A good friend of mine (and teammate) and I were riding one evening, pushing the limits of riding with no lights (this before blinkies and nightriders and cellphones). We came zipping down a descent, probably 35 or so, nothing crazy, and after a few swoopy curves, I lost my sense of direction. I knew the road went right, but there were bushes. I veered left a bit, but there were bushes there too. So I slammed on the brakes. My friend stopped too, almost rear ending me. He stopped because I stopped, but he didn't know why I stopped. I didnt' either, except it seemed like the road just ended.
Then, when I looked around a bit, I realized that I wasn't looking at bushes to the right - I was looking at a tree. I guess an enormous tree fell across the road. It was probably 10-15 feet tall on its side. I remembered seeing a cone just up the hill, so I rode back and put it on the double yellow line.
At first we figured we'd just turn around, but when I tugged on a branch, I thought, heck, we can move this. So we grabbed some bigger branches and started pulling like mad. Cleated shoes don't help with traction on pavement, but the tree felt like it was on an air hockey table - nothing really heavy was touching the road, just leaves and thin branches. If we pulled hard, it would kind of skate sideways after a pause.
When we had the tree almost off the road, we couldn't pull it anymore. We were in the bushes, dirt, rocks, and at some point there was water behind us, maybe 10-20 feet away. A guy in a Jeep Cherokee (I remember because I wanted one) stopped and with his help we pushed the tree totally off the road. We got some of the bigger broken branches off the road, grinned at each other, and called it a night.
After I put the cone back (it marked a sunken sewer grate), my friend and I finished up the ride. We were all scratched from wading into the tree and the bushes, but it was, weirdly enough, a rush to be in that situation. Try and get tree out of road before a car, when it's really quite dark out, bikes on the shoulders, etc.
cdr