West Magnolia night ride?

Well, originally no, but I've been here a while, and I'm aware. If you're sure about when it's going to end, yes you can get out of work a little early and by the time you're there, it's done raining. Doesn't mean it's dry. For most trails that's not an issue. We tried that at the rock garden at Hall. Slippery. Silly slippery.

I am not sure there is an early morning? I think that's a fairytale, urban legend, ancient mythology. I am not aware of this AM that you speak of. At least not an AM that comes BEFORE a PM.

I started west mag around 8:15pm--it takes a little while to get there, you know--and then stayed out until about 11pm. Lights worked like a champ. Silly bright. Brought an extra, bright LED pocket light just in case (I did build the headlights, you know, and well, I don't trust me that much). I also brought the 4" folding knife on the waistband of my ghetto-capri-ified sweatpants so I could at least take a stab at the over-the-shoulder...stab... in the chance that it might dissuade a large kitty. It occurred to me that if it dragged me far enough, said "pants" might be off... how humiliating of a way to go would that be?

...and West Mag is a maze at night. Everything looks like everything else. I missed the turnout for the car about 3 times, enjoyed a bit more biking than I intended, but the batteries held out.

Puddles? Oh yes. (Did ride through the middle, felt like some deep ruts were being laid down though). But root canal seemed mostly dry. Lookout as well. The puddles were usually right near the campgrounds.

In all seriousness though, most of the descriptions of attacks I've read involve a bit of dragging, you know, with the person still pretty alive... if you've seen foxes grab prarie dogs and so forth, they aren't dead right away...

Kind of weird to think of myself in the same situation as that prarie dog eh? I went away and stopped staring at the fox so it would hurry up and finish its business instead of staring back at me blankly with the thing kicking around in its mouth. The thing wasn't very smart, it could have just ran under the stationary minivan full of people watching it try to stand its ground against the fox. Instead, it uh, tried to stand on its hind legs and be all badass... I really thought I'd arrive there before the outcome was determined, but I wasn't really pedaling at all.

Anyhow, back on topic, (there are a million threads like this over on Cali's MTBR forum) but if I'm dead, or knocked out that quickly well then, oh well. I won't be around very long to care. But to not bring the knife, and be stuck there writhing around like the prarie dog? Well that's when the stabbing should come into play. If you think about it, these cats probably practiced a bunch of times before they got it right, before they could dispatch an elk or deer with any kind of efficiency at all. How much have they practiced with a human? It might well be slow and horrible.

The knife I carry for this is just a cheap Gerber EVO, the finger flip makes it pretty quick and reliable to open with one hand. It's not a cool wrist-flick inertia trick. Nor a fumbling thumb motion like a spyderco. Thumb stays on the handle, firm grip. The cat'd sure get you anyways, in some kind of screwed up cage match. But in the wild... would you sit down at a buffet if the only cost was getting stabbed by a guy a few times, or, would you, as you began to dig in, gtfo on the first stab, maybe, and ask questions later?

...Just don't bike alone is the real answer... even in broad daylight. But sometimes that's hard.

Michael Jackson shoulda known that cougars are Dangerous too (sorry)

Mmm well I'd hafta defer to the bike light forum, on the main MTBR forums... I mean I'm no expert, and I can't rightly suggest particular lights without having used them, and in addition considering I just opted out and made up my own DIY solution. They also have the big roundup "shootout" reviews that should get you an idea of a lot of the off-the-shelf stuff. There's a local guy that builds the Amoebas, people seem to like those... I may also post my DIY solution in the DIY forum or perhaps improperly in the Front Range lighting thread, or, pehaps most improperly, right here. But I gotta get some more pictures gathered. It's not the most weather-proof, but it seems to take a beating just fine and costed $75 including batteries and the seat wedge to hold them.

As for the rattlesnakes, I was freaked about those before the mountain lions (which were due only to night riding) but then I read up on it and some local regional poison control or wildlife medicine place said that of all their reported evenomations or maybe even just bites--and there were plenty of them--none of them were on cyclists who were riding their bike at the time... so that pretty much eased me up on that. Watch where you put your foot (if at all possible). Also I only found cougar attacks that were still during daylight--which just makes me an idiot for only being scared by night riding, and like many other people, biking (sometimes solo) at dusk seemingly unconcerned. Probability, though, probably says I'm just an idiot, since I don't carry a lightning protection system, and that's more likely to get me, statistically... but you can't stab lightning! Unless you wanna try pointing a knife up at the clouds in a thunderstorm...

We just like taking about beasties-that-can-get-you because...they can get us?

Also, should derail this thread into night ride sourdough as well... and then Lion's gulch... and then... since the gulch is Larimer county, it's legit at night, right?