Short Ride: Not Exactly As Planned

Tonight's ride didn't go like it should have. Frankly it was doomed right from the start. In fact, it was doomed since yesterday.

Both yesterday and today I found myself without riding partners, but needing a ride after dark. "No problem," I thought, "I ride in the dark all the time. Weekly, even. I ride in the dark more than in the daylight it seems." This is what I was thinking as I rode out. My loving, faithful, caring wife, said: "Don't let any animals get you." Or something like that.

Aside: Spouses, don't do this. I know that you mean well, but it's the wrong thought to have as one is heading into the dark alone. Thanks.

Last night was a windy night, so the forest wasn't exactly quiet. In fact, as I was slowly climbing up to a ridge, there was a pretty good crash to my right. At that point, I was no longer climbing slowly--inexplicably, my pace picked up--and I was reminding myself that the really dangerous things--like BIG cats--didn't make any noise. This didn't help.

As soon as the trail turned down, however, I lost myself in the ride and didn't have any further incidents.

Fast forward to tonight.

Again, my wife brought up cougars, bears and other forest baddies just as I was leaving. See the above aside. Please.

Since I didn't have much time, and was feeling a little tired, I decided to ride a fairly level loop.

Let me set the stage. I start the ride by climbing a gravel road. I make a left onto the upper section of the loop and make my way down to the lower section. The lower section skirts a neighborhood and eventually makes its way back to the gravel road I started on. The trail is gravelled, so it's not the quietest surface to ride on. My plan was to do two laps.

The first part of the first lap went just fine. As I was descending to the lower leg, I came across a forked horn buck and a doe. Since the trail was noisy, the doe took flight, but for some reason, the buck did not. Instead, it thought we should have a staring contest. Huh. I made noise, it took a few steps off the trail and the turned back to me. I made more noise. It took a few more steps. I shouted, it still didn't take off, but it did get far enough off the trail for me to get by.

Weird.

Not three minutes later I came around a corner and saw a nice tail in the air. A skunks tail. This was only the third skunk I've seen that wasn't flattened into a two-dimensional splat on the road. I didn't like my view. Again, I made noise and--happily for me--it moved off and let me by without any assault on my olfactory nerves. Tragedy averted.

Next up, not a minute later, as I neared the neighborhood, dogs started barking. I don't recall that happening before. Not only that, there was also some rustling in the weeds and ferns. I thought, "great, the dogs are loose."

Aside #2: One of my superpowers is making dogs crazy, to the point that I have been bitten by a dog that was still on its leash... and the leash was being held by the owner.

That was enough for me. I was done, I turned around and headed back the way I came, hoping that the forked horn was done showing off for its doe and had moved off.

As I was nearing the intersection with the upper leg of the loop, I came across another dear, a doe this time. Now deer eyes reflect orange-yellow. Behind this deer, and not very far from it, were a pair of green eyes. Cats eyes reflect green. These were near the ground. I'm pretty sure that the doe didn't know that they were there, and I didn't care to stick around and find out what was going to happen next.

If I was done before, near the dogs, I was over done after cat/deer combo. The wildlife was against me tonight.

My ride ended up being just 28 minutes, of that only 18 was off road.

Tomorrow, I'm going for a road ride. At noon. On roads with lots of traffic.