Two years ago, if you had told me I would bike 2,000 miles of single track in 2018, I wouldn't have understood what you just said. Once I understood it, I would have laughed so hard I would have peed my pants. I'm sure of this.
My good friend Brad had a party in April 2017. The party was a group of friends he wanted to get together so we would really get to know each other and remember him after he passed away. Brad's cognitive functions were quickly declining and he wanted one last party while he could still partially function. Brad was diagnosed with Glioblastoma Brain Cancer in May 2016, and while I heard and understood the prognosis, in no way was I really ready to allow myself to really understand and believe it, even a year later. Vu talked to me at this party about biking the Virginia Creeper Trail out in Abingdon, VA. A 36 Mile (or so) trail that was once a railway. It sounded daunting but I told Vu I would do it. We verbally planned for October 2017 and I got out on my hybrid bike right away. Sadly, Brad passed in early July 2017. Those of us at the party still talk about him, we still meet and do things he would have loved doing, and three of us bike together all the time.
So, my first ride on the hybrid in the neighborhood was at the very height of the spring pollen season. I think I nearly choked to death when I got back to the house. I don't even have allergies of any kind. But, I was doing this for Brad. So I did it again, with the same result.
I tried a couple of single track rides in Pocahontas State Park and something clicked right away. I was in the forest, where I love to be. I also felt like I was right back on my childhood banana seat bike, rocketing through the gullies in the hills of Monterey, CA back in 1977.
I think this is the point that I really got hooked. I was on a hybrid bike, which was starting to feel super fragile and I was pretty sure I was going to crush the wheels. So, I went and got a cheap Mongoose bike. I say cheap because it didn't feel cheap, but looking at other bikes ($8,000) it seemed like a real bargain. So for June and July 2017 this is what I rode. I spent a lot of time riding alone in the woods processing once Brad passed in July.
In Central Virginia during the summer it is hot, humid, and buggy. I put on sunscreen, bug spray, and worked on finding cheap shirts that would sort of keep me cooler while I rode. I rode with some friends and they had these bikes that seemed so light, it wasn't fair! Knowing that three months into this, riding nearly every day in less than ideal conditions, I wasn't just in a phase anymore. I was ready to really start researching bikes and getting something a lot lighter and better for the riding I was doing. Vu also got me started on Strava after resisting for 2 months...more on that in a bit.
Enter the Giant Talon 2 29'er, first week of August 2017. A cross country hard tail mountain bike that weighs about 30 lbs, but feels like 15 - 20 lbs lighter than the Mongoose. Had absolutely no idea how bad the Mongoose really was until I got on the trail with the new bike. Also, talking with everyone that would talk to me back, I got Crank Brothers clipless pedals and shoes. I was really ready to start breaking Vu's personal records on my rides.
Vu is like the SR-71 Blackbird. They've never disclosed how fast it can go, just how fast it has been recorded to date, and every time someone breaks the speed record the pilots of the SR-71 just move their throttle a little farther forward. Vu run's marathons and has been biking forever, weighs about 140lbs, super fit. Even when he goes out for a slow relaxing ride, he breaks records. So catching him is only ever temporal, it won't last long.
I've never really gotten the hang of the clipless pedals. I've fallen and crashed so many times with them, have had to ask people to push me to keep from falling into them, its crazy. The name of this blog comes from the LAST crash with the clipless where I decided to take them off until I learned more about this mountain bike thing.
Riding one afternoon along the Lake View Trail in Pocahontas, I hit a large root that I thought I would roll over. Instead I found a new and unique way to traverse the root. My hands lost their grip on the handlebars, and I flew forward, scraping my chest and stomach on the handlebars as I went. I arced out then downward toward the ground. I expected to just come loose from the bike and roll. Nothing ever happened the way I expected with the clipless pedals. So, I realized just before contacting the ground that the bike was going to roll with me. I threw my arms together, bent them at the elbows, joined my hands and landed fist, wrist, forearm on the ground in a triangle shape, absorbing the impact while my body started to come up over my head...disturbingly followed by the unsettling weight of the bike. I was vertical in the woods, in a nicely formed headstand, with a 30lbs mountain bike clipped to my shoes suspended above my head, perfectly balanced. After a few moments of anguished anticipation waiting for the bike to detach and land on my head, I realized I had to figure out another way to unfuck my situation. So I managed to get the legs and bike to go back the other way, dismount the head stand and roll about on the roots and dirt awkwardly twisting my feet and knees in unnatural directions to become not one with the bike. I love Kevin Smith's movies, and I feel like a mountain bike poser everywhere I go, and I've managed to pull of some impressive yoga poses with my mountain bike, albeit quite unintentionally. Hence the name of the blog.
I switched to platform pedals and while my most spectacular, painful, and expensive crashes were still yet to come, getting off the clipless was definitely the right thing to do at the time.
Now you know how the blog got started and how it got the name. You don't know why though. Mainly I wanted to sort of chronicle my biking journey, capture that beginner perspective, and hopefully help others that are just starting out and need some help on equipment, terms, and anything else. Ask an expert that has been biking for 25 years and you'll get the expert answer. That doesn't work for the person that is hitting the trail for the first time in 25 years or for the first time in their lives. Experts have mostly forgotten the beginner perspective. They aren't wrong, but they aren't correct either.
I rode about 1,000 miles of single track in 2017 from May through December. I owned 3 bikes during that time. The day I got the third bike the second bike, the Mongoose, completely fell apart. That day the left pedal fell off and both tires went flat as my step son was riding it around the block. Two months and I rode it to pieces very literally.
I am on my fourth bike as of February 2018, and considering another here in November 2018.
I've had more scrapes and bruises than I know how to count. I dislocated one finger, broke several ribs, broke a helmet, severed an artery, battled the most horrendous thorns and thistles you can imagine, but I've learned how to tackle all sorts of terrain and trails from NC to Vermont...and even San Diego, CA.
More to come on the chronicles of my triumphs and failures....
