Today is a rare occurrence here at the Alliance. I am designating this Sunday as a No Ride Day. No I didn’t just write Ride when I should have said Drive. This is kind of like a flag at half mast.

The Alliance did an improvised ride last night. One of those rides that gets planned ten minutes before you need to leave to be able to make it before dark. We headed up to Tony Grove Lake, again, to do the White Pine Lake trail. A new Knuckler in town was in tow to see how we ride. He kicked our asses on the up hill. I hate singlespeeders. He stopped to wait for us about 200 yards from the end of the three mile climb at the beginning of the trail. Of course, he had no idea that we were pretty much done climbing. I was feeling very poorly and humbled. Upon catching up to the rest spot I sprinted past to hit the downhill while informing them that it was my time to shine. I bombed, as is my style, to the first stream crossing and finally stopped to catch my breath. And then I waited.

And then I waited some more. I was really feeling the climb up, being light headed and the whole nine yards. So sitting and waiting didn’t seem like too much trouble. After a while I started to worry. I worried because I didn’t want to have to try and climb what I had just come down and worried because I got that eery feeling that something wasn’t right. I headed back up the trail, very slowly. I rode until I needed to rest and then I screamed to see what the hell was going on. No one replied. I pedaled again and repeated the process. After the third time of stopping and yelling, I saw Seth, the new guy, coming down the trail.

He informed me that I-dog had gone done, hard, and was walking back to the car.

We climbed back up the trail. About 20 yards into the first down hill section there was a big rock. The rock was surrounded by blood. Ian had launched off the front of his bike and face-planted into a giant boulder taking the brunt of the fall with his face. He lost a tooth, chipped another and mutilated various other parts of his face and upper body.

Luckily this No Ride Day at the Alliance isn’t for a fallen friend but for a fallen friend’s tooth.

Be careful out there.