Girls Ride

Tonight was the final ride of the year for "Ride Like a Girl". I have been so excited for this ride all week, so much so that today I could hardly contain myself at work, 5 o'clock didn't come quick enough.

Our ride tonight was in AF Canyon. I have had so little riding time in AF this year, and it is one of my favorite places to ride--riding up there is always a treat. At first I thought we were going to ride from Summit parking lot and do a short loop, but KC had a different plan. Instead we were going to go down what I have always gone up. At first, unfortunately, my face showed some disappointment to not going down Deer Creek South Fork, but this was actually very wise on KC's part as we could have ended up in the dark and not everyone had lights. Once I realized I had the opportunity to go down a new direction I was excited. Even more so, because I got to lead the way down.

The ride down was a blast! We hit jump, after jump, after jump......after jump!!! You could hear girls whooping and hollering all the way down the trail. Oh did I mention there were 12 of us on the ride...yes, 12 girls loving every moment of it. Eventually we got to the bottom and it was time to turn around and go back up.

As Jen took off to go up she got chain suck. We were able to get it out, and then she and I took off to catch the rest. Well of course Jen caught the rest, and then went ahead of the rest. I caught some of the rest, except for Jolene, Patty and one other gal. Good training for Sundance try to catch up to the others.

On the up we got spread out. Jen, Patty and another gal hit the Summit with Jolene and then me right after. By the time we got to the Summit Jen and the others were not there. Jolene was worried they missed the turn, so she went down Jurassic to see if they went down that trail. I stayed and waited. Eventually Jolene came back--still no Jen. After a bit KC showed up with the others. We took off down Jurassic. This is a fun trail, or at least the part I rode. We did not go far as the sun was going down and we were losing light. By this time we still had not seen Jen and the others, so KC took off to find them, and we headed back. On the way back we ran into our lost riders. They had gone onto the ridge trail thinking this was the direction we were going to ride. So it turns out they were only kind of lost.

Now the next conundrum do we go get KC and let her know their okay or do we continue to the parking lot? We continued to the parking lot, and here is why. KC is the most amazing, strong and incredibly fast rider. We knew she could go down and up in the amount of time it probably would take us to get to the parking lot, and this was almost the case. KC showed up about 5 minutes after we arrived in the parking lot, and I am sure she was very relived everyone was okay.

The ride was great, and I am really sad there will not be any more "Ride Like a Girl" rides for the year, but at least I have something to look forward to next year.