It was an interesting day riding in the local park yesterday. Suzanne and I started out to enjoy our
freshly reopened and rerouted trails we've been working so hard on since Isabel hit. A few minutes
into the ride we meet up with Mark; it's good to see him back on the bike after his snapping his
ankle in 2 during a night race last year. Shortly thereafter, we hear some other guys running a
chainsaw in the middle of the park. We climb through the still closed trails to see what they're
doing and to offer up some assistance; if not now, later.
They're not working on clearing the trails; rather they are building some log bridge stunts ala
North Shore. These guys did the same thing in another park a few months back but someone spotted it
and had the park service dismantle it. It was mildly humorous as they talked about someone had come
in and done a lot of "half-assed trail clearing" since the trails were simply reopened and an
extreme stunt wasn't built at every chance. Of course they later realized that someone was us. I
bade them farewell and good luck with their construction; it will be kind of fun trying it when
they're done. Isabel wreaked havoc here, but on the plus side we have more North Shore materials
than we can ever use.
We continue riding for awhile; the trails definitely still need much work. We stop for a short talk
and hear someone yell. Then they do it again - and a third time. "That sure sounds like 'help' and
seems to be coming from the general direction of the guys building the stunts". We cut through the
woods (I'm expecting one of the guys had a tree fall on him or something) and instead hear someone
say "over here" from a side trail.
We arrive to find a lone young biker covered in blood. He had been riding without a helmet and hit
his head on a low tree. He tore a huge gash in his head and was starting to freak out because he
wasn't real sure where he was. By the time we got to him it had pretty much stopped bleeding on it's
own. He seemed a lot more calm now that help was there who knew the way out, so we carefully walked
him out to the parking lot (which just happens to be directly across the street from a hospital). He
thanked us and left, and hopefully heeded our advice to drive across the street to the ER.
We go back to try to find where he hit his head but to no avail.
Make sure you wear those helmets, kids!