Alan and I were overdue for an epic ride. During the early summer we’d done a handful of 4- to 5-hour rides at Umstead, Lake Crabtree and adjoining single track networks that will go unnamed for fear of prosecution for trespassing. But since July — or specifically since I’d done ORAMM and no longer had the incentive to put in long hours in the saddle — our longest ride had barely topped 2 hours. So we were overdue, we realized last week, but we were also short on after work daylight.
I have various rules of thumb for when it’s too hot to do certain things. Over 80? Too hot to hike (sweat + overnight cobweb construction + lots of body hair makes me feel like a wad of cotton candy after a mile or so). I draw the line slightly higher, at 85, for running, mainly because of the skimpy apparel involved. I’ll paddle into the low 90s, but not on open, unshaded water. I can handle 90 degrees on a mountain bike; the calculation becomes more involved on a road bike. I’ll ride up to 95 on road, maybe higher if I don’t have to stop; few things are more demoralizing than coming to a stoplight after generating an 18-mile-per-hour breeze, then losing that breeze altogether. (Sweaty fact: 109 F is 42.777 C.)
We were on a post-sundown training hike for the Ultimate Hike last month when a beam of bright light began gaining on us from behind. I turned and saw two headlights bearing down on us, still maybe 75 yards down the road.
“I’ll do the talking,” I said, since I was the hike leader and since I may have forgotten to mention to my fellow hikers that, technically, we were trespassing. We were hiking on a gravel road in a local forest where — again, “technically” — the gates close at sunset. I quickly relied this information to my hikers — then we waited a surprisingly long time for the two beams of light to reach us. When they did, they split, passed us on either side, and continued on their technically illegal way. It wasn’t a park ranger on patrol in a pickup; it was a pair of mountain bikers.