you smeared yourself in blackberry juice and did what?

One by one, bar and helmet lights flicked on. With everyone ready, the "who wants to ridelead?" chatter commenced and B stated he would start out as rideleader. We headed out the back and rode to the guard station. Before dropping B's chin, Rock God was disrided by an errant pine cone. Instead of veering left at the big landing and taking the road back to the horse trails, B turned right and we followed that road down below the dam outlet. We nosed around looking for the trail that crossed the creek and climbed the other side back to the road we had left. Frustrated by trying to walk over slick rocks in cleated cycling shoes, I tried to ride a bit and found that trying to awkwardly dismount from a bike onto slick rocks is even harder than walking on them. Thud. After Bambi beat a trail back and forth through the brush, and everyone else sidetracked on the road, we found a crossing and pushed the bikes up the down escalator all the way to MET. True adventure ride training.
A classic B route choice we hit Fleming CW to 8A, came back out and climbed Redneck. Dropping the lip Rock God, Xteric, and B all went down. Super tacky soil inspired fast riding. At the lake loop, someone started mumbling about it being 9 already. B started riding CCW, no doubt looking forward to sharing the best piece of lakebed riding he had scoped. None followed. A standoff ended when B returned chastising the pack for shortriding the rideleader. To prove his point, he led us back along the length of horse trail.
The Knott was empty. A few words of apology and Mother Rye didn't mind staying open for us. She even said that if she had to close up she would leave a bucket of tacos and beers waiting for us outside. With adventure sports on the tv, 80s tunes on the hi-fi, and home made salsa gracing the tacos everyone was in high spirits. Xteric recounted a story of when he and his buddy would go hang out at the bottom of the Red Shack Trail and, to the confused amusement of river rafters, would strip down and smear blackberry juice all over themselves, and then..., well some stories are best left at the taco table.