Supermoon Night Ride
Sunday, May 6th, 2012Last night was a supermoon — in fact, it was expected to be the brightest full moon of the entire year. Final exams wrapped up last week, and Dave suggested a night mountain bike ride Saturday to coincide with the supermoon. I of course accepted.
We did a variation on our “secret night ride” route we’ve done a few times before (see here and here). It was an excellent ride. Even though it’s not long in terms of distance, we certainly got our share of adventure as we rolled through the woods on muddy, puddle-riddled trails, listening to the coyotes yipping and howling and the whippoorwills whippoorwilling. We watched toads hopping across the trail in our headlight beams, and later, spider eyes glimmering back at us.
One of the route changes involved climbing up on an old eroded horse trail which we had ridden down before, which was difficult enough. However, climbing it was another story, as we discovered. The trail was steep and the ground wet and slick and we had to push our bikes up for quite some time.
It was also Cinco de Mayo, and Dave had the presence of mind to bring some margaritas in his backpack. Drinking margaritas in the middle of the woods at night was a blast.
An amazing moment occurred as we flew downhill on a gravel road toward a lake, seeing the supermoon rising over the lake with the incredibly loud sounds of buzzing, chirping insects and croaking toads enveloping us.
It was very much the kind of ride I needed. Fun, with a sense of adventure but without being too epic, and great company to top it off. I need more rides like this one!