Yesterday myself, Sean, James, and Yoshi went for a jaunt at the dump. The trails were in prime condition, and the weather could not have been more agreeable! In short it was a spectacular spring ride.

Starting off from the parking lot, Yoshi limped a little as he trotted. Since he had hurt himslef a few weekends earlier, I wondered if he was going to be ok. As soon as I let him off leash, the limping went away. I decided I would keep an eye on him and make sure he was going to be fine.

Our plan was to climb the fireroad, find our way to North Ridge, then head down that to Lumpy Pants, and new trail that has a nice rock drop. The climb up was more difficult this week. This time I was riding my Bullit, and last week I was on my Chameleon. I shouldn’t be too surprised, there is probably close to a 10 pound difference between the bikes.

During the climb Yoshi seemed fine, but he was sticking pretty cose to me the whole way. Usually he is off running around more. I thought it was odd, but left it at that. Later on North Ridge, I noticed again that Yoshi was not acting like his normal self, and was sticking really close to me.

We came to the rock drop on Lumpy Pants, and I eyed it up a few times. There is a ride around, and I spied Yoshi running up and down that a few times. He was beginning to worry me, but there wasn’t much I could do. I did the rock drop once, then got the camera out to take a couple pics. While Sean was lining up for his second run, I realized I hadn’t seen Yoshi in a couple minutes.

Then it struck me. I couldn’t hear him either. I called him and whistled a couple times but nothing. A knot started to form in my stomach. I yelled for him, and whistled a few more times, and still nothing.

I hiked back up the trail a bit, and I thought I heard something, but it was just a bird. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of white on North Ridge trail. It was Yoshi, and he was trotting the wrong direction on a different trail. I yelled, and he stopped. When he saw me he looked confused as to how he was supposed to get back to me. Usually he would just run through the bush but this time he refused to. I had to walk through the brush to coax him back the right way.

Something was definitely wrong with him. When the group was all assembled again, I told the guys that I had to get moving. Yoshi was not himself, and I just wanted to keep moving.

After Lumpy Pants, we rode down “Who’s Your Daddy”. I hadn’t been on the trail since the structures were cut down (over 2 years ago I think). This was quite a fun trail. Something I wasn’t expecting. After WYD, we took the fireroad down to Skull. I noticed Yoshi was being really slow, so I took it easy with him. He trotted the whole way back to the truck. Usually he will break into a gallop on the fireroad.

It was a good ride, but it was also a strange ride. I never did figure out what was up with Yoshi (he is fine today). My only theory is that maybe he didn’t want to go biking today. He has taken off on my during a ride once before. All is well that ends well I guess.