I’m cold. It’s my own fault; I’m underdressed for the weather. Mostly, it’s my feet. I’m wearing a pair of carbon-soled S-Works dancing slippers that put ALL of my power into the pedals of my super-light Niner One-9 scandium single-speed. The shoes are a touch too tight, but they’re perfect with the super-thin socks I’m wearing. It’s wintertime.
My 32x19t gearing, XC-only XTR M975 brakes, and dual 29″ Racing Ralph tires are out of place on the aggressive off-grid trails we’ve just navigated. But then, not any more so than my 90mm stem, narrow carbon Syntace bar, Fox 32 fork, and my soon-to-be-broken One-9’s 71° (static) head tube angle. Party on, Drew.
My friend Jac leans her well-abused Knolly Endorphin against a tree and checks her GPS for the third time in about five minutes as I look around trying to use the landscape to distract myself from the innumerable contemplative “hmmm,” “Huh?” and “harrumph” noises coming from my compatriot. We’re in a little bit of a valley standing next to a steep rocky wall with various interesting sections of frozen water that were inconveniently captured while cascading.
She looks over at me and says something in Australian that roughly translates to “Oi, we’re gonna rock up one contour line and there should be a trail there.” Then, never one to allow any sort of democracy to seep into a group ride, she shoulders the ano-black Knolly and starts up the iced-over rock wall. Lovely.
“It’s just one contour line,” I say to myself without allowing for a moment’s thought about what an unrelatable measurement of distance that will turn out to be. Luckily my Niner is light enough to one-hand so I can try for three points of contact as the steel cleats on the bottoms of my nearly-tread-less shoes battle for traction. I slip hard at least thrice.
It’ll be years yet before I’m smart enough to cover the paper-thin semi-healed skin on my knees by wearing pads on an XC ride, and both my knees are wet by the time I’ve slipped, slapped, and slammed my way to the top. I somehow arrive at the crest without sliding down more than 2-3 feet in a single instance and I’m met with the only situation worse than there being no trail and having to hike back down again.
Jac’s wearing a grin stolen straight from the Cheshire Cat and points to a ribbon of rocky single-track as a non-verbal, but exceedingly clear, “See, I told you so.” All I have by way of a response is a combo head-shake-eye-roll and a deep shoulder shrug and we’re off chasing a hot cup of coffee.
{Above photo by: JacAttack}
The hard-earned descent is completely unmemorable, even with the barely knobby tires, and it’ll be half a day to thaw out my poor footsies. The post-ride coffee is properly burnt. And yes, there are no bad rides and any day in the woods is the perfect day, but in the moment there’s nothing great about the day’s adventure.
Yet, I notice increasingly that the best ride memories don’t ever come from the best rides. I couldn’t tell you about my best ride down one of my Fromme favourites, Upper Digger, but I vividly remember, to the point I’m ear-to-ear grinning about it now, the first time I tried to rip my rigid Waltworks V1 down it. I’ve ridden the wooden roller coaster on Lower Crippler many times, but the only timelessly memorable ride is when I stalled, rolled backward down the structure, and became completely stuck in place. It was sort of hilarious.
Wet, cold, crashed, broken (bike or body), lost. None of my favourite mountain bicycling stories are from great rides. How’s that for some thought food?
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