Night Riding

You'd be surprised at how little light you need to mountain bike at night in the Boise front. As the sun sets and the earth's shadow is cast over everything in front of you, the trail remains a crisp light grey. Even when all that's left of the day is a small patch of blue above the western horizon, you don't loose sight of the trail, as it has a way of gathering refracted city light and what is left of the daylight, and reflecting it back to your eyes. This happens because the trail is not dirt, but a yellowish sand that can vary in consistency from Sahara fine to granite rubble.

Its a pleasant sound your tires make on this surface-sometimes fuzzy, other times crunchy. Either way, its soothing, like white noise, and could easily put you to sleep if it weren't for the fact that all of your senses are employed in the navigation of your bike. This focus as well as the crisp cool air not only keep you attentive, but make you feel outrageously alive . Eventually, of course, you switch on your head lamp when all becomes several shades closer to black. The starkest contrast resides between the hills and the sky. Your immediate surroundings become one large silhouette against a night sky infused with the oranges, whites, and yellows of city lights. Sometimes the clouds above your head appear to be glowing red hot. Other times, when the city is hidden behind a hill, you might be fooled for a moment into thinking that a great fire raged in the valley. But most of the time, you are simply filled with awe at the sight of the city lights. This is especially true when, after riding away from town for the first half of the ride, you finally turn around and behold the entire valley, twinkling beneath you like a galaxy, almost close enough to touch. The lights of the city really do twinkle and shimmer as the air between civilization and you rises in spirals and waves. Looking down on the scene, its hard to imagine driving through traffic near the mall or dancing at the Balcony. In fact, at that moment its kind of hard imagining doing anything anywhere other than what it is your actually doing at the place you're actually doing it. I think they call this sensation, "living in the moment".

Night riding can be a thrilling experience, literally. Sounds, shapes, movement, and even your own thoughts can really creap you out. Sagebrush can look like anything-a person, a wolf, a cow, whatever. In the dark, they are big hulking dark objects that look especially menacing silhouetted against the night sky. Trail markers, with their reflective tape, can briefly resemble the eyes of a beast starring back at you. Sometimes what you see is very much alive. A couple of days ago, my route was flanked by a herd of deer. On the same ride, I startled an extremely large bird of prey; which, when it lept into the air, was so close to me that I felt a rush of wind from its enormous wings. There are also silly little birds that like to sit in the middle of the trail at night and burst into the air with a trumpet of inappropriately loud tweets. As startling as these experiences can be, its what you don't see that causes the skin on your neck to prickle. It was outrageously windy tonight, so of course there were a lot of sounds that turned my head. For example, a small tree creaked like an old wagon wheel when I rode by. The wind through the powerlines overhead produced the most haunting persistent howl. Various sacks, flags, and brush flapped at my heels.

More later...?