The Thursday night adventure email

Hey All,

Did a 2mile swim at 5:30 in the evening and 4 hour bike ride out of the city and up to the Namhan Sansong Mountain range. Came down the steep, windy side in the dark. No lights on the road but my weak headlight spitting out into the dim, when cars would come up, their headlights would be blinding for a moment or two and then they’d turn the corner and the pitch dark would sweep in. By the time my eyes would adjust, I’d be just about to miss a turn and go off the cliff.

So low and behold two cars pass, then a sharp right turn, the next car coming up – couldn’t even see it coming – on the turn I was too far out and he was too far inside the curve, I leaned hard, catching the brakes and missed his front bumper by an inch, then my back tire started to slide sideways. Don’t know if it grazed his side, but I’d lost control, don’t really know what happened next but it was crazy shit! Felt like I was in a movie. Fishtailed a bit, must have been hitting the brakes or something, cause I went in a strangely controlled header over the handlebars. Thought I was a gonner!

The bike seemed to carry me over for a long while, then when I knew I was going over the top, I released my grip and tried to get out of my cleats... In the end, I barely had a scrape. The bike was a bit twisted, and the chain was all convoluted – stuck in places that I have no idea how it could get, and one of the bar-ends was turned upside down – maybe out of respect for my similar feat.

Got the chain fixed in the dark after about 15min of playing with it and got back on the bike to go the 40km back home. Then I had to stay up till 4:30 doing a final edit of an Annual report. Went out to eat dinner till, 5 and then got up this morning at 10 to go to Yeosu on the Southern coast to see my friend from Minneapolis.

A little stiff, but doin’ fine in the sunshine...

So what did you do on Thursday?

Pete