Steve on 911.
Rode Galbraith with Steve on another glorious late summer day.
I felt strong from the start and had several high points, including making the big log rollover on lower Lost Giants, and cleaning several tasty technical morsels on Evil Twin.
Best of all, though, I made the steep, twisting switchback climb near the end of lower Bob's Trail -- the one where you have to go up the crack in the rock. I did it very slowly with Steve watching.
Then at the very end of lower Bob's, Steve almost made the last killer switchback, but got pitched against a log on the outside, where he hung motionless for several seconds, before saying "ouch." Turned out he nailed his penis. We took a break while he scuttled off into the bushes to make sure he wasn't urinating blood.
A few minutes later, Steve almost missed the entrance to Karma off the Pipeline Rd. He hit the brakes and skidded sideways through the rough before going off the trail on the other side and collaping with his face in his hands. Turned out he took a stick up the nose.
So we sat down in the trail for a few minutes. Happily, it turned out he was OK. The only lasting effect seemed to be a small nose bleed.
* * *
Then that night I rode Galbraith again with Russ Lambert. We rendezvoused at Whatcom
Falls Park and then carpooled over to Galbraith Lane.
It was still light when we started out, so we rode up the mountain to the new Kaiser,
which is much nicer and more ridable than when Mark and I tried it a month ago.
By the time we turned up Oly, it was so dark in the woods that we needed our lights on
middle beam all the time. Then toward the upper end of Oly, I learned a night light
lesson.
When we came to the steep drop into the creek, I went for it since I'd ridden it the
last half dozen times without incident. But this time, there was a cruscial moment of
darkness between when I went over the edge of the steep drop, and when the beam of my
light came down on the path ahead.
Just as the light returned I had a infintesimal moment to admire the deep hole my front
wheel was just then disappearing into. Uh-oh. Russ, who saw it all riding right behind me,
said "Wow, you bounced. So did your bike."
Later, down on the south side flats, in the vicinity of Banjoland, we got very turned around. We eventually came out on a road that was totally different than the one I was expecting, and then I immediately turned the wrong way!
By the time we got back to the car, my light was down to one blinking green light and a
solid red.
Approximately 3300 combined verts. |
