Silent Ride

This morning Rachel and I took part in the Rock Church's 4th annual Silent Ride.

Here is the description of the history and inspiration for the Silent Ride, taken from the Rock MTB website:

Four years ago one of the leaders read an article about several hundred cyclists riding in silence for a 'fallen' bike rider. That rider was killed by a car, and the riders wanted to bring awareness to his death. The reaction was tremendous and has been repeated for fallen riders throughout the US. Why not do the same for Jesus!?

On March 22nd, RockMTB and several other partnering churches will join us at the Mission Beach Boardwalk to RIDE IN SILENCE FOR JESUS! The first year over 125 people rode in silence for Jesus with Fox News on location. The wonder, shock and comments from the other people (on the boardwalk) were amazing. Many riders spoke afterwards of being deeply moved by our Lord's presence while riding in awe and reverence for his sacrifice to us.

We picked this day intentionally. March 21st is Good Friday, the day or Lord was crucified for our sins. March 23rd is Easter, the day our Lord rose from the dead, breaking the veil of death granting us eternal life through the shedding of his innocent blood. The 22nd is the day he is fallen, in hell for our sins. What a fantastic day to join with family, friends, and fellow brothers in Christ to ride for him.

It was a great experience overall, and we intentionally sought to make it as Spirit filled and Christ-centered as possible. We met up with the rest of the group in the parking lot near the Bahia Hotel in Mission Beach. There were about 50 people total, including some other Skyline MTBers.


Nate and his wife Laura were there, as was Billy. I know Billy's wife Helenka had initially intended to come as well, but due to a family emergency, she was unable to attend.

After a short prayer, we set out from the parking lot in one large group, single file, toward the boardwalk. Rather than head to the ocean boardwalk as I expected, we instead took the route around Sail Bay back toward the main part of Mission Bay. It wasn't crowded yet at a little after 9:00 a.m., and the ride out to Crown Point was quiet and uneventful. I was able to spend much of it in prayer, and enjoyed the time of quiet introspection and devotion.

When we arrived at Crown Point, we gathered for a thirty minute devotional, and then mounted up and headed back to the parking lot. The ride back was a little different than the ride over, partly due to the increased crowds and distractions. Even so, when we finished, I was very happy we decided to take part in this event, and felt blessed to have been there.

If I was organizing a Silent Ride, I might choose to do it in another location, and if possible, earlier in the morning. I'm not sure if the organizers designed the event to be a time of personal reflection or more of an evangelistic effort. I assume, because of the silent nature of the ride, that it is more focused on a time of quiet contemplation of Christ's sacrifice for us and the joy of his resurrection. Because of that, a ride in a less populated area, with fewer distractions, may have served that purpose a little better. But I know several riders did (silently) pass out leaflets describing what we were doing during the ride, and each rider wore a paper pinned to the back of their shirt identifying them as a Silent Rider for Jesus, so there was an evangelistic component. Hopefully some passerby saw what we were doing and in some way was inspired to also spend some time on their own recognizing the nature of God's love for us that was manifest through the death and resurrection of his Son.

I did bring the GPS, and therefore do have some stats for the ride. There are also some pictures, which are available here. We're not in any of them, but they give you a flavor of the event.

Here are the stats:

Total Distance: 6.88 miles
Total Time: 1:42:59
Ascent: 219
Average Speed: 4.0 mph
Top Speed: 10.3 mph
Bike: Specialized FSR XC Pro
Map:

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RR: Tri-Canyons

This morning I rode for the first time with the group from the Rock Church MTB group. I saw on their site that they were riding the Tri-Canyon area, which is on my 2008 ride list, so I figured I'd join them.

It actually rained at my house late Friday night and early Saturday, but after calling the Rock's ride leader and confirming they were still a go, I headed down to Claremont Mesa.

I met some nice people when I arrived, several of whom were also on their first ride with the Rock MTB group. We were delayed for a few minutes while some people worked out bike issues, and then rode a short distance to a spot where we had a pre-ride devotional.

The devo was pretty well done and thought provoking, and encouraged all of the riders to focus on really examining God's creation during the ride today. It touched on the beauty of creation being unsurpassed by anything else we could create ourselves. I liked the idea of a pre-ride devotional, though as I'll get into more below, there was a bit of irony to the message with respect to this particular ride.

The second part of the pre-ride devo involved an interesting discussion of poison oak, which is apparently rampant on this trail. The leader discussed the medicinal aspects of PO, and gave some brief explanations of the chemical makeup of the oil and treatment suggestions.

At that point we split into two groups, with the intermediate group I was in heading east. There was some attractive singletrack at the beginning, and I hoped that the rest of the ride would be as scenic and picturesque as the first section. This ended up not being the case.

After the first mile and a half or so, we crossed Genesee and headed along some doubletrack that seemed to parallel the 52 freeway. It was at that point that things went a little downhill, and the ride transformed from a scenic single track to more of an urban steeplechase. We crawled, dragging our bikes, under freeway overpasses. We hiked up drainage ditches. We skirted culverts and traversed rock strewn aqueducts. It a little bizarre. I was off the bike more than I was on it, and while it wasn't bad, it wasn't a whole lot of fun either.


After crossing the last aqueduct, we re-grouped and started off again on some singletrack. It wound through a small canyon, and things were looking up. But then we ended up back near a freeway, and biked along the 805 until making a turn into a nursery that was there on the side of the road. After cutting through the nursery, we picked up a fire road, which took us through another canyon. That canyon paralleled some train tracks, and it was pretty cool to see the trains go by as we rode. But it was far from a nature ride.

After that canyon we ended up walking our bikes along the very narrow path that ran along the aqueduct that parallels the 5 freeway for about 3/4 of a mile. That was treacherous, because the people in front of me went very slowly, and I almost fell over the edge of the concrete lip a few times. Good times.

From there it was a brief stretch of singletrack again, then back under the 52 for the last section of trail back to the parking lot. That last section was probably my favorite, as it had some short, sweeping hills and was tree lined and lush. So it was a good way to finish an otherwise iffy ride.


There was also some apparent drama at the end of the ride that I was not privy to which prohibited me from getting a group photo, but whatever. Hope that all worked out OK.

Overall it was an OK ride. The people were nice, and while we're not going to be hanging out or anything, they were friendly and congenial for the most part. Apparently the Skyline group that I am a part of is going to share our ride info with them and vice versa, so we may see more Rock MTBers on our Skyline rides from now on. Which is good.

So I'm happy to have crossed another ride off of my 2008 list. I probably wouldn't come back here again, but a morning on the bike is better than a sharp stick in the eye, so no complaints from me.

Stats:

Total Distance: 10.12 miles
Total Time: 1:57:01
Ascent: 1220 feet
Average Speed: 5.2 mph
Top Speed: 20.6 mph
Bike: Specialized FSR XC Pro
Map:

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