I did it again. I went to that crazy Wed night Grand Rapids ride. From now on I’m calling it “wilding.” As in, “I am going wilding! See you way past bedtime!” I think that’s a real term, I might be misappropriating it, but it sounds fantastic and suits my purposes.
I arrive at the city park a little early and watch the crowd roll up. The wheelie crowd is right on time, careening around on rear wheels and making everyone nervous. A wide variety of bikes are in attendance. We have a massive turnout, 121 riders, just awesome to behold. J is leading, and he brings this:
You can see here that cleanliness is very important to him, and that he does mostly tame rides and so we would have nothing to fear since he planned tonight’s route.
Here is my bike, demure and innocent, having its first adventures amongst all these GR rabble rousers.
It is 8:30pm. We set off and a new group makes its appearance. I call them The Jumpers. They have full suspension bikes with names like Salsa on them and when we go up a ramp, they ride up the stairs. They fly off ledges and drop back into the group and scare this nurse half to death. They launch their bikes and sashay through the air and hope everyone is watching. The Jumpers are wilding the hardest.
I quickly realize that the middle-back is the place to be. Away from The Kids and The Jumpers. I want to ride by J, but I also want to go home by private vehicle, not ambulance.
We block intersections and ride through red lights; drivers submit to all of this. No honking or threatening behavior. Just tolerance for 121 bikes and riders wending through their streets. We ride through neighborhoods (only one crash!), and then along the aptly-named Grand River. Everyone stares at us, a massive clot of bikes, moving along the path. We get to a pavilion where everyone chats in a haze of pot smoke and beer drinking. I drink my usual electrolyte water; I need my wits about me. Three men come to ogle my Platypus. They are into all the custom colored bits. One of them is Velocity USA’s anodizer; here is the man who anodized my rims!
It turns out, he is my bike twin. I am jealous of the blue metal flake in his purple paint job. I didn’t think someone could out-sparkle me, but he’s done it.
Isn’t it scary how much we have in common?
At 10pm, good and dark out, we set off. Here was the description of the ride: “…We‘ll head back to the Monarch via a less level and less paved route, so if you’re heading back with us, bring some tires!”
WHAT COULD GO WRONG.
It is the black of night. We are in the middle of nowhere. There are animals in the woods. We are behind a factory of some kind. The parking lot is dirt and full of pot holes. Now there is no road, no buildings. We are in the woods, riding over tall grass. We can see a few feet in front of us, we cannot see the ground through the grass. I am praying not to land in a hole. Now we are in sandy soil, with deep ruts in it. I am thanking my lucky stars that I went with 48mm Gravel Kings. The group is beginning to split as different people set different paces for this terrain. Now we are in rocky dirt with tall grass and brush growing up through it. We are forced to dismount at times, squeeze through narrow spaces. We must lift our bikes up and over obstacles, hoping not to get hit from behind by other riders in the dark. I wonder how many ticks we have, and if I will get my first taste of poison ivy. But, I can’t worry about that now because I have to make it out of here alive first.
I end up at the front of my section. The riders directly behind me have no lights. We are counting on me, and my headlight is pointed too far down and I can’t lift it because it’s screwed tight. So we don’t have a lot of forward visibility. I see something in the dark. The ground starts to drop. “STOP STOP STOP! GET OFF YOUR BIKES!” I yell. Everyone behind me echoes this and I turn on my iPhone flashlight for better viewing. There is a pit just ahead, and an inches-wide beam we are going to have to traverse to get across. I can’t believe it.
To my left is one 6-8inch wide beam that stretches across a yawning pit. There is another to my right. We are high up enough that there are tree branches reaching across the way. We will use both beams to move everyone across. I have to lift my bike up onto the beam, step up and begin to inch across. The woman behind me lets forth a stream of cuss words. I can hear another woman who is protesting. We don’t have any choice but to traverse that wood. I resign myself to it, and I lift my Platypus and balance it on the beam. Like Simone Biles! Ok, fine, not Simone Biles. Looking for security, I grab for the branches as I wheel my bike by. If my bike goes over the edge, I’ll never get it out, I think. If I go over the edge, I’m also never getting out. A man is waiting on the far side. “You can do it! You’ve got the Platypus!” he calls. And I do it. Some men coax the riders behind me over the beam and we are on our way again.
The rest of the ride was tame in comparison. It ended at their watering hole and I pealed off for the park, where my truck was. I was nervous riding alone at 11 pm in downtown but after what I’d just survived, it didn’t seem so scary. I rode those 2 miles, wrestled the bike into the back of the Telluride, and made it home at midnight.
I don’t know why I do these rides - I’m terrified most of the time. But I will probably go back next week. It’s a good story, if nothing else. 🙃
Leah
Love that your teenagers waited up for you, and that you would ground them. Sounds like a fun ride!
