Sometimes I feel like I'm living a light beer commercial. I show up at some parking lot in the middle of nowhere and instantly I'm surrounded by athletic people with nice cars and even nicer bikes, and there are way too many fit, good-looking women. This week we were filming on the new singletrack at West Hartford Reservoir.

Ali (PM, please give her a nickname) and I arrive for the shoot at 12:29 (an entire minute early) and are immediately assailed by PM stating that he's sick of waiting (apparently the cameramen are paid by the hour). We then proceed to wait another 15 minutes for PMD to show up, and another 10 minutes for her to get dressed and clean and lube her bike. Apparently PMD is the star of the commercial, because the ride doesn't go until she's ready at almost 1:00, and there are no complaints.

While waiting, we console HL and discuss her ongoing depression over the loss of her last bike, which unfortunately took its own life one afternoon by leaping from her Subaru at 70 mph. Apparently there were no surviving parts, just a few sparks followed by a monochromatic blur of metal being ground down by asphault at high speed. HL's ride will undoubtedly be coming back as a 50 pound Huffy assembled by a 12-year old with nothing but a crescent wrench in its next life.

The ride starts with PMD out front to maximize camera exposure. Prego Dave (complete with bagel), Focker, Shake 'n Bake, HL, Mark and new-rider Christine are also there. We proceed clockwise and take the bare-bones route next to the road and get a minimal warm up before heading for the new singletrack. Lots of rocks, log crossings and camera time. PMD still out front, soaking up the sun, primped and primed for the camera. Every beer commercial needs some macho deeds to sell the beer, so PM rides the deadly log of despair for about 50 feet, wheelie drops about 2.5 feet off the end and rides away with a million-dollar smile. Having established himself as the peacock with the biggest tail, the commercial fast-forwards a few hours to show PM and PMD knocking back a few light beers and subtly hints at other recreational pursuits.

We've got enough footage, so PM and PMD are back in the pack. We have a nice escalating discussion of the origin of Shake 'N Bake's nickname as we cross the powerlines - while free-climbing El Cap alone, blindfolded and without a rope, S 'N B is quaking from exhaustion and lack of O2, so he jams one foot into the rock, and while hanging upsidedown, he lights up, calms his nerves and then goes on to bag the summit.

Nice singletrack and lots of mud. Dike trail to the short mean climb. Ali comes closest to making it, but falls off at the last second and is impaled by a fallen log. Looks bad, but she decides to ride it out. She ends up at Manchester Hospital by 4:30 to have the 2" deep stab wound debrided and stitched up. The doctor makes her promise not to ride for an entire week.

More singletrack. One big, technical climb and it's off to the perimeter downhill. We descend through the not-yet replanted clearcut and pronounce it the new log stunt capitol of Connecticut. It's so good that there's a brief discussion of clear-cutting Case to increase the number of log crossings. We all confess to underestimating the Res. Shake 'N Bake had a vision that it was this good. On to the parking lot. Cut! That's a wrap.

Ride rating: Low expectations followed by some surprisingly good singletrack may have biased my viewpoint, but I give it 3.5 pitchers of light beer rarified to increase taste, calories and alcoholic content. One unlucky pitcher topped off with a dollop of the subcutaneous tissue that came out of Ali's leg during the debriding.