3 Days of Dirt

From the first time I saw a mountain bike (sometime in the late 1980's--some guy named Gary Fisher on a bike with knobby tires riding off pavement), I'd always wanted to ride down a hill, in the woods, over rocks and roots on a bike. I took my first mountain bike (Trek Antelope 6000, neon yellow with Biopace cranks, circa 1991) down a muddy park trail in Pittsburgh, heading straight into an enormous boulder. I thought I would "hop" over it, but ended up midair with the bike completely on its side then crashing down upon me. The seat stay and chain stay were bent, the rear derailleur mangled, and my right leg gouged from the big chain ring teeth. I was hooked.
17 years later I did something I've always wanted to do. Kevin and I left our mediocre triathlon performances behind and ran away to Vermont. I have discovered quite possibly the best vacation: downhill mountain biking at Killington, VT.
At 10am (no crack of dawn starts like triathlons!) the lift opens and we board the gondola with our bikes hanging on the ski racks. I thought we would rent downhill bikes with squishy, 2-feet-of-travel suspensions but decided our bikes and bike handling skills would more than suffice. Up, up, up to the very top of the mountain we went. Blue skies, sunshine, and alpine forests greeted us. We start on a fire road which in the winter would be a wide, gently sloping bunny trail. However, it's July and the road is full of loose gravel. No better time to test those skills at handling the back wheel sliding around (or even better--preventing the slide with some speed!). We take a detour into the woods and onto a single-track littered with rock gardens. Part of me is freaking out because the trails I ride at home are mostly dirt, roots, logs...maybe a stray rock the size of an apple. I haven't bounced over many rock gardens and the potential fall looks painful. However, the thrill of being on a mountain top, among trees and alpine air so overwhelms me. I'm simply too damned happy to be there to panic or be fearful. I pick my line and go. If I had any aprehensions about riding over rocks, I left them somewhere in the woods of southern Vermont. We rode for 5 hours that first day and only stopped because my hands hurt too much (must learn to relax that death grip).
On the second day, I took a 2 hour lesson. I was the only person in the "class" so I had the instructor, Jon, all to myself. He didn't teach me anything I didn't already know or had read, but having someone constantly reminding me how to lean the bike (and not myself) into a corner or how to look more than 6 feet in front of me was incredibly helpful. We practiced alot of cornering skills, especially through some sharp turns on loose gravel. On the road bike, I think of my Pro Tour heroes descending the Pyrenees or Alps and remember to keep the inside foot up. However, on the dirt bike keeping the inside foot up scares me--I'm afraid of the whole bike skidding out from under me. So Jon says "Outside foot down. Lean the bike, but counterbalance with your weight." Inexplicably, "outside foot down" is less scary than "inside foot up" and it works. I'm cornering like a champ.
Another basic we work on is my sighting. Jon tells me that I need to look 20 feet ahead. "Objects come at you faster if you're looking just 6 feet in front of your wheel,"he tells me. So we turn down a blue square (the trails are rated in likelihood of crashing--just like ski slopes) single track. He rides in front of me and in a commanding voice says,"Keep your eyes on me!" There is no time for me to wring my hands and fret that I'm riding a trail I think is beyond my skills. I'm hurling down the trails, eyes locked on him (riding about 20 feet in front of me--how does he do that?!), cleaning climbs, cornerning hairy, rocky, root clogged, hairpin descents that I would have never dared to ride alone. At one descent, I see him disappear over a ledge. Just as I'm about to unclip and call 911, Jon yells, "Stay to the right, it's kinda steep, keep your weight back." I do all those things and find myself triumphant, rubber side down at the bottom of a steep hill. I used to think that I rode better with Shari because her fearlessness gave me courage. While that may still be true, I realized that having her ride ahead of me gave me something to focus on that wasn't coming at me at warp speed 3 feet in front of my bike. When rocks, roots, turns are coming at you that fast, you can only react hastily to them in a right brain sort of way. When obstacles are seen at a distance and anticipated, one can smoothly flow over them in a left brain way. Is this a key to racing from the heart?
I was reminded to bend my elbows and not lock my arms, bend at the waist, and keep my feet level. "Instead of bracing yourself for the bumps, just absorb them."Jon said. My hands hurt alot less on that second day. Bending at the waist, I found that I could get my weight back and better balance on the bike. I also relearned that my tendency to unclip and dab with my left foot only gets me into trouble. I'm better off with both feet on the pedals. Another lesson revisited was that a lapse in focus, just one second of inattention will land me shiny side down.
My lesson comes too quickly to an end and I meet up with Kevin who has spent the morning on black diamond trails. We spend our lunch regalling each other with bike tales, punctuating our stories with hand gestures that don't do our descents or turns any justice.
The next day I awoke with a full blown chest cold and fever. After overmedicating myself with antihistamines, decongestants, and ibuprofen, I rallied for at least one last run. I must have been dehydrated because some of the single track looked like 2 trails. I aimed my bike for the middle and hoped that "line" wouldn't plummet me into a ravine. The 7 year old kid in me just didn't want to miss out on one last day to play with my pal, Kevin in the dirt.
I loathe to use mountain biking as an allegory for life like so many surfers or mountaineers do in pseudo-intellectual, quasi-zen publications. However, I will say that I did learn to/that:
1. Look ahead
2. Lean and counterbalance
3. Relax...it keeps you from getting beat up.
4. When the mind goes down, the ass goes to ground.