The next day Rusty, Z and I went scouting around for places to ride. That afternoon, Jonnie met us and we went west up the hill to a place called Rampart reservoir

provides a place for the tires (or your face) to grip. Nope, not out there. It's rock. All sorts of rock. Big, solid rock. Loose, gravelly rock. Almost always the solid rock is covered by the loose rock and the only thing that changes is the depth of the loose rock. It keeps things interesting when you're cooking along at speed and want to do something stupid…like change direction. The local setup is to adjust the front brake until it doesn't work and then don't use it. Luckily, Jon and I were travelling faster than the speed of whine. Unluckily, we stopped and Rusty tore us a new one when he caught up, telling us we were missing all the beauty of the place and how we should slow down and smell the roses. Well, I thought poor old Z was going to poo himself from laughing so hard. My man was doubled over and could barely pedal. So with all due respect we took off again at full speed and vowed not to stop again.

It was at this point that we came across one of the beginner sections that we couldn't ride. There were four ways down and only one looked doable so of course we had to try the others. Again Rusty took another shot to the ribs from his bike. I must say it must've taken a hell of an effort for him to finish the 5 miles back to the van. I knew if I just crashed a couple times he'd feel better, but I had taken a heapin' helpin' of Jon's whupass and was in no position to be helping Rusty. But we limped back and got some cool pics at sunset.

and by the time we got back to the van the full moon was up

Then, before you know it we were chasing around town looking for pizza and more Guinness and things were jiggy once more.

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