So this weekend I had an opportunity to head out on a quick s24o with my two friends Graham and Jason. We decided we'd head out on Saturday toward a lovely Provincial Park about 40km outside of the city.
We met at Graham's house at 7:30pm. On my way there, I took my usual route along a bit of single track along the banks of the Red River. En route, I passed four 'bros' snorting cocaine off a frisbee together. I have to say, that was a 'first'. I arrived while Graham was finishing packing up. He had just hooked up a 'suicide shifter' for his front derailleur, located on the seat tube. He was pretty excited about it. <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2iOGpyPnJ9k/VcjFSvPCknI/AAAAAAAALy4/zL1h_grfO4E/s1600/_DSC4501.jpg> Jason showed up shortly after and we hit the road. On the way we found a series of pallets setup for an excavator. It made for a pretty fun diversion. <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-da2PhrR0drg/VcjFon1VO8I/AAAAAAAALzA/evn7RQiqEwc/s1600/_DSC4504.jpg> We zigzagged around a number of new-to-me river trails until we were out of the city. As we made our way across the prairies we were treated to a beautiful sunset. <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-EoHzGe5Bhps/VcjGBwuf4-I/AAAAAAAALzI/kwq4Yy0mizM/s1600/_DSC4510.jpg> <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m4VWnXYqhDs/VcjGOXcat1I/AAAAAAAALzQ/SB2EKIuDPxo/s1600/_DSC4515.jpg> As the sun set, the bugs came out. And they came like a plague. There were so man mosquitoes that the idea of camping seemed ludicrous. So after consulting a map, we decided we'd make for a small wooden warming shack in the far corner of the park that is typically used as a warming station of snowmobiles and skiers. I'd been to cabins like this before and they're usually pretty nice - wood stove, stack of fire wood, sometimes even an outhouse. It sounded like a great plan. So we hit the park trails in the dark and went hunting for the cabin. It started well. The trail had knee-high grass as it wasn't used in summer (was a dedicated snowmobile trail), but the ground was quite smooth. We descended for about 20 minutes, which made me nervous. It's a boggy part of the country, and going down means getting wet. Sure enough, the trail got a bit mushy. Then really mushy. My headlight suddenly hit something that reflected the light back up into the trees. Crap - the trail disappeared into a bog! We couldn't see how far it went, and any time spent standing around would result in hoards of mosquitoes attacking us, so we said screw it and pedalled full speed into the water. Thankfully it ended 20 feet later around the corner and the ground was hard enough to ride. We hit a few of these water sections, some of which were too deep to ride and required carrying our bikes across to avoid water getting into our bearings. Half an hour later and a good bit of fumbling around in the woods, we found the cabin. We celebrated our victory, hung our shoes up to dry and passed around a few beers. Tomorrow we'd try to finish the trail and ride home. <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-vFjfcRcx4QE/VcjH4yEaRCI/AAAAAAAALzc/Orly3gOy17o/s1600/_DSC4520.jpg> We woke up to a warm sunny morning and the sounds of squirrels running around the roof of the cabin. Jason had got up at 5am to ride to work for 7 (bummer!) and had taken a trail directly to the highway outside the park. So it was just Graham and I left to finish the trail. <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-YfSnmOS3RAo/VcjIf4U6kHI/AAAAAAAALzk/egfQqirsqQ4/s1600/_DSC4526.jpg> We hit the trail and were immediately into the marsh again. <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DU8M1ppVNCc/VcjI90QoJqI/AAAAAAAALzs/II9zPlom67k/s1600/_DSC4531.jpg> We can do this, I thought. It's just wet boots. However, soon enough we hit *The Bog*. This was a whole new obstacle - the trail ended and there was about 75 yards of water and reeds. Keep in mind, this trail is meant for winter, so it was built with no regard to water crossings. There is nothing that bugs me as much as being forced to turn back, so thinking to myself "What Would Manny Do", I took a few exploratory steps into *The Bog. * <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-dCKCqgHdkHI/VcjJpQbhLHI/AAAAAAAALz0/weZnwcJJn6E/s1600/IMG_2685.JPG.jpeg> The ground was mushy and it was deep. Soon I had to shoulder my bike to keep it out of the water, but I pushed on. About half way, I suddenly my left foot sank up to my knee in mud, and continued to slowly sink. This was NOT good. My Atlantis was heavy and pushing me down, and I had my iPhone and dSLR in my basket. I struggled to find some thick reads to use as a better footing with my right foot. I tried to pull my left foot out but it was not happening. It was like the ground was sucking me down. Graham had waited near the bog entrance to see how things went and was too far away to help, not to mention he had his own bike to hold on to. It was a battle of attrition - I slowly and gently pulled on my left foot. My boot started to come off...ease up. Slide my foot into my boot, curl my toes, try again. It took a while but I managed to pull it out of the mud and turn around. By now my Atlantis had been nearly fully submerged in *The Bog*. Sorry bearings, I hope you'll be ok. I really tried. <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Ou5q_yGB0R8/VcjKlCC7blI/AAAAAAAAL0A/t8yIoh0tjlQ/s1600/IMG_2687.JPG.jpeg> About ten minutes after entering *The Bog*, we had made it out, tails between our legs, and heading back to the cabin where we'd find the trail that shoots out to the paved highway. We had to cross a few more wet sections to get there, but for the moment, it looked like we had made it out without any major disasters. <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2qZQgFfRnxg/VcjK7KDhpNI/AAAAAAAAL0I/Aa7LqCUB-uQ/s1600/IMG_2683.JPG.jpeg> Reaching the highway, we pulled off our boots and watched as dark brown swampy bog water poured out. I spent a couple minutes pulling reeds out of my cassette and derailleur, and checked that all electronics had made it out dry. In hindsight, it was a really stupid thing to try crossing *The Bog* without putting my valuables into a dry bag at least. We hit the road and were back home two hours later, covered in bites, legs bleeding from scraping against the brush, but feeling like we had a proper weekend adventure. As I type this my hands and legs are getting increasingly itchy from what I'm sure is poison ivy, a lasting reminder of our goofy but thrilling weekend s24o. Hope you all had a great weekend of riding :) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. 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