It was like a porn flick. Complete with sex, danger, and intrigue!

A man turns on the tv, and he sees this chick taking it from this dude. And the dude is just giving it to her. really giving it her! wham wham wham! and she’s loving it. screaming and moaning. hair wild and sweaty, shoulders thrown back. she’s getting pounded and pounded and pounded and she’s throwing herself into this for all she’s got. And the man can’t stop staring at the tv, he’s totally captivated watching this girl howling and sweating and convulsing like this is the best she has ever gotten it, like she’s been waiting all her life for someone to fuck her like she’s being fucked right now. And then he recognizes her face, and its his wife.

It was just like that.

Helimech told me about a Hawes NR, and it sounded just about perfect after a week of going hard on the road and throwing myself against the rocks at National – a familiar ride out my back door, some guys who would do things differently than I’m used to, some good company, all neatly tied into the time I’d normally spend working out. So i made my way comfortably home from work, comfortably got myself ready, and rolled comfortably up to the Walgreens at 6:30.

This is where things became dramatic.

Mike and Aaron (Lostboyz) have Aaron’s rear brake spread out in the Walgreens parking lot. Tony is killing time jumping off curbs. 5 minutes go by, 10…I lend Aaron the brake spacer I carry…he’s got his shifter off so he can bleed it, but Mike points out he took off the wrong shifter…the wheel finally goes back on and the brake rotor is totally frozen inside the caliper. I say c’mon dude we’re about the same size you can ride my Heckler, beats driving all the way out here and not riding. So its back to my house, a quick swap of the pedals, and we are off. Its actually only about 7:10 now, really not that bad for getting a group night ride together.

This is where things became pornographic.

It was like the Heckler lost 5 pounds and had helium in the tires. From the moment he started spinning it, the Heckler floated under Aaron. Not even out of the cul-de-sac, he rode a wheelie 50 yards. He flew a foot off curbs effortlessly. Did I mention that Aaron is an expert-class DH racer? He is also not slow. I was hauling ass down the CAP trail keeping up with him, and watching him pump the turns and glide the bike all with no big ring filled me at once with joy and sadness. The bike was getting ridden like it needed, deep down in that sensitive spot that would make it cream, but it was not by me. But it was titillating watching what it could do. I needed a cigarette.

This is where things became cinematic.

We blew back out onto Power road and crested the hill, and Mike and Aaron picked up speed and hit the drop-in faster than I normally do. I am not slow on Hawes, but decided i would catch them on the climbs and not let my ego about Hawes get the best of me riding with two very strong DH’rs. By the first turn near the first split 200 yards in, I had lost sight of them round the bend, and was just thinking about getting comfortable with getting dropped by Mike on a 575 and Aaron on the Heckler when I rounded the turn and saw Mike splashed on the middle of the trail. It was an angled swooping downhill right turn with kitty litter spread out over a slab of rockface.   Not all that hard, but like 100 other spots on Hawes, could bite you if you hit wrong.   I usually drift through it cautiously, and have almost slid out there before.

This is where things became melodramatic.

Mike wasn’t badly injured, but he was done for the night. A bunch of cuts and gashes on his arm, back and knee. One or two of them appeared stitches-worthy. So barely 10 minutes into the ride, we headed back to the house. Mike toughed it out, hosed himself down, chagriningly accepted some peroxide and neosporin and a road beer, and set off towards a possible visit to the ER. I agreed not to laugh at his XC crash if he and Aaron agreed not to laugh the next time I rode something gnarly with them. My mojo was fading now at 8pm, but i could at least take out Kila and get some easy mileage in. So we went to sneak onto Longbow, and were meandering our way around the golf course when a maintenance worker in a small ATV drives right by me. SHIT! He had no lights and I did not hear him over my headphones, but he didn’t even stop to look at me. I decided his disinterest was not a valid argument for sticking around, so slipped through the desert sections to the nearest part of the fence, lifted my bike over, lifted Kila on top of one of the 4 foot tall support pillars while she made a face as painful as Mike’s, jumped the fence, got Kila down the other side, and hammered for a quarter mile into the desert.

This night was cursed. It would only become more cinemelodramatic from here, undoubtedly ending with a money-shot to my face. I went home and rode the trainer.