"Aww, Rats!" Ron muttered to himself as the crowd voiced a low, resounding moan. The ride manager was speaking to the assembled group of riders just before the NorCal two day 100 was about to begin. "I’m really sorry, but there’s nothing we can do. The Terrace Valley trail loop had to be removed from the course. The owners are just to worried about the liability issues. We will have you guys ride 17 miles up the main access fire road to the highway, and then back here to make up for the loss of miles. Try and take it easy, watch out for cars, and for the horses coming back!" Everyone in the crowd was genuinely bummed out. That section of trail is one of the reasons this ride is so popular. That particular trail winds up into the redwoods, through green meadows covered with California wildflowers, and skirts around a beautiful mountain lake to the nicest lunch stop anywhere. Now the riders had to ride on roads for the entire first day: 50 miles of trotting, no climbs, and no dazzling mountain scenery.

Ron was grumbling to himself as he walked back to his trailer. "I’m getting pretty sick of these darn land closures. Maybe we should just stop riding altogether! I bet hikers don’t have this problem." He knew he would not go as far as quitting, but he was certainly beginning the ride in a foul mood. He climbed up on his Arabian mare Christy, and headed over to the start area. Away they went, off for the first 50 miles. The ride was uneventful, and was kind of monotonous since they were on dirt roads the entire way. He and Christy finished in their usual seven and a half hours. There were some nice hills to look at, but all Ron could think of was how many miles of road he would have to ride on when they started the next days ride. (Day two usually did the beautiful loop backwards.) Maybe he should go home. He thought he would go ahead and sleep on it, and decide in the morning. He would not have been able to drive home tonight anyway. He put his horse into her new portable corral and climbed into his camper to fix himself some dinner. He finished off his third bottle of Tecate as he took the last bite of his turkey burger. He began to feel a little more relaxed, and went out to make sure Christy had enough food and water for the night. He put on her light sheet, told her good night, and returned to his camper. He laid down on the bed and began to think about land closures again. Why were people so worried about what horses might do to their land? It’s not like they were rampaging through pristine fields, or storming across rivers. All they wanted to do was to be allowed to ride on an existing trail. "I wish the land owners could put themselves in our shoes" he said out loud. He found it was hard to concentrate since he was so tired. They had done a lot of trotting today, he reminded himself. The air was cool, his bed was soft, and he was definitely feeling that third beer. He closed his eyes for a moment, and decided he would just rest a bit.

BZZZZZZ! "Huh? What’s that noise?" Ron reached over and felt for the alarm clock. There was no clock there. It was dark, and a little warmer than he remembered it being this time of year. BZZZZZZZ! He had to shut of that damn alarm. He sat up in bed, and suddenly wondered where in the heck he was. He was sitting on a big bed with no covers. The room was dark, but the buzzing was making him crazy. He could not see anything except shadows. BZZZZZZZ! That was enough! He groped around in the dark, but only felt the smooth wall. "Stop it!" he shouted at no one in particular. The alarm instantly stopped. Ron sat there, wondering where he was. He stood up and felt for the light on his night stand. On his night stand? Wait a minute! He was in his camper at the ride! "What in the world is going on here?" he asked himself. He felt along the wall for a light switch. There were none. "No lights"? he said aloud. As he did, the lights came on at once and lit up the room. He was standing in a silver room with nothing but a bed that was floating in the air 2 feet above the floor. He was truly perplexed.

He did not have much time to ponder this mysterious place. Suddenly he heard the unmistakable electronic ringing of a modern telephone. He looked around as it rang, but did not see anything that resembled a telephone. He listened to it for a second, thought about how the alarm clock had responded, and said "hello"? The ringing stopped, and in the blink of an eye one entire wall in front of him lit up and became a giant wall size TV monitor. There was his friend Rudy looking at him. Rudy’s head was at least 8 feet high. This was a huge screen! "What are you doing, idiot!" Rudy was shouting excitedly. "Did you over-sleep again? We have to go now if we are going to make the 8:15 train! They won’t hold the ride for us!" Ron just stood there. "Come on, get down here! I’m in the lobby now waiting!" "OK" said Ron. "Just a second. I’ll be right down". "Great - hurry up!" Rudy signed off and the giant TV was a wall again. "Either I’m nuts, or something is really wrong here" Ron said to himself out loud. He looked at his sleeve- he was wearing a red one-piece suit that looked just like the one Commander Data from Star Trek wore. Maybe he was in a hospital? Oh well, he had better get downstairs. Where was the door? He said "door" and of course there was now an opening in one of the walls. Ron walked down the hallway and out into the lobby.

Rudy was there waiting impatiently. His strange suit was the same as Ron’s, only green. He was holding a bag under his arm that looked like it might contain a bowling ball. "Where is your helmet? You are not riding anywhere without it! CALL IT UP!" Ron replied quietly "Helmet"? and POOF! A bag appeared at his feet. "Lets go! Come on!" shouted Rudy. Ron picked up his bag and followed Rudy, who was in a big hurry. They were almost jogging down the street. Ron looked around at all the strange buildings. Where was he? He looked up- the sky was a strange translucent color; it looked like a watery, silver film. There were no cars, just a lot of people walking down the street. They rounded a corner, and turned left into the BART station. "This is a BART station?" Ron asked himself. Rudy quickly flicked his thumb into an optical reader, and he did it again for his friend. Ron followed him to the tunnel entrance, and suddenly Rudy stopped. Rudy said "Electro-Dome!" loudly to no one. Ron looked around, and POOF! He and Rudy were now standing in another hallway with smoke and steam clearing around them. Ron felt a little dizzy. He wanted to ask Rudy a thousand questions, but just followed him. "Come on, come on! Lets go! We only have 3 minutes to get in!" Get in where? They ran down a hallway, and stopped at a window that looked like a ticket booth.

"Two for the Endurance Race" Rudy yelled at the guard. The guard was in no hurry as he said: "Two for the what?" "The endurance race! You know, the horses! Equines! Animals! Saddles! The Lone Ranger! Quantum Pony and the Last Horse Force. Don’t you watch TV? Come on, we will be late!" "OK, give me your thumb" the guard said. He certainly had a fun job. Rudy jabbed his thumb into another reader, and stepped away. Ron started to follow him, when the guard shouted "Hey you, are you forgetting something?" Ron walked over and stuck his thumb in the reader. "The other one, please" the guard said. Ron obliged, and there was no sensation at all when the green light came on. Rudy broke into a run down the hall. They slipped through a curtain, and entered a huge room that looked like a big movie theater. The whole interior was covered by dark screens. A light was on, and in the room were 50 strange benches set in rows of 5 each. It looked like a whole bunch of pommel horses set up for a huge gymnastics meet. There were people sitting on all the benches, except for the two at the end of the first row. "Nuts!" said Rudy. "What rotten seats. That’s what happens when you are late" he mumbled under his breath. Ron swung his leg over one of the empty benches, sat down on a soft, pillow like seat, and began to look around. Men and women were sitting on their benches and excitedly chatting with each other. Everyone wore a one piece suit like Ron had on, and some were wearing bizarre looking things on their heads. The room had no walls, just smooth curtains that glistened in the light of the doorway. This was to much.

"Attention!" a voice shouted over the loud speaker. "2 minutes until the start. Prepare your helmets!" Rudy took the helmet out of his bag and stuck it on his head. Ron followed his friends lead, and placed his own helmet on his head. Ron looked at Rudy- his helmet was covered with little blinking lights. Ron saw his own helmet had many lights blinking around it as well. "30 seconds" shouted the voice. The room lights began to dim, and silence fell over the crowd. "Here we go- begin!" shouted the voice one last time.

Ron’s heart stopped- he was suddenly sitting on a Yamaha OW 500 world championship caliber road racing motorcycle. But the bike was moving at a speed of over 200 miles per hour! He was in the midst of a Grand Prix race, with 40 or so other race bikes shrieking around him. Ron had about 3 seconds to try and comprehend what was happening: the end of the front straight was coming up fast! There was pandemonium! People were screaming, bikes were crashing all over the place! Bodies were flying, there was smoke, explosions! Ron’s bike hit the tires that lined the hairpin turn at 200 MPH! He was flying through the air while his bike cartwheeled beneath him, when suddenly the lights went on, and it was over! He was sitting on his special chair, sweat pouring out of his face, his entire body shaking. His heart was going about 200 beats per minute! Everyone was in the same shape- there were people crying, yelling, and shouting loudly. "Hold it, hold it, sorry about that, wrong program!" shouted the voice. "Hang on, I’ll fix it. Here you go. Sorry!"

SPLASH! A small wall of freezing cold water splashed up over Ron’s head and doused his entire body. "Yikes!" he gurgled through the icy water. His eyes came back into focus as the water poured off his face. He was bobbing up and down, slicing quickly through a huge set of class 5 rapids in a long, yellow kayak! He was wearing a wetsuit and holding a paddle, but just as he lifted it up, his boat dropped into another trough and water splashed over his head again. He shook his head, then noticed an empty kayak whisk by him, and suddenly the lights came back on! Ron was sitting on his bench again, not a drop of water on him anywhere. People were shouting at someone, and the voice came on again: "One of these days someone will fix this stupid thing. One more try!"

The lights blinked off, and Ron found himself sitting on the back of a horse. They were all out in the country, and the weather was a perfect 72 degrees. There were 49 other people mounted up and ready to begin a ride. They were milling around at the start area, waiting for the ride to begin. Rudy rode over on a Palomino (that looked like it was made of plastic) and said "Man, at last. I thought we were dead for a second there. I might like to try that motorcycle program next year when I qualify for my next ride. Are you ready to go?" Ron spoke for the first time since his left his house. "Yeah, I’m set. How long is this ride?" "100 hecto-sectors, but it is a tough ride. We should be done in about an hour or so." An hour? What’s a hecto-sector? Ron was pondering that one when the ride began!

The entire herd of horses began moving as a group. They began to spread out a bit, and after a few minutes settled into a nice, neat, orderly single file line. Ron’s horse trotted out nicely, and followed the pack of horses up the road. They were trotting along at precisely 11.25 hecto-sectors per hour. How did he know? There was some kind of "heads up" display on the inside of his helmet visor that had large numbers displaying current speed, distance covered, rider and horse pulse, electrolyte levels, hoof temperature, saddle to horse balance ratio, and kilowatts used. "Just like Top Gun", Ron mused to himself. He wondered where the surface-to-horse missiles were located, but quit wondering when he realized there was something strange about the pace they were going. Ron realized every horse was trotting along at exactly the same speed. He looked around and was amazed at what he saw. He was out in the country, riding up a dirt road lined with California scrub oak trees. There were flowers next to the road, but they were not California natives. Tulips and huge lilies were growing side by side next to the trees. The hillsides were covered in lush, golden, long grasses that actually reminded him of the Gold Country. He even smelled horse sweat, but there was something wrong with the odor. The trotting was OK, but he was also surprised to find he had to post, or the saddle would whack him in the butt. It was an English saddle all right, but there was not a mark on it. It had a little label on the cantle that read "horse, size 1". He found it easy to ride this horse, but he was too busy looking around him to worry about the thing he was sitting on. There was not a hint of dust, even though the dirt road had an inch or so of loose silt on the surface. The road was marked with red ribbons and little blotches of sifted flour that had been tossed on the ground.

They rode for about 15 minutes before Ron began to get curious again. He gave his mount a squeeze, and nothing happened. The horse just kept trotting along. Ron looked at his horses head. It bobbed up and down, up and down, up and down. There were no ear movements, and every 5 seconds the horse took a little "look" to the left or right. He gave the horse a little pat on the side of its neck, and pulled his hand back. It felt like sticky Jell-O. The horses’ mane hair was blowing back nicely in the breeze: it reminded Ron of a hair conditioner commercial he had seen recently. Remembering his alarm clock, he tried something different. "Lets go" he said loudly, and the horse ignored him. "Faster"! No response. "Come on!" Nothing. He clucked a couple of times. Nope. "Giddyyap" That did it. The horse whinnied (it sounded a little like a vacuum cleaner) and moved out in a nice slow canter. Ron began passing riders, who looked at him like he was still on one of those Yamahas. He was able to sit the canter; it was even more mechanical feeling than the trot. He was going a nice, consistent speed of 13.25 HSP/H, it was just a little faster than anyone else was going. He eventually caught the ten or so riders that were ahead of him, and passed each without thinking about it. He watched the rider who was in first place, and Ron thought he saw a look of relief on the riders face as Ron passed him.

Ron decided "OK, lets try that again". Just as he was going to speak the command again, the horse stopped. All the horses stopped, turned left, and walked over to a little babbling brook. His horse bent down, stuck his nose in the stream, and "drank" There was this little sipping sound, but the horses mouth and lips did not move. After a minute or so, the horse backed up, and returned to the trail at a nice walk. Ron was amused, but just as he was preparing to get moving again, some people walked up with clipboards. It was a vet check! Ron began to dismount, but the steward said, "no, stay mounted! We will check the horse from here". Ron sat there on his horse statue while a spunky vet put a stethoscope on the horses butt. Ron looked at the vet, and just then another worker asked Ron for his number. Ron said "artichoke heart". "Thank you" said the P&R person politely and made a note on his pad. A woman with a yellow cowboy hat came over and offered Ron a bottle of drinking water. Ron took a long drink, gagged, turned, and spit the solution out all over the head of his horse. "What was that?", he asked the woman a little discustadly. "Just Super Sport-O-Drink", she answered. "Would you prefer the lemon flavor?" "No thanks", said Ron, still spitting out the remains of the stuff.. It tasted like paint thinner. The vet came around the front of the horse and said "Pulse is 48, please dismount and trot out to that tree and back" Ron sighed, and wanted to say this was ridiculous. He hopped down and jogged over, but what was this? His horse was limping! Oh, come on! He turned around as the vet said " Sorry, he is grade 15 lame". You will have to wait 155 microns before you can continue." 155 microns? What’s a micron? Then what? Ron waited patiently, and watched as rider after rider trotted out and back with sound horses. One horse was pulled because it "broasted". The rider seemed relieved, and left the horse standing by the vet check. That rider Ron had passed for the lead seemed relieved, and now this. What was going on here? Rudy left the check in about tenth place, and waved to Ron as he left. After what Ron estimated was about 15 minutes, the vet returned and said "lets trot him again!" Ron did, and the horse trotted along perfectly. Ron returned, and the vet said "OK, ride on! Be sure to let him drink, he looks a little dehydrated"!

Ron was pondering this advice as he hopped back on, when he realized he had been passed by about 15 horses while he was in the "penalty box". He was going 10.75 HSP/H this time, and he found himself wondering if his horse was tired. "Oh, good grief", he reminded himself . The road continued for a mile or so, and as Ron rounded a tight corner he saw arrows pointing to a single track trail. Ron turned left, and ducked as he passed under a low branch. "What type of tree was that?" he chuckled to himself as he smelled the squished bananas that were laying on the trail. The trail was covered with a brown, rich, loamy dirt that made no sound as the horse trotted along. Time to get going again. He looked at his display, and found he had gone 35 hecto-sectors already! He decided to go faster, rather than try and figure out this weirdness. "Giaddyap!" he shouted at his steed. The horse moved right into that nice, calm canter. Ron quickly caught up to six of the horses who had passed him at the vet check. He passed them right up, and the people all looked at him like he was nuts! They did not say anything, they just gave him strange looks. "Giaddyap!" he commanded again. The horse made a little "snort", raised its head about six inches, and sped up into a slow run. Now they were moving along at 14.50 HSP/H. Ron caught each rider who had passed him, and passed them back up one by one. He passed Rudy, who tried to shout something to Ron, but Ron had already ridden by. "This is kind of neat", he thought. He had never lead a race before, since Christy was an average horse who always finished, but consistently in the middle of the pack. The trail opened up onto a wider road, and it looked like they were coming to some mountains. "One more time," thought Ron.. He gave the magic command, and the horse was now running a little faster. Just as they hit 16.25 HSP/H all hell broke loose.

"WARNING! WARNING! Kilowatt overload! Reduce Speed! WARNING!" There were buzzers and alarms going off all around Ron’s head. Red lights were flashing, and there was a red tint to everything Ron could see. "Uh-oh!" said Ron as he yanked back on the reins. The horse kept going! He said "whoa". That did it. The bells and alarms stopped, the red disappeared, and the horse was trotting along at its nice, even pace of 10.75 HSP/H. Ron checked his display, and found he had used up three hundred million kilowatts in his little "burst of speed". He had already gone 70 Hecto-sectors already! The ride would be over soon, and it seemed to Ron he had just started! He decided to cool it for a while and trot along slowly, since he was now in the lead. Good old 10.75 hecto-sectors per hour.

Ron wondered if there would be any more vet checks, since they had not even stopped for lunch. He doubted the horse needed a rest, but he was kind of hungry. He would love a beer, if just to help wash the taste of that turpentine out of his mouth. Just as he was thinking about it, he rounded a corner and came upon a group of three ride workers standing next to the trail. Ron’s horse slowed down automatically, and to Ron’s amazement walked by the workers slowly. A panel opened up on the side of the horse, exposing a large bar code label. One of the workers flashed a small hand held scanner at the horse, and it beeped when it registered the bar code on the horse. "Thanks, and have a good ride!", the worker said cheerfully. Ron asked him "what was that for. Is this a checkpoint?" "Yep", replied another worker. "We can’t have you cutting the course on us, can we? Have a good ride!" The bar code flipped back into the horses side, and Ron rode on, his mind still very puzzled by this experience.

He trotted along for about a few more minutes, and arrived at the base of a huge hill. He told is mount "whoa", and the horse stopped on the trail and sat there, still as a statue. It flicked its tail at some sort of insect that made a buzzing sound. Ron looked up at the hill, and realized it was not a hill after all. It was a concrete barrier of some sort that looked a lot like Hoover Dam in Nevada. He was at the base, looking straight up at the ribbons that marked the trail up the face. "I can’t climb that!" he said. There must be some way to do this, so he asked the horse to walk on. Ron tried "UP". That did nothing. "Climb!" No response. Ron was desperate: "Fly!" The horse just stood there. "OK my friend, it’s up to you". The horse walked up to the near-vertical wall, and stopped within inches of it. Suddenly a platform came up from the ground, and whisked both the horse and Ron upwards! Just like an elevator, they zoomed up to the top of the hill. Ron’s ears popped due to the speed of the ascent. They reached the top, and the horse walked off the platform onto the trail. They began trotting again up the nice brown trail. Ron kept trying to decide if he should worry about what was coming next, or try and figure out where he was. This was not day two of the NorCal 100!

Ron and his horse trotted along for another 10 minutes or so, and he began to ponder his situation again. He wondered where Rudy was, and where the next vet check would be, and what he was doing here. His answer was right up ahead. It was the finish line, and he was going to win this ride! "Well, I guess it could be worse", thought Ron. "I wonder how they do best condition? I might even win a blanket!" Ron and his horse thundered across the finish line at 10.75 HSP/H, and after turning around, rode over to the scoring table. There were two huge robot looking things standing next to the ride manager. They were wearing giant helmets with big, smoke colored bubble visors, and each carried a long, thick staff that was covered with strange bumps.

"Congratulations!" the ride manager shouted as Ron hopped off his horse. "You won! It’s too bad you finished first, but that’s the way it goes!" "Huh?" thought Ron. "What do you mean? Do I win something?" Suddenly the two giant robots started to move closer to Ron. "Yes, in a way you do", said the manager. "You get to be eliminated from the human race. Isn’t that nice?" Ron began to sense a cold shudder go down his spine. "What? What are you talking about? This was my first ride here, and I don’t know what’s going on". "Oh, you must be the new guy," said the manager as the robots moved closer. "The way the rule works is the winner of the race gets executed! This is one of the ways we keep the endurance riders gene pool cleaned out! Didn’t you read your AERC handbook? Remember, the motto of endurance riding is "To finish is to Win, and to Win is bad!" I guess you should have ridden slower!" The robots extended their wands toward Ron, who was now starting to get really scared! "No wait, this is wrong! I should not be here! Where is Rudy? He will explain! Wait!" He tried to run, but could not. The first wand touched him, and he shrieked!!!!!

Ron bolted straight up, and whacked his head hard against the ceiling of his camper. "OUCH!" he shouted. He was sweating profusely, and breathing hard. He looked around in the dark for those robots, but they were nowhere to be seen. He was in his camper! It took him at least a minute to calm down and realize he had just experienced the worst nightmare of his life. He just sat there, looking at the interior of his camper. He glanced toward the window, and saw the first stream of sunlight peek up over the horizon. He was still shaking as he pulled on his jacket. He walked outside, half expecting to have one of those robots waiting for him. "Hey Ron!" It was Rudy calling him from the campsite next door. "How about a cup of coffee? I got some fresh stuff here on the pot!" Ron walked over and took a cup of wonderful steaming coffee, and was really pleased to see the nice sunrise. He was lost in reflection when he heard his horse knicker at him. CHRISTY! He ran over to her corral, and was greeted with a warm nose and another louder call. He grabbed her head and told her " I have never been so happy to see anyone in my life!" He jumped into her corral and began rubbing her ears. She looked at him, and continued eating her oats that Rudy had given her when he woke up.

Ron could not stop thinking about the dream as he prepared for the start of the ride. He kept patting his horse to make sure she was really there. He was just getting ready to mount up when Rudy rode over. Rudy’s horse was a big Palomino. Deja vu. A revelation came over Ron as he realized how lucky he was to even be at this ride. "What a day for a ride!" shouted Ron to his friend. "Can you believe the weather? I am so jazzed! Lets go! We got 50 miles of wonderful roads to ride on today. Yeehaw!" Rudy just shook his head as Ron rode by him. Ron rode up to the ride manager and said: "Great ride yesterday! I can’t wait to get out on the trail this morning! Are we on roads again today? Great!" Ron trotted off to warm up his horse, saying "hi" to everyone he knew. He was humming a song as went. Rudy rode up to the ride manager as they both watched Ron ride away. "What in the heck do you suppose got into him?" asked Rudy. "I don’t know, but I was just about to tell him the good news", replied the official. "I got a call today from the owner of the Conglomerated Wood and Paper Corporation. It seems the owner had a dream last night that really shook him up. He thought about it, and told me we can use the Terrace Valley loop today! Can you believe that?" Ron was off in the distance, whooping and waving at every rider he saw. "After seeing Ron this morning, I would believe anything", Rudy replied.