Monday, April 20, 2009

Not your everyday training ride

What was supposed to be a moderate 2hr day on the mtb turned into my day as volunteer for the Border Patrol.
The first half hour was the usual, getting the legs stretched out, just starting to feel good, when I saw a group of about 20 illegals running down the levee near the trail. It's was the largest group I had ever seen down there, but I kept riding my loop west towards Military Hwy. As luck would have it, there was a Border Patrol agent at the end of the hike and bike, so I flagged him down and told him about my encounter. He sped off towards the group I had seen. I continued on, hitting the usual routes, riding hard. Went back to the Pathfinder to grab another water bottle, and headed out for lap 2.
After the phase 1 area, I could see the helicopter flying overhead, searching for the group. Through phase 2 and into the clearing heading towards Poohs I saw the group hiding in the trees, but the heli was way off. Once I was sure to be out of site from the illegals hiding, I was able to flag the heli to their whereabouts. Shortly after, I ran into the same agent I had seen originally, this time on foot, soaking wet from sweat. I also pointed to the area where they were.
Again I continued on, over through Poohs and the newly cut section along the levee. There were a couple agents with 6 people apprehended along the levee. As I popped out near the hike and bike, I rolled south on the pavement to check out the heli flying in the phase 1 area now. I ran into agent Vazquez again, still on foot. I offered my bottle to him, which he proceeded to finish. He was pretty worn out, thanked me for the help and the fluids and went back to work.
So on I rolled, finishing up my 2+ hr ride and a little volunteer work at the same time.

4 comments:

Eduardo Arguelles said...

wow!

Blue Sierra MTB Racing Team said...

Very cool to help out! You need to post how you go back and forth to California all the time!

IronGambit said...

20! hahah

331 Miles said...

Great story! I know I would never forget that if it happened to me. Did you get a deputy badge or anything? At a minimum, they should let you shoot their guns like in "Superbad".