Night Adventure

Urban Assault on Cola town last night left me fully satisfied. The thrill of having 9 riders ripping through town outfitted with top dollar HID lighting was a sight. The Harrells riders came together for their bi-weekly urban night ride. It's early January and it's 50*, what a great time for a night ride. This was the third time I had made the ride and every time the ride gets bigger.

Last night's ride had the group meeting on the riverwalk around 6:35 they heading out towards town. First out to Elmwood Cemetery to see if anyone out there was a awake. All quite there, then headed up town through the Cotton Wood district. Over somewhere near Gervais St. we hit the first of two parking garages.

Vacant for the evening we climbed to the top and regrouped for the real festivities. Called the gravity races - my first of this type. Rules are simple you get one push to start and no pedaling, first one to bottom is winner. How neat is that. Picking smooth lines and not hitting your brakes is key. Damon & Russ had too much of a lead on me but I got the hang of it. The usual suspects immediately started talking about the next garage. So again up to the top, lined up, one push. This garage much tighter than the last. Quickly I found the line and holding it through the turns. Somehow I made the passes that put me into first. A few turns were still stick from the rain. I had two close calls on theses.

Then we headed down towards campus past the Colonial Center, across the river then onto the Cayce greenway. Throw in some trash talking and an out and back along the greenway. This put us into W Cola. Still out for some fun I lead the folks out to some dirt. A very small taste of dirt but with everyone on mtb and we have not seen any dirt, I felt it was appropriate. Paul insisted we all hit the Natchez hill somewhere in the ballpark of 18% grade. This puts me very close to my house so I split off and called it a night, still giggling over the fun I had. Looking forward to next week.