When the weather is this good (21 degrees and sunny at 4:30 this afternoon), you can't really sit inside. Thus, there was not much resistance on my part when Malcolm and Luke started agitating that they wanted to go biking but Lorenz was still on the tractor (when the weather is this good farmers do their farming thing) - in about 10 minutes, the boys had all three of our bikes loaded into the cargo van and managed to relieve Lorenz of the keys, and I quickly changed into pants that wouldn't get caught in the chain, grabbed helmet and gloves and off we were.
Note all the things I didn't do: I didn't, for instance, change my road-riding slicks for trail-riding nubbys, nor did I think to wear shoes that don't have cleats that mate with my pedals. I also didn't grab my cell phone, or the long-range walkie-talkies that I so conveniently own. Nor did I have a chat with the kids about navigating on trails using the sun, or discuss with them what we should do if we get separated, or issue them whistles, or hand out an edict that they should wait at all forks if I wasn't with them. Noooo... all I did was happily get on my bike and go.
So. Let's go back to the part where I've got slicks on, and my bike has clipless pedals, and I'm clipped in. Add to the above litany of things I didn't do another one: tighten the cleats on the shoes, so they take a bit of extra pressure and twisting to unclip. Now let's go to the part where we started on a windy trail that has lots and lots of blocky limestone - you know, like trails on the Niagara escarpment often do. The sort of stuff real mountain bikers eat up. Real mountain bikers like I'm not - see, it's been at least five years since I've done any serious mountain biking (and don't interpret that as me ever having been any good at it) - I think I've averaged about three decent trail rides *per year* so far this century. I've become a road-riding sort of girl (or a sitting on your ass sort of girl, but that's another story). So... yeah, you got it, it took about two minutes before I had my first crash, and it hurt - 'cause of course I couldn't get out of my pedals, and the neoprene wrap on where the handlebar was shortened has long since been shredded in similar crashes, and the bar made contact with my left breast and did some nasty scraping. So I nursed my injury (pun fully intended) for a couple of minutes before not-nearly-as-merrily as five minutes ago following the trail that the two 11-year-olds had just disappeared down.
The agreement forest trail network resembles nothing so much as a bowl of spaghetti. If a bowl of spaghetti had about 12 exits. I came to a fork, no kids - no clue where they went. I guessed, and I guessed some more, and within 10 minutes I was pretty sure that I had no idea where they were. Within half an hour, I came to the conclusion that rather than wait until it got dark, I needed someone to check the other exits *now*, and I peeled home on my bike - leaving the van where it was, in case the kids came out - and interrupted Lorenz's quality time with John Deere. He got into his car, and started checking exits - and I went back in (and crashed again, but this time it didn't hurt much).
When I got back to the van, Lorenz had chalked a note below mine - "found them!" (in addition to leaving cell phones and walkie-talkies at the farm, we were not equipped with pen or paper - but there was a piece of chalk in the van, and a 4'x8' piece of plywood). So, I loaded my bike into the back, and started driving home - only to meet Lorenz in the car, since I had his van key he'd left kids and bikes on 6th Line and gone looking... actually, I don't know what he was looking for. Me, I guess, but I wasn't at the farm. So, vehicle switch, and half an hour later two very impressed with themselves boys are back home ("we biked all the way to Glen Eden!").
Sometimes, it amazes me that people trust me with their children. Or that I get asked to teach navigation workshops. And my left breast hurts. Who has road rash on their boobs, I ask you? Never mind - if there's an answer to that, I don't want to know it.
Posted by Johanna at April 18, 2005 08:47 PM