Riding with Old Guys..

As V and I had dinner at the Hostel with Dewit, he mention that he had a meeting the next morning and asked if I would like to come along. V and I didn't have any plans so I chose to see what Dewit had on tap for the ride/meeting. Dewit and I headed into town to meet a couple of guys at a coffee shop for a quick meeting then we would be headed out to ride. At the coffee shop there were two guys kitted up sitting outside whom I guessed where waiting for us. As we rolled up to their table, I felt as if I knew these guys from somewhere but I wasn't sure where. Dewit then proceeded to introduce me to Ned Overend and Travis Brown. Wow.. that was unexpected! We sat around and chatted for a bit and then headed out for a ride.

Travis led us out to the Horse Gulch trail system where he proceeded to give us a tour of the area. We would climb at a casual pace while carrying on a conversation about a variety of topics and then Ned and Travis would bomb the descents with Dewit and I in tow. About half way through the ride, Ned's rear tire began to get squishy. We stopped to seal the leak but after plugging the tire and adding more Stans, the tire was still losing air. Ned decided to ride on the tire to see if it would seal. As we hit a substantial speeds on a long descent, Ned's rear was virtually flat which became very entertaining. Dewit and I had a great time watching Ned float off and on the trail at high speeds while still maintaining a fair amount of control. We finally had to stop so that Ned could throw in a tube.

Towards the end of our ride, Travis led us into a huge drainage culvert. Once we were inside the culvert, it was pitch black. We couldn't see much of anything and crept along trying not to run into the sides. After 200 ft or so, Travis came to a stop and said that we were now going to head down. He proceeded down a pretty significant pitch of about another 200 ft to the sliver of daylight that could be seen at the end of the culvert. Ned mentioned that the exit looked a bit sketchy and then disappeared. Dewit and I followed without incident.

After a couple of hours, Ned and Travis were feeling a bit run down and decided to call it a day. Dewit and I headed out in search of some rocks on the way back to the hostel. I can't remember the name of the trails but we found plenty of rocks and the most technical riding of the day. We tooled around for an hour or so before dropping a trail that popped out not 50 ft from the hostel.

I'm really not sure what to say about getting the opportunity to ride with these guys. Chances like this don't come around very often (at least for me). It's pretty neat what can happen by just saying hello to a random person sitting in the common area at a hostel.