It was supposed to be so easy

I rode today.

A good ride, I met up with a friend an a co-worker up at Wilder Ranch. Immediately I start having mechanical problems. On any cog in the rear cassette other than the lowest two the chain would skip like mad and made it impossible to use them. No problem, I'll just go slow. The first few hills are brutal. We head up the north leg of Engleman's loop. We turn on Wild Boar trail which I rather like. It's a short swoopy fast single track. We followed it up to Old Cabin Trail. Old Cabin is a lot better than I remember it being. Of course last time I rode it was over a year ago, and unbeknownst to me I had been coming down with the flu. We tore down and up the rooty single track to Eucalyptus loop. We turned left onto the south leg and off we went. Excellent. I love the single track on that trail. Fast and smooth with some techy bits. Crossing the last creek my friends stopped unexpectedly in front of me causing me to slam on the brakes. I teased her for a moment, and then heard a voice behind me say, "Do you have a cell phone, my ride partner crashed, I think he fractured his hip." The speaker was older, and of course, I pulled out my cell. No signal. He said his friend seemed to be OK, but there was no way he could ride. I was a little concerned the injured fellow could be going into shock, so we all raced up the trail to the paved section where Wilder Ridge meets it. We had signal, so he called 911 with my coworkers phone. Apparently the fellow who crashed was 61 years old. The man who borrowed the phone had to get to the entrance to Wilder (The tunnel). We offered to go back and check on his friends. "By the time you get there the ambulance will be there. H's got a good sweater, water, and a survival blanket. He'll be OK." So we continued out ride. We rode Wilder Ridge to Zane Gray. Zane Gray is steep, narrow, rocky, rutted, and has a steep drop off on the right for the first half. Of course, I loved it. While we were descending I caught sight of a Range truck, a Fire engine, and an Ambulance going up one of the fire trails. We dropped onto what I thought was Dairy Mill trail, but the sign said Wilder Ridge loop. It was single track so we didn't care. We rode it until we got to Wilder Ridge trail and then back out. All in all, with rest stops, repeat attempts at parts of the trail, and the incident with the other rider it took us 4 hours. At the parking lot the guy who used one of out phones was