Night Riding Fun at Fullerton
At least one night during the week Priscilla and I will hit the trails for a night ride. We usually have a few folks that ride with us, but this week it was just her and I. It was weird, but Specialized Bicycles was there to do a Demo Day. I thought it was odd for them to come out during the week…oh well. We didn’t even bother checking out the bikes since we had already brought our own. Besides, there’s no fun in riding a bike that you can’t afford to buy…
Anyhow so we’re on the trail and we’re in total darkness. Our lights were the only things that were shinning. What’s fun and creepy about riding at night would be all the stuff you hear in the bushes. For some smurfy reason, things that are in the bushes tend to crawl towards you while you’re sitting there resting or waiting. I swear, I always get creeped out when I hear something coming towards me…
Of course we had to do our obligatory photo of the ride. The other shots we took didn’t turn out too well…
Now I wanted to share some info that might save you some money. I had a pair of Shift MX gloves that Moe got me a few years ago for my B-day. They were great gloves and after two years of abuse, they finally tore on the finger tip. So for the past month, I’ve been using these cheapo gloves from Wal-Mart. They can be found in the home improvement section of the store and they only cost $9.99!
The brand is “Red Rock” and these are basically work gloves. But what I noticed is that they are built just like a pair of riding gloves.
They have a padded knuckle area that protects, they’re pretty breathable, and so far have been very reliable. So not only are they perfect for riding, but you can use them to dig out a trench in your yard or plant a new tree.
boy that picture just drives the point home that you married way over your head, RL! but back to the topic at hand, two quick nite ride stories, first about being creeped out. I was supposed to meet a guy for a half daylight/half nite ride but he got stuck at work. so since the technical portion would be done with daylight and the nite ride part was just gated off jeep trail I went out by myself. So Im up on top of the mountain, pretty sure theres nobody around for miles and every little noise was freakin me out. I pretty much had myself convinced that the bears were watching me and planning to jump me. Second one, a buddy and I are screamin down an old jeep trail at night when we come across two porcupines goin at it in the middle of the trail and luckily we both scooted around them, that would have been a painful mess had we run into them
Thanks for checking out my wife Kevin… jk! But to be honest, I get that quite often.
Anyhow, just two weeks ago, I was at a trail where mountain lions are known to live. Just like you, every little noise I hear, I’m thinking its some big cougar that’s ready to devour me!
Cuz I know that if Cougar were to see me, I’d look like this…
Man, I’d love to get some night riding gear. Sounds like fun and like you said a while back, it makes the boring everyday trail into something a little more exciting when you ride it at night.
Regarding the gloves… I know a lot of guys go the cheaper route and buy mechanic gloves- they all swear by them and save a lot of money in the process. Some say they even last longer than traditional gloves. Peace my brotha!
“Besides, there’s no fun in riding a bike that you can’t afford to buy…”
Well, I’m hoping to demo a Pivot Mach 5 tomorrow, I will let you know if I had fun riding a bike that I can’t afford….
actually its safer (for the bank account) to demo a bike you can’t afford, its the ones that you could afford, but shouldn’t buy that are the dangerous ones to try out.
Man… I was there last night at the Loop. Saw the Specialized demos. I was ridign my SS when the seals on my rear shock blew out. Those guys were pretty cool and tried to fix but rebuilding it is the only way to go.
Cool gloves…but what’s up w/the gang signs 🙂 I’m starting to worry riding w/you…LOL
Gang signs… no way man, thats my sign for “M” for MtnBikeRiders and it could also be used as “W” for WESTSide!
We didn’t get started until 7:30…