29er, I can do this..there's no way I can endo!......I rolled up to it, put my weight back, and BAM!....my front wheel stopped dead....and......yup...you guessed it....I endoed! I was in a beautiful swan dive position, ultimately landing on my left shoulder, all splayed out!.....I thought...so you CAN endo on a 29er! Wow! Except what came out of my mouth was rather R rated....let's just say I wasn't very happy. I guess I didn't have my weight back far enough. Oh well....I jumped back on the bike, but was pretty tentative on the rest of the leaves, etc. As we continued riding, we noticed the temperature steadily dropping. My toes were getting colder as were my fingers. We started up another fireroad climb in the hopes of getting warm again...Unfortunately we got about 1/4 of the way up & were not any warmer. We decided to abandon that part of the ride & come back down. We headed back to our vehicles.....on the way back, we saw 2 coyotes. We had noticed lots of coyote poop on the way up so we knew they were in the area. Seeing them was a little spooky. I'm sure the farmers in the area are not too happy about the coyotes.
We ended the ride around 3 hours later...we ended up doing 20 miles. We stopped in Buchanan for some chili & grilled cheese sandwiches...mmmmm....It was a fun day but a little cold....hopefully we can go back in the early spring when the temperatures are a little warmer.
