Its nearly a year since I followed my friend Gene into the woods of South
Park, riding his old Schwinn hardtail. It was a damp October day in
western Pennsylvania, and I had no idea of what I was in for.
A few weeks before I had bought a hybrid bike, mostly to get in shape for
ski season. On a road ride in the park, I took a poorly judged short-cut
through the woods where I learned two things: a) Hybrid bikes have no
business on game trails, and 2) I wanted to learn how to ride a bike that
did. Gene is about 15 years my junior and half again my size, so I knew
from the outset that it would be work to keep up. We work for the same
company, and when I told him what I had done, he offered to show me what
mountain biking was about. We splashed through streams, I fell in the mud,
I gasped up hills where I thought my lungs would explode. On that ride, I
didn't clean anything. I was pushed more than I peddled, fell more than I
rode, but it was the best time I'd had with my clothes on in years. There
were points where I wondered what I was doing, I was sure that bicycles were
never intended for that sort of use, that this had to be some dark
perversion of the equipment's intended purpose. But I wasn't going to give
in. I had professed my interest, accepted the loan of Gene's bike and his
generous invitation to ride, so I didn't want to wimp out before he was
ready to quit. The clincher for me came nearly at the end of the ride. I
was dying, but when Gene said "We could head back to the cars, or there's
this short loop across the road over there.", I had to make myself say
"Sure, I could ride some more." After we scooted up a twenty-foot bank, (he
scooted, I pushed) it turned out to be a nice, rolling stretch of single
track along the side of a little valley. So far that day, I had bumped over
some small logs, fallen over a few larger ones and walked over the rest, so
when Gene went straight for a log pile that looked to be two feet high (I've
ridden it many times since, its 14 inches, max), I surprised myself.
Something in me took the challenge. I shifted up, pedaled like hell and
managed, through pure instinct, to unweight the front wheel enough to to
roll over the pile and keep going.
Two hours after we had started, I got back in my car, sore as hell, and
covered with mud, except for the bloody parts. The platform pedals had
mashed my shins into hamburger and I was so tired that I could hardly drive
home. I may have been hooked already, but that log pile set the hook so
well that all my LBS had to do was reel me in. By Thanksgiving I owned my
own mountain bike. Here's to a great year may there be more to come.
Gary