How to avoid the bummer ride

Monday last, Columbus Day, I got up from a catnap on the couch and with very little forethought, drove over to Sweetwater for a late-day ride. I parked my truck in the empty lot at the trailhead and geared up in the brisk air. Gale force winds had prefaced the arrival of a cold front during the weekend but this day it was calm. A greater roadrunner was hunting just past the fence, reducing my chances of encountering another sidewinder. It all felt very promising.

I cranked up the main trail, expecting to ride one lap on each of the mellow loops in the northwestern reaches of the preserve and then head back home for dinner. I was also planning to go as hard as I could through the loops’ few rocky sections to determine if having ordered a suspension fork that morning was a good idea.

I started on the shorter of the two loops and immediately noticed that I felt really on. My legs seemed unusually strong, and I was snaking over, between, and around the rocks and shelves with little effort. Of course, riding solo, it’s hard to tell just how fast and flowy you really are, but I was enjoying myself too much to care. I took the junction to the longer loop and banged out a fast circuit there. I stopped in the middle of the figure-8 and looked west to determine just how much daylight was left. I decided to keep going and ended up riding each of the loops two more times before the failing light and rapidly cooling air ended things. I was also getting concerned that if I flatted or had a mechanical, I’d end up limping out in the dark.

I rode back to the trailhead with the sun setting at my back and a blindingly full moon filling my view ahead, thinking that if I’d brought a light, a wind shell and some clear lenses, I might have stayed out all night. Before I even called BeanSS to tell her I was on my way home, I had decided that the ride I’d just finished was one of the best ones I’d taken in 20 years of mountain biking.

At a bit over 10 miles, it was by no means an epic. I didn’t conquer any high-altitude climbs or clean any overly technical sections. It wasn’t a destination ride, the long-anticipated culmination of a week-long road trip. In fact, the trail is less than 5 crow miles from the house. No, all that actually happened was that an unplanned, close-to-home mountain bike ride unfolded absolutely perfectly.

The stoke from the ride kept me up too late but the next day, despite being short of sleep and having dealt with a 42-degree morning bike commute, I found myself still smiling. Even now, still sore from Monday’s ride and the long dog walk and poor-form weight lifting I did beforehand, I’m still feeling pretty damned good. Oh, and related to the pain I’m in, I think that suspension fork will be a useful upgrade.

I checked my singlespeed this evening and found not one, but two flat tires awaiting my attention. Murphy’s Law dictates that the bigger pain in the ass wheel to remove and replace is the one that will get punctured - I have horizontal fork ends aft so there’s the whole axle bolts, wheel and brake rotor alignment, and chain tension thing to deal with. But here, we have flats front and back and, despite wondering just what Mr. Tuffy tire liners and the True Goo I used in the past really accomplish, I’m not even remotely bummed out. Or at least I’m nowhere near as bummed as I might have been if I’d had to deal with them on the trail and hike out by moonlight on Monday.

But good vibrations aside, I'd better get to patching those tubes because I’m going to want to get out and have another good ride soon. Veelz, are you listening?