the Sun beat me tonight.....:
well tonight i had quite the experience. i left work a little early to make it home so there would be enough sunlight left in the evening to provide me with atleast an hour and a half of ride time.. according to weather.com sunset was at 9:11 but we all know they are full of shit to begin with. well i took matters into my own hands and decided that since the clouds cleared in the area i was riding that i would gain some time.. little did i know that i pretty much suck.
anyways ive been riding these trails near my house which are amazing. they are the pinckney/waterloo recreation area trails. check out this link to get a feel for how massive these trails are. there are over 70 miles worth of trails.. what im linking you to are the waterloo trails alone.. this doesnt include all of the other trails in the area that all connect. atleast the map doesnt include them. Trails Link
well tonight i decided to ride a port of the second half. on map one you will notice a '29' mark on the main trail then a dotted line running north of it.. i decided to branch off on that path to find out where it would take me.. either way i would have been screwed.. i managed to make it to hell michigan.. with plenty more trail to go.. i decided to ride into the crappy little town they call hell michigan and grab myself some misc food and drinks at the hole-in-the-wall party store.. i dont remember what they called it but damn was it pathetic. the food was dated from forever and a year ago.. i had only brought my atm card with me which required a minimum purchase of 5$.. great.. here i am shopping this thing of a store for stuff to add up to 5$... well the beef jerky i brought was horrible and nearly on its death bed.. not to mention taking me down with it with every bit i took.. i have yet to eat the snickers i bought from there.. i think ill feed it to the animals that i encounter on the next trail ride this weekend.. so i take a breather.. called chad to rub in how sweet the trails are and how i take my bike off sweet jumps on them all the time.. gag down the beef jerky and sip my red bull. yes. yuck.

instead of calling for a ride.. i made the decision to race the sun.. its amazing how much better you do at somethign when you have a goal or some sort of 'competition' (for lack of a better word) to basically motivate you to work your hardest.. for example im sure i could make it up some of the hard ass hills i encounter on the trails faster if a alien space ship with sweet lasers were chasing me than nothing at all. so here i am making kick ass time.. totally owning the trail. focused..etc.. well as im riding im thinking to myself, "ok almost there", "this looks familiar", "must be around the corner".. totally not the case.. i traveled much farther than i had thought. i biked for atleast 25mins in complete darkness. i could barely see the path of the trail.. in fact i went off a few times. i passed a cat walkin the trail which was weird because it was in the middle of nowhere when i saw the cat. on the last section of the trail just as i was about to reach my car i passed a fellow biker.. only he had a light..... bastard.. hehe

the experience on the way back was awesome.. scary at some points considering it reminded me of up north, and how the woods are super deep and, well, bear tend to live in them.. but yea i knew it wasnt the case here.. as i passed the little marsh areas and ponds on the way back you couldnt hear yourself breathe because the frogs were so loud. i encountered a baby racoon as well.. it was cute.. he was jogging the trail and definitely didnt hear me cruising behind him so i yelled "hey!" and he JUMPED and did a 180, looked at me, and took off into the woods.. so funny =)..