Night Ride

So as the days get shorter, the after work rides get shorter too....or do they?  I loaded up the night light system for the bike, met Sean at their place and then headed out to ride with the intention of riding until it got dark and then turning on the lights and finishing up.

We rode up Hwy 2 to Thompson Park then took the railroad bed to Pipestone Pass and caught the CDT and took it all the way to Homestake Pass.  As we reached the peak going towards Homestake we had to turn on the lights...I realized that my lighting system looked a little on the dim side...enough to ride though so onwards!  It was fun to ride that trail at night - even though I am super familiar with the trail, it is always a 'new trail' and full of surprises when riding at night...The field of vision is always narrower and you can never really see very far ahead so you end up reacting to the more immediate - it is definitely a good training mechanism to test the technical skills as you have to man-handle your bike and throw it around a little more.

It still ended up being a solid ride:  18 miles and a little over 2K of elevation gain. 

I took the GoPro camera out again and got some footage that I hope to edit over the next day or so...The camera is not effective at all at night but I was able to capture some footage prior to getting dark.

It was good to be riding with someone at night.  It was  re-assuring in the sense that we hit spots where there are critters and I could have sworn I heard some critters rustling as we pedaled by them (could have been the mind playing tricks on me too though). 

The descent from Homestake to Blacktail Canyon was a little exciting.  The descent is usually sketch in day-light hours because there are some super rutted sections and some very sandy, washed sections too...as we started down my night light showed a rutted section so I slowed down to navigate through it.  What I quickly realized was that the section immediately following was not rideable at all - the ruts were about 2 ft deep (about 4-6 inches wide)!  They are definitely the deepest ruts I have seen and am very psyched I did not bomb into that section as it would have been UGLY!