To take advantage of the extra hour of existence we get tonight from the artifice of daylight savings, Romulus had the brilliant idea of a late-night mountain bike ride.

I was pretty excited for the ride, but I was also fearful that I was going to be exposed for my lack of physical activity lately. Turned out to be a non-issue because the ride was so epic that it carried us both through some heavy lifting.

We decided to drive from my house down to HMB to shave about 10 miles off the evening's total. Romulus had already done about 15 miles earlier in the day, so there was no need to pad. Unlike the past several days of beautifully clear weather, it was pea soup out there tonight. It was like a super heavy fog or a really light rain. Everything was wet, and soon so were we. It was wet, but not unfortable, because our body heat soon warmed the sodden clothes to a comfortable temperature. The low clouds were too wet for my glasses though and I did the entire climb up HP to Tunitas to Lobitos to Skyline without my them. Again, it's nice to be able to get by without the glasses, but it's not like I could see much. I figured it was OK as long as were doing six miles an hour going uphill.

Is it	Romulus	or Romulan?

When we got to Skyline, we picked up a wonderful trail that snaked it's way along the ridgelines parallel to Skyline. On it, we silently dipped, climbed, banked, dropped, and curled through the redwoods in a damp, dripping rain forest of huge ferns, massive trees, and fallen pine needles. We were the only ones in these woods for miles, it was midnight, and we were riding our bikes in the dark -- pretty cool. But wait, as I bobbed and weaved through the trees, I thought I heard voices, people yelling, laughing? While taking a break, I heard them again and we both killed our lights and listened in the darkness. Sure enough, there were the unmistakable sounds of party in the woods, complete with yelling and laughing. We couldn't see any lights or see exactly where the party was, but it was pretty close.

We pushed on for a little longer, then decided to head back towards Skyline. On the way back, we experienced more forest magic. This time hallucinations, specifically in our peripheral vision. Independently, we both got spooked a couple of times, by saplings, stumps, and other murky shapes lurking in the shadowy fringes of the trail. The fog added a nice Noire quality to the evening.

A funny thing happened on the way back to Skyline: the low clouds completely disappeared. Looking up into the redwood canopy on the way back, I thought I saw stars. I had to stop to confirm that, yes indeed, the sky was now completely clear of all vaporous structures. Cool.

Near Skyline, Romulus picked up a connecting shortcut that took us right to the Redwood Trail heading down into Purissima. Romulus was running a little low on lights, but felt confident that he had enough to get back to town, so we charged down the trail. I haven't done a night ride in a while, but I was really feeling it tonight. Effortlessly, I glided down the steep, wet trail, leaning and braking in perfect unison with the precipitous terrain.

We ended up doing the entire stretch back from the Purissima parking lot to HMB with no lights, including the descent of the Grapevine. Pretty impressive. We did put the lights back on when we were politely reminded of their necessity by one of San Mateo County's finest. By the time we got back to the car, my feet and hands were numb with cold and my legs were starting to ache with lactic acid.

This was a great, great night ride, with power climbing, technical singletrack, mysticism, and camaraderie. A great night to be out in the woods. I wondered aloud to Romulus how many other people in the United States were out riding their mountain bikes on trails right now. I'd guess not many.

I saw no animals tonight, not even a banana slug, but Romulus was nearly broadsided by a rampaging buck up on the ridge.