Last 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!

First, here’s a shot from a night ride last week.

We had guests this weekend, so I didn’t ride much. I did go mountain biking at Brown County State Park with Dave Saturday morning. We only rode about 9 miles, but it felt great to get out on the trails. I want to go back soon for more! These trails have amazing flow. This ride, while brief, was enough fun to make me think I should try to convince certain co-conspirators to come up and hit some trails, rather than gravel, sometime.

We also tossed around some ideas for our traditional Black Friday mountain bike ride. This should involve some trails we’ve never ridden. I’m looking forward to it!

Today, we went for a hike with our friends, also at Brown County, which ended in our car not starting, and having to get a tow truck and my mom to come pick us up. Here’s hoping it won’t cost too much to fix the car …

I received a response to my e-mail to GeoManGear, where my MagicShine light came from (see my first post about the topic). Here is what they said.

Hi Michael,

We have recently received an increase in warranty claims related to the battery packs included with Magicshine lightsets. We have determined that the Magicshine battery packs do not meet GeoManGear’s high expectations regarding product performance and quality. We are working with the manufacturer to quickly resolve these issues and will begin providing replacement battery packs after we have obtained a high-quality battery pack for our customers.

We want nothing less than the best for our customers and we will make sure you have that. We hope to have the replacements in the next few weeks.

If you notice the lifespan of your battery decreasing, please discontinue use, and dispose of the battery.

We will take good care of you and these issues!

Thanks!
Geoman

I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. I have read good things about them; they seem like a good company. I’ll continue to post updates here.