Chasing the Deer...

Last nights night ride started off in the usual manner with a grunt up the Fairlie moor road from Fencebay smokehouse, but had a couple of unexpected twists....

 

We headed off into Kilruskin woods to ride the twisty woodland singletrack that lies within, leading back down to the starting point. About two Thirds of the way down, I came over the top of a steep muddy chute, which was like greased weasel shite as usual. Robin had already opted for a comedy fall, and I duly followed, a few yards back after the front wheel washed out. The next few seconds was a blur of madness. Little did I know that Robin had startled a young deer on the way down, and the daft thing had ran down the trail ahead of him, him chasing quickly behind, until his dismount.

As I was about to get back up, I heard Robin shout something, and turned round to see the deer absolutely hammering back up the hill past him, and then it promptly hurdled my prostrate bike, which was lying in the middle of the trail, with the front wheel twisted skyward. It actually clipped my front wheel with quite a thump on the way over it, and I thought it was going to topple over in mid air, but the graceful buck recovered and was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Mucho laughter ensued.

Then it was up the moor road for a second time, but this time peeling off northward for a hoot of a descent down Fairlie glen, but instead of riding the full down, we headed further north in search of the unknown trails hidden within kelburn country park. This resulted in another strange occurrence. A ripped tyre. Fairlie moor is muddy and soft, who knows how the tear occurred, maybe that deer had a ragged toe-nail?. It was increasingly colder at this point, below zero and getting on a bit. After a quick repair, we were off again down kelburn glen on paths that really were not worth the long climb up to find them.

Back to the car a little later than expected, and home at 10.30 pm with just enough time for a pre-nightshift shower, and in to work. A ride like this keeps you going through the night, with the added adrenalin giving extra zip.

 

Posted with Blogsy