Night Ride

There is a great stretch of path that was just repaved from the Theo Wirth Park Way to down town. The ride is super smooth and relatively flat making it a nice speedy commute. However there are no lights and when the sun is down the expanse of the valley and the foliage that rises like walls of a canyon on either side make for very dark conditions. 

I’m glad to have had my beautiful riding companion with me tonight as the extreme urban darkness was already eerie but being alone would have been downright scary. For one thing, not all headlights are created equal and on this leg of the journey a source to illuminate the path is a must.  Later we were passed by a regular night rider with an awesome headlight that rivaled those of the oncoming car lights that saturated our already super dilated eyes.

The rider lit up our path from behind for a few hundred feet as he approached then wished us well on the rest of our journey as he steadily moved passed us soon to crest a rise in the path and never be seen again. This illuminating figure was typical for the rest of the bikes out past dark. Everyone was out with a purpose and everyone cast their well wishes and warm greetings in all directions which lit up the night air as well.  

Urban Bouldering and Backyard Slack Lining

Tonight I got dominated by a climbing wall built on the framework of a backyard climbing structure.  The bottom section was simple enough but the challenge can in transferring to the upper overhanging section. It was an awesome challenge and it was only about 12 ft tall.

Then the slack line.  Basically a wide braided strap cinched tight 3 ft from the ground between a tree trunk and a fencepost.  The line looked and felt tight on approach but when I first put my foot on and applied half the pressure to step up my foot found the slack in the slack line.  My entire leg began to oscillate back and forth as I increased the pressure.  Throughout the night others kept attempting the line including all of the kids. By the end of the night 3 steps was a great accomplishment and an unaided mount was a victory indeed.