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We ride off through waning light, into an incredible stretch of Welsh forest called Llanthony Woods. Blackness already sits heavily among the dense stands of pine, and I can feel it encroaching on the trail as we pick up speed. We're not fast enough to outrun the night, which consumes the trail much as it feasted on the forest. It's oddly exhilarating, a detached feeling, as if I'm floating in the piney blackness that swishes over me as we descend. I'm taking it as a matter of faith that something huge and diabolical isn't lurking on the trail just ahead, waiting to send me screaming over my handlebars. Suddenly, a sheep. It emerges from the shadows, and I swerve to avoid it, trying to keep control of the bike so I don't go too far off the trail, where I remember seeing a ditch in the last moments of daylight. "I'm OK," I tell Tony through the headset. "Damn sheep." At that I hear Richy's distant crackling, cackling voice ... "Baaaaaaaa. Baaaaaaaa. Baaaaaaaab." Damn walkie-talkies. Richy and Jason are sitting in the support vehicle, the English equivalent of a Ford Explorer, listening to us on the radio and laughing. Tony and I pause long enough for him to fish a headlight out of his fanny pack and hook it up on the handlebars of his bike. We follow the thin beam of Tony's headlight out of Llanthony Woods to the parking lot of the White Horse Pub, which is where Richy and Jason wait for us. They're still laughing about the sheep chaos that came crackling through the walkie-talkie. We consider having a pint at the pub before going to The Held. Too much mud, too much slime. We decide to clean up before inflicting society with our presence.
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