I’ll freely admit that the first time I rolled into the ladder it scared me stiff. There’s a bit of old-school jank to navigate – big roots and rocks – and then the structure itself is properly steep. It’s about a bike length to a very abrupt ending, but once I’m on it I know it will be fine. The real challenge is getting to that point. 

After kathumping down said rocks and roots, the rider actually turns into the steep ladder. I now know from experience that if your rear wheel doesn’t quite find its way on the whole shit show can still roll out. Just with a heartbeat or two of significantly enhanced excitement. But the first couple of times, dropping that back wheel was the only thing on my mind.

*Photos by Meg Taylor | Trail Art by Andy Fisher

Now, as every mountain biker knows, sometimes things don’t exactly work out as planned.  Even trail sections we’ve ridden cleanly many, many times can reach up and snatch us back to earth. Yesterday, on the said steep ladder I screwed up. Worse, now that I’ve done it cleanly more times than I could count, it’s not a bobble that registered in advance. 

I suppose I came off my line in the trail jank above it, pushing my speed a bit with a friend right behind me. I approached from maybe a foot farther to the right than I normally do but with all the confidence of a feature I’ve ‘owned’ a long time. It was only as I cranked my wheel and pushed my fork down into the ladder that I registered I was having to turn significantly tighter than normal. I’m certain my wheels never stopped moving but for a millisecond or two I paused completely as my fight-or-flight mechanism went to war with itself. 

My front wheel was already over the apex so there was no putting a foot down, it was either pump or jump (off), and ‘fight’ won the day. I went low and thrusted hard into the ladder. The ground came up to meet me much more abruptly than usual and there was nothing smooth about the square transition from wooden rung to dirt. It felt like I exhaled twice my normal lung capacity. 

I semi-recovered to pedal into the next feature, a low but narrow old ladder, and used the entire surface of it, snaking side to side to side to side, and then cranked up a short technical climb to the natural recovery spot. At this point more than a little light-headed as I tried to remind myself how to breathe. 

The outcome was undoubtedly better than what I would have experienced if I hit the eject button. Commit or eat sh*t. But, there was a moment or three there where the wrong application of my brakes or a different level of grip on my bar, or simply an exit into roots and rocks a few inches right or left of where I rolled could have put me into the ground with significant force. Commit and eat sh*t. 

I think, or maybe feel, that the translucently thin difference between those two functions, and vs. or, is the simplest summation of the North Shore mountain biking experience.