There are three guys I go mountain biking with. Well, in truth, I sometimes go mountain biking, and I’ve been known to go with a lot of different people. But in this instance, I’m referring to one of those collections of old friends. The four of us have known each other for a long time. Over the years, we’ve done a lot of things together. We’ll call the guys Gil, BB, and Pete. (Names changed. If this is about you, you’ll know who you are.)
The four of us have that kind of long lasting friendship that travels well through time. When we manage to get together, we are all right back where we started, laughing and joking as if only a day had passed since our last meeting.
Some years ago, I introduced each of the other three to the sport of off road bicycling. That’s not quite correct. Gil “discovered” mountain bikes on his own. He just hadn’t actually taken his into the woods yet. BB went once with Gil and me, and he was hooked. Pete was the hold out.
Like me, Pete had a motorcycling back ground, but his was all road, and totally crazy. I’d done a fair share of off road motor cycling. I’d also always been willing to let Pete lead on the road. In addition to crazy, he was good. He had the reflexes and the grace of the natural athlete. On more than one occasion this saved him. But the aging process took a toll on my friend, as it does on all of us.
It was one of those weekends. The weather was nearly perfect. It was a crisp mid-Fall day. The four of us had met in the mountains. We were going to ride this incredible trail I’d heard about. None of us had ever been on this one. According to the locals it was an amazing ride.
The thing turned out to be every bit as good as I’d heard. It was difficult to find the trail head. The first couple of miles were gentle climbing up an abandoned fire road. As we progressed, the road got narrower and trickier. There was some comment made about it not being single track, and lacking challenge and fun factor. That was before we came to the “turn off.”
As the locals had promised, there was a sign, a crude hand lettered one, nailed to a tree. We turned, and were instantly climbing some of the trickiest single track I’d ever seen. Inside of a half mile the trail had turned into a goat path up the side of a steep ravine. Another mile of hard technical climbing, and we were riding along a ledge, sheer rock face on the right, and a drop of several hundred feet on the left. We crested the ridgeline, and could see, perhaps a quarter mile of twisting, winding desecent ahead.
Pete was not with us. We’d dropped him. Gil, BB, and I were all pretty winded from the long tough climb. We waited for Pete. This was amazing country. It was old growth forest, lots of huge hardwoods, with almost no undergrowth. Somehow this area had been spared by the clear cutting of the timber companies in the early part of the last century.
Pete arrived, gasping for breath. By that time, we other three had pretty much recovered, so we pushed off. Guys are not always kind to each other. Pete followed, a look of grim determination on his face.
The descent was fast and somewhat technical, but not too challenging. We cooked down the side of the mountain. I almost lost it at a deep gully crossing. That was where Gil and BB passed me, and Pete almost caught up to me. We hit the bottom of the descent and went charging through some fun sections along a creek bed. Then the trail started climbing the next ridge.
This climb wasn’t as steep as the previous one, nor quite as harrowing, but it was steep, and actually a bit more technical. It also wasn’t as long as the first big climb. We came to the top, with Pete barely in sight behind us.
We’d arrived at a sort of almost plateau. The land sloped gently down into denser woods. We didn’t wait for Pete, but just pushed off and went for it.
The trail got faster, the descent steeper. We were soon playing tag with a creek bed, with the sides of the mountains closing in around us. Then we came to it.
After a short fast downhill, the trial twisted and climbed, it topped quickly and turned back down toward the stream. There was a sharp right turn at the stream bank, a veer back into the woods, still going slightly downhill, a fast wide left, and…
One of the first and best rules of trail riding is, “If you can’t see where you are going, walk it first.” A good corollary to this is, “If you don’t know the trail, stay slow enough to allow to react to surprises.” A second rule should be, “Never let ego connect with over-confidence.”
I was in the lead. The trail was fast, but sightlines were limited. I came around a sharp bend, just at the ragged edge of traction and saw it. There was an absolutely huge tree across the trail. No way I was clearing that! I braked hard and veered off the trail to the side, calling out, “Trouble!” Gil, right behind me, saw the same thing, and veered off to the left, stopping hard. BB had heard my warning, and slowed easily as he came out of the turn. The three of us stared at the obstruction.
The tree had apparently fallen some time ago. It was possible to see some daylight underneath it, and the trail was almost gone there. On examination, we could see where riders dismounted, and clambered over the thing. The top of it was a good four and a half feet above the trail.
There are some folks who can jump a beast like that. On examination, I could see some chain ring marks on the top of the log. Not many. And here came Pete, absolutely screaming around the bend.
My friend didn’t hesitate, didn’t even hint at slowing down. He charged right at it. He was going to try to jump it! Incredible!
Pete got the bike off the ground, but way too late, and no where near far enough. The front wheel of the bike hit the log… hard. The impact was about half way up the log face. Pete left the bike, assuming a perfect superman pose, in mid air. He flew clear, just above the log.
From our perspective, it appeared as if Pete traveled horizontally past the log, then stopped in mid flight, and simply went… straight down! There was a thump, a muflled “Oof!” and a puff of dust rose from behind the log.
At that point, Gil, BB, and I all fell down on the ground laughing. I think it occurred to all of us that our friend just might have been hurt, but we could not stop laughing.
Eventually, we managed to master ourselves. We all walked toward the log. That was when Pete’s face appeared from behind the fallen tree. He sort of peeked over it at us, a bewildered and pained expression on his face.
The exploration was over for the day. Pete’s front wheel was well and truly tacoed. I managed to straighten it enough to be ride-able. Barely ride-able, and then only with the front brake disconnected. Pete was pretty banged up. Nothing serious, bruises and a few abrasions, enough to cause one to slow down a good bit.
We made it back to the trail head. It took forever, but…
As we were loading the bikes on the cars, BB came over to me and said, “You know? That place where Pete landed? That was just full of poison ivy.”
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