Francis Beatty
Night Ride, Nov 19th, 2008
Got in my first winter night ride... well it still might be fall, but it sure as hell felt like winter! Froze my butt off! Okay, it was around 36.8 degrees, for the most part I didn't get too cold except for my hands and feet. Hit the trail at an average pace. Nothing special or difficult about this ride. Climbs where easy, did pick a bad line once, but that's night riding. A few sections of the trail where hard to navigate because of the amount of leaves on the trail. It made it very difficult to navigate because the trail blended right in with the trail, but what I couldn't figure out visually, I was able to recall from memory.
Had a really scary experience while out riding this trail. As I dropped into a shallow gully I saw something drop out of a tree right in front of me... it was a huge Owl and he was headed right at me! As I was rolling towards him and the Owl flying towards me, I yield out "Woo!", braced for impact and at the last moment the Owl sweeped upward and we barely missed each other. The owl was so close to me that the guy behind me yelled too... thinking he was going to be hit as well. It all happened so fast that I'm not exactly sure how close the Owl actually was to me, but I was certain at the time that we where going to meet face to face. Like I said... at the moment it was happening I was scared I was going to get a face full of talons, but once we had cleared each other, I was really glad to had experienced the moment. It's not everyday you get to see an Owl flying right at you and get so close and personal.
Go To Motion Base for this route.
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Tags: Francis Beatty Owl North Carolina Charlotte Night Ride HID Trail Gar
