The landmark for the turn was impossible to miss: an orange jack-o’-lantern taller than the pickup trucks parked next to it. The rider saw it, pointed at it, talked about it, and rode straight past the turn.
The 51-second reel from @stevie.r3 is filmed from the rider’s point of view, looking over the tank of a red sportbike with a phone mounted beside the gauges. In the opening seconds a white and red glove comes off the bar and points left at the giant pumpkin sitting in front of a row of buildings. The burned-in captions follow the commentary: “That pumpkin,” then “that jack o’ lantern,” then “that thing’s huge.” A line of text added over the footage delivers the punch line: “I got distracted… I was supposed to turn left across from the Jack-o’-lantern.”
The bike keeps going. The next stretch shows smooth, dark pavement, a guardrail, trees on both sides and a car well ahead. A second note appears on screen, written in hindsight: “It’s back there Stevie…” The spoken captions, meanwhile, show a rider who is still working on the navigation. They come in fragments, a word or two at a time: “I’m looking,” “a road that,” “to take,” and finally “okay” and “I’ll try it.”
Then the view changes. The pumpkin is ahead of the bike again, small and orange in the distance and getting bigger. The third note explains: “I realized that I missed it and I turned around,” finished with a sweating smile emoji. The captions sort out the directions on the way back in. “South Village Road,” they read, then “not Mountain,” then “sorry,” then “by the pumpkin.” The bike rolls past the jack-o’-lantern, which sits beside a line of parked trucks, and swings onto the side road across from it.
The road on the other side of that turn is a different kind of pavement. It is narrower and older, with cracks, a faded center line, hedges and houses close to the edge. The captions pick up speed along with the rider’s surprise. “No way” comes first. Then “63 Westmoreland,” “dude that’s crazy,” “Spofford” and “right here,” as a gloved hand points ahead and the road comes out beside a tall white building with a steeple.
There is one more discovery. The bike passes a red, barn-style building with a covered porch, and the captions have the rider saying the place is familiar from a meal there. They name it as the Barn and Thistle and add a short review: “it’s pretty good.”
The last few seconds are on a wide two-lane road with a double yellow line, and the captions are still repeating “that’s crazy.”
The written caption on the post fills in the rest. It opens with “Check out that pumpkin” and goes on to say the rider knows most of the roads in the area and this one was new. The description is specific: “a slow twisty road,” not badly chewed up but not the smoothest either, with little traffic. The caption ends by thanking the person who recommended it.
There is more in this clip than a laugh at a missed turn.
The first lesson is about landmark directions. “Turn left across from the big pumpkin” sounds foolproof, but the thing that marks the turn is also the thing most likely to pull a rider’s eyes away from it. When directions hang on a landmark, find the road first and enjoy the landmark second.
The second is about what to do after missing a turn, and the rider gets this part right. The footage shows the bike carrying on down the road and later coming back toward the pumpkin from the other direction. That is the safe way to do it. A missed turn costs a minute or two. Grabbing the brakes or swinging across the lane to save it can cost much more, especially with traffic behind.
Third, sort out road names before the ride. The captions show the rider correcting the name of the road in mid-thought, from one name to another, while moving. Reading the route once before setting off, or saving it on the phone that is already sitting on the bars, takes that job off the rider’s plate.
Fourth, treat a new road as a new road. The rider’s own description says the surface is not the smoothest, and the footage backs that up with cracked pavement and a worn center line. A first pass on an unfamiliar back road is for learning where the rough patches, driveways and blind corners are. The fun pace can wait for the second run.
And last, ask around. This is a rider who claims to know most of the roads nearby and was still surprised by one a short hop from a main road. It only happened because someone else suggested it. Trading routes with other riders is still the quickest way to find the good ones, and it helps to pass a favorite along in return.