I Ran Over 159 Dead Leaves

Yesterday's Pachaug rock pile ride was a so-so affair.
I left the house a bit too early, in hindsight (I'll explain why that's notable in a minute), and, most importantly, I felt kinda' wonky.
Too bad, too, because last weekend (especially on Saturday), I felt very good, indeed, and felt I could do no wrong on the bike, resulting in a mega-ride for the record books as far as enjoyment and having a good feeling with the bike goes.
Yesterday, by comparison, was more of a ride where I knew I felt "off" (left sorta' clumsy and seemed like I had a reduced sense of balance), so I intentionally knocked the speed down a good notch.

I didn't crash, but did have a moment that I think qualifies as a close call:
Riding back through one of my favorite sections that goes through a pine forest, there's a natural jump formed by a rock sticking up out of the ground.
This rock just so happens to be shaped like a ramp, so getting a decent amount of airtime (jumping off of it) is practically a requirement for somebody who enjoys riding a dirt bike.
I hit the jump just as I always do and landed just fine and dandy.
After landing, I pull in the clutch lever a bit, lock the rear wheel via the rear brake, skid the rear wheel to the right in order to turn the bike quickly to the left, and roost down the bumpy trail amongst the pine needles, rock, roots, and pine cones littering the ground.

Where I went wrong was after pointing the front of the bike to the left and lettin' 'er rip down the straight.
Immediately after I let the clutch lever out and open the throttle for some nice rippage, I have the option of either riding over or riding just to the side of a nice tree root running in the same direction that the trail runs.
This root is about 2.5 inches thick and 3 feet long.
It's a daddy-sized root.
Well, even though I've successfully negotiated this section of real estate a million times this year, I had trouble with it yesterday because my balance and concentration was off.
I decided to get my body weight back by hanging my ass over the rear fender (like the Yamaha YZs, the WR-250FY feels great when doing that under acceleration) and rip straight over this tree root.
Probably because my brain was a bit numb and I didn't feel what my tires were doing down there, I spun the rear wheel over the root, lost my solid traction hookup, slid the rear of the bike to the right over the root, pointed the front of the bike to the left, and found myself heading straight into the woods towards some immovable objects:
Big trees.

Thank God, I didn't take both hands off the bars and cover my Oakley goggles and scream like a little girl, but instead, I reacted by pulling in the clutch lever and squeezing the front brake lever hard.
The bike hunkered down on it's Phase 4 forks, I sat down and slid up on the seat toward the gas cap, the M23 Bridgestone front tire gnawed at the pine needle-covered Terra firma, and I came to a sudden halt with the rear tire hovering a few inches off the ground from the resulting nose wheelie (or "stoppie", as they're sometime called).
I stopped rather calmly with the engine just idling peacefully, feet still on the pegs, and the whole affair probably looking like some preplanned trick.
In fact, I bet that if somebody that knew me were standing along side the trail and witnessed the event, they'd probably smile, give a big thumbs-up, and say,
"Do that again, John!"

I'll have another chance to this coming Sunday. :)

So, I just shook it off and let the clutch lever out and carried on as if nothing had happened.
In a way, I benefited from the incident as it served to wake my ass up a bit for the rest of the ride, which was completed at a reduced pace as mentioned earlier, but without further drama, either.

The reason I feel I left the house too early has to do with sunshine and how my eyes suffer from bright conditions.
Basically, when it's bright and sunny, I need a tinted goggle lens to be able to see the details that will get washed-out due to my eyes making things look like it's too bright.
It is much harder to see that rock hole in the ground if it's too bright for my eyes, for example.
The problem with the rock pile is that since a lot of the mileage is through trick, tree-covered trails, a tinted goggle lens tends to make things too dark in a lot of spots.
The best compromise I've struck is to, on bright days, leave at the time of day that puts the sun in a position where it's not way up in the sky, but still up high enough to provide enough light for good vision.

I pulled away from the ol' clammy-but-trusty (with a good transmission :) ) Ford Ranger at 2:58pm, and I believe that was about 45 minutes too early.
The sun was still high enough to wash-out the terrain details in a lot of spots - even in some of the trail sections that were partially tree-covered - so I had to do a whole lot of squinting to reduce the abundant light getting to my eyeballs.
This coming Sunday, provided it's bright and sunny, I'm gonna' pull away from the truck at 3:45pm and see how that goes.

This whole episode with the bright light is something I've known about my whole dirtbike-riding life, but, as I mentioned, my brain wasn't working at full mental capacity during yesterday's rock pile ride. :)
When it's cloudy, then I can get away with going out mid-day without too much trouble, and back in the good ol' days where we had numerous local riding spots to ride in (gravel banks and trails), I'd wear a dark tinted lens to combat the sun.
In those days, though, we were out in the open most of the time.
Maybe I'll experiment with a blue-colored lens, which I've heard old, grizzled trail riders say good things about.

Off to jerk,
-John