When Walking is Faster

So I went back to my parents house for thanksgiving, which lead to some adventures. Here’s a fun one…

On the monday, my last day in Kamloops, we decided to go for a bike ride. Now I didn’t have my bike, it was still in Three Hills with my helmet.

No worries, my mom lent me hers.

Right… The brakes didn’t work, and my head is a fair bit larger than hers (Which may have something to do with my IQ…), but we go anyways.

It was me and my dad together, neither of us had done this trail before,though my dad had been by the end and the beginning of our intended route, and noticed that the roads were similar, so he figured they must be connected.

They weren’t.

But before I get to that part, let me start with the beginning.

I was concerned that my brakes didn’t work and that I didn’t have a helmet, but my dad assured me that we were going to be on the road the entire time, and there wouldn’t be that many hills.

He was wrong.

Close to the beginning of the ride we make a detour in the name of geocaching on a path that looked fairly clear and easy.

It wasn’t.

After about fifty meters, we went around a corner and discovered that the path was covered in half frozen mud with dips that resembled craters.

We pressed onwards.

Once we got past the mud we heard some motorcyclists coming, so we waited for them to pass. They were going at a pretty good clip.

I don’t how they were alive.

The half frozen muddy craters were gone, but were immediately replaced by thick roots that gave the path its name: “The Root’s of All Evil” (Yes, there was an apostrophe). How those motorbikers stayed on I do not know. The roots kept catching my wheel, almost throwing me over my handlebars.

With no helmet.

Finally we gave up, cached our bikes and walked for the rest of the way to the geocaches. Once we found the caches we turned around to get back on the main road. Of course, I’m young and believe I’m invincible, so I tried to ride despite the roots.

My dad walked and still managed to keep up with me.

Things got worse.

Once we got back to the main road, we continued on. Suddenly, the road ran out. Naturally, being men, we decided to press on. My dad thought he had found a path, so we continued onwards.

That path was worse than “The Root’s of All Evil”.

My dad barely ever rode, he mostly walked, but I was young and foolish, so I decided to ride and show that I was faster than him. A few near misses with the ground later, my dad, still on foot, was nearly out of sight.

Fortunately, he stopped to let me catch up.

Onwards we pressed, me still riding and my dad mostly walking (he paused every now and again to let me catch up) until we finally met up again with the road we were to finish on (and the one we expected to have been on the whole time).

The end was in sight. We continued riding, and then we hit a hill. My dad said that my mom was at the bottom of the hill to pick us up.

She was. Unfortunately.

The only braking power I had was in my front wheel, and it wasn’t very effective.

But down I went, gaining more and more speed, screaming down the hill, I flew past my mom, dove into the ditch, and let my mom’s bike get destroyed by the oncoming logging truck.

Well, not really.

Actually, I held onto the small amount of braking power I had, controlled my descent, and stopped neatly by the car and then drove home.

But that’s a boring end to a pretty fun adventure.