night ride

Night ride in the witch woods last evening. Tight technical single track with small goat hills and some nasty rocky-rooty descents. Barry knows these woods best and led us on an excellent loop. Jeff was focused to ride the dragons tail - a long fallen tree that the local riders had installed bridges on either side. Barry and I were not feeling the vibe of the Dragons tail but Jeff gave us a show attempting to clean this rotten narrow log. We moved on down the trail and then Jeff experienced some shit luck when one of his front brake pads fell out of the caliper and was lost. 99% of riders would have called it quits but not Whit. The dude didn't let it ruin his night and rode some unbelievably sketchy lines with no front brake? I tried using just the rear on some of the rock strewn lines but quickly grabbed for the lever every time.
The trail took us past a Whale of boulder that I call Ball-Buster. Big sloping boulder that has a natural transition that forms a tight valley. It's where two years ago I nearly ruptured my spleen in a fall, got caught behind the saddle and broke it off. We stood atop the boulder talking about the different lines. Barry and I wanted to concur BB but both decided to leave it for daylight hours.
The patch of woods can't be more than two square miles but with all the turns and switch-backs we rode for two and a half hours. I pass up riding these woods all the time forgetting how great the trails are.