I am wise enough to know that being a reckless teenager for the rest of your life usually means a short life. However a safe life void of surprises and new experiences is one I will never wanted. Somehow I was blinded and caught off guard. No more.
Ive been intending to go to whiteface mountain for years now. Years. Its a day trip. Yet years have passed. YEARS. Unacceptable. I rode through the adirondacks a couple of years ago but due to time I couldnt make it to whiteface.
Got to put an end to this insanity. Excuses are just that, excuses. Okay so my next day off Im going. First weekend it poured rain the entire thing. I put it off until next weekend. Rain was in the forecast again. This time it was only 30% chance. Hm. Okay Im doing it. Geared up and left early. Made it to Tupper Lake only to find out that 30% was applicable to home.
For some odd reason I never bring rain gear. Odd. So there I was soaked, eating beef jerky at a gas station. Well Im already wet and Im determined so I waited for a break in the rain and kept going. I got to the entrance gate of Whiteface and the guy at the gate advised I dont go cause of how heavy its raining up at the peak. I told him I dont care Ive come too far. On I went.
The rain had stopped but it was maybe 40 degrees at the top and covered in a drizzly fog. There were no views. I could see maybe 25 yards in front of me. Up the mountain I went. I parked and continued on foot to the elevator that takes you to the actual peak.
I step out from the shelter and onto the peak and immediately get knocked around by the wind. Didnt help I was already shivering. I started thinking maybe this wasnt quite worth it. I could barely see past the rock wall that keeps you from falling off the mountain.
There was. The cloud that encapsulated the peak blew over, opening up the adirondack park for me to see. It may have just been the wind but I couldnt breath for a good few seconds. The peak became covered again by another cloud that I watched fly up the side of the mountain. It was amazing how fast they traveled when youre so close to them. The cloud was short lived, opening the park even more.
I ran around quickly trying to see everything surrounding me before I was blinded by a cloud again. I succeeded.
In that moment, I knew it was worth it. Why did I put this off for so long? Why do we put off so many things? Money? Risk?
I was happy. I shot back down the mountain and was excited to get home as I was cold and wet. Shortly after getting to the base of the mountain my bike started feeling weird. Something small was off. It was gurgling more than usual when decelerating. Odd.
My bike died at a stop sign. Well this just got interesting. I had to pump the throttle to get it to start and found that it dies when under 3000 rpm. So I had to constantly give it throttle when coming to a stop. Ontop of that it was backfiring constantly and smelled like it was pouring gas out of the exhaust. Clearly it was running a bit rich. The 5000 feet of elevation change my bike just went through pissed it off. Okay. But Ill deal with it once I get home.
Gas gauge is dropping rapidly. I was nearly empty within 50 miles which is a third of what I normally get. Okay is running very rich. Now I was concerned about dying between gas stations. I raced through my memory of my route trying to figure out if I should even bother trying. I knew once I got back to the main route there was enough stops to limp it home.
Adapted. It was now completely dark. Still wet. Had nearly 3 hours to go with the bike backfiring and having a jerky throttle. I was almost back to the main route when my bike felt weird again. I was just getting used to it running horribly when a new sensation came about. One Im all too familiar with.
The back end started getting squirrelly and I knew it. Flat tire. I think I laughed. Im really not sure. Okay Im still in the middle of nowhere. There was a sandy lot coming up at what looked like an old DOT storage area. I dropped into the parking lot with the back tire now completely flat. Jumped off. And had a moment of reflection. What should I be feeling right now? Shouldve brought my plug kit...
Okay wouldnt have mattered. I cant wrap my head around the physics of how something that big got in my back tire. Not only that I didnt feel anything until the tire went flat. Youd think youd know if something of that size lodged itself in a tire ?
Game time. Got ahold of a friend with a truck who had nothing better to do. Now all I had to do was wait. The sky cleared. The moon came out.
With the moon came the coyotes. A tree line near me housed them. I could hear them jumping about in the bushes, hootin and hollerin. If anything, I was embarrassed. Coyotes arent usually aggressive with humans so I wasnt worried but it did make me chuckle regarding the situation I was in.
There was a large drainage pipe near me so I tucked in for a bit. Plus if the coyotes decided to get frisky itd be easier to defend myself with them only being able to come from one direction. They never came.
However my friend did. We had an interesting time loading my bike into a truck without ramps. It got done. Thats all that matters. I got home. What a day. A day I dont regret.
Seriously? How? I needed a new tire soon anyways but geez that couldve done a lot more damage.
It didnt though. Something Ive been guilty of, worrying too much about what didnt happen rather than dealing with what did happen. Life goes on!
