Rear tire change day (and more)

During a ‘street only’ shakedown run of the freshly installed (used) rear tire, two dualsport bikes pull out of a random driveway, so I followed them for a while to see if they might be heading to some local trails I don’t already know about.
Eventually, they turned into a vaguely familiar sketchy trail, but my front tire is complete toast (see photos) so I had to proceed with caution.
When I caught up to them, (because one of them got stuck briefly) it turns out, the other rider recognized me. We’d been talking for months about getting together for a ride ‘… and here we are … ’.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t tag along for long, because I promised my wife I’d be home by a certain time, (in exchange for a much longer ride tomorrow, lol).