Ride of the Living Dead--The Resurrection (10/29/11)

Saturday morning I woke up to the sound of rain outside. "Oh no," I thought, "I hope the Ride of the Living Dead doesn't get rained out."

Last year, Dad and I had dressed up as ninjas and gone on the Ride of the Living Dead for the first time. What is the Ride of the Living Dead? Well, it's kind of a big Halloween party on bikes, and everyone gets together at one trailhead and rides 25-50 miles of the Santos trails. Then we all meet up at one trailhead for lunch and a rest. It was a great time and I really was looking forward to doing it again this year.





Unfortunately, I thought I was going to be really disappointed for a while, because OMBA (who had originally sponsored the ride) canceled it for this year. Luckily, the people at the Ocala Bicycle Center and Greenway Bicycles raised the ROLD from the dead and put on the event themselves, providing food and drinks at the Ross Prairie trailhead and taking donations for OMBA.

I borrowed this from Donnie. Thanks, Donnie!

The sound of the rain in the morning had me worried that the resurrection might not last long. By around 8:30 though, the rain stopped and I got ready to go with my mom. Dad hung around the entrance to Nayl's Trail and took some pictures.

I didn't really have a costume in mind this year, so I told my mom I was going as a professional mountain biker. Real original, right? Mom was going to go as a pirate, but since we knew it was going to be wet on the trails, even if it wasn't raining, she decided to just wear regular bike clothes. After all, her bike was already decked out in Halloween colors--white, black and orange.

Mom and I weren't the only ones who went on the ride without costumes, but the people who did looked like they put some thought into them, and were really fun. Here are pictures of some of them.

 

 I hope everyone had as good a time as my mom and I had and that next year, the Ride of the Living Dead will be even bigger!