To Kill a Sasquatch

 Part 1

 Silver Creek Cliff

As I depart, the early morning air is crisp and it sends an all too familiar shiver down my spine.  It’s before 5:00 am but I mount my trusty two wheel steed and make haste to the Irvin which is where I am to meet my comrades Eki, Kershaw, Farrow, and Hendricks.  The streets at this hour are deserted and we gather under a flickering street light like gangsters, but instead of wearing finely tailored suits and fedoras we don spandex and bike helmets.  Instead of Tommy guns and knives we have bikes and tire pumps.  The seriousness of this affair to these great atheletes is no less significant though, and after just a few short pleasantries we are off.  The air by the lake is damp but the thing I feel most is anticipation, for to slay the great 140 mile Sasquatch loop in a mere ten hours would be for me a substantial feat.  Add to that the company of elites that I was in and I could potentially be in a world of hurt later that day.  None the less we were now rolling and I quickly relaxed and settled into the bike. 

There is something magical about riding at night and I really started to enjoy myself.  The world around me melted away as we ticked off the miles until I started to realize something.  It was colder out than I had expected.  Normally it takes my body about 45 minutes to start pumping warmth to my extremities during exercise and it had been longer than that.  I made several attempts at warming the digits but they all proved to be futile.  It would be quite a few more hours until the day would warm so I made the decision to just press on unless things went completely numb or refused to respond.  As luck would have it the discomfort never subsided which meant that everything was still alive and I was able to continue without incident.

We pulled into Beaver bay and made a quick stop at the gas station to refill water and shed some clothes.  It was starting to warm up finally and it would no doubt get warmer yet as we made the ten mile climb away from the big ice box.  We bravely turned onto Hwy 4 and headed north which is when I realized that the past 50 or so miles was just a warm up and that the real battle with the Sasquatch was about to begin…..