Dear friends, if you stray from the trail or go nuts with the speed in unfamiliar territory, at least get your affairs in order and write a bulletproof will before you go out. To give an example, just West of London near Komoka there is a manmade lake. I drive past it almost every day. After a quick freeze and snow, there might be an inch of ice and a couple of inches of snow on it. A few warm days and it's back to water. If you did not know it, I guarantee that you would think this was an excellent place to try opening it up, and in seconds you would be either sitting on the bank soaked and shivering and sledless and humiliated, or going to your great reward. But I guess we all do stupid things. I did one such thing last night, and I share it here for the benefit of our younger riders. I decided to go sledding alone, at night, on unfamiliar trails. I kept on going looking for that elusive watering hole to sit and get a coffee at before turning back. And by the time I decided to turn back, the turns I thought I had memorized started to get fuzzy. The whiteouts also were cause for concern. Anyway, after doubling back a few times, and fidgetting with trying to get a GPS fix on my Blackberry, I finally made it back, but not before asking the good lord to help me out. Riding alone, bad idea. CDI gives out without any cause or reason, and you're walking.
