Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat

Hello Everyone,

As the dates approached for Dave to come visit Jonny and I here in California, I had a growing sense of dread.

We had plans for a fun weekend in the Bay Area, but the weather was not cooperating. When it’s just Arthur and I, we can work around bad weather. We have lots of time, so we can adjust our plans on the fly. But Dave is only here for the weekend, so weather is a big factor.

The forecast was calling for rain, and a fair bit, on the first day and a half of the three days we have to ride together. It would be a bad start to a trip that had high hopes. Then, as we drove out to the bike rental place to pick up Dave’s ride, my sense of impending trip failure grew deeper.

We didn’t find ourselves in the kind of commercial area where you would expect to find a bike rental place. We were in a residential area, with narrow streets and big trees. And the forecast very right about the rain, it was steady, meaning even if we did ride, we might damage saturated trails.

To top it all, in looking up trails in the area, there weren’t a lot of good options. Nowhere to park, no obvious loops, and a lot of boring fire roads to get anywhere.

But then, just when I thought we would waste a precious day looking for a bike and waiting out the weather, victory was snatched from the very jaws of defeat. The bike rental place was, in fact, in that residential area. In some guy’s garage, he had over a dozen high end bikes. Crazyness.

And not only that, he had a map of the best trails that were very close by, including a good place to park.

Even though it was raining, the trails weren’t totally soaked yet, and the ground was hardpacked, so we did minimal damage to them riding in those conditions.

To cap off an amazing turnaround, we met a local rider while we were out who pointed us in the direction of a very cool, mountain bike themed bar where we went for lunch.

I’m not a religious man, but I do believe in counting one’s blessings. Yesterday was a great day, and I am thankful to the Gods of Mountain Biking for providing that experience.

wes