The Dirt Field

My friend Bobby is a certified personal trainer, and has been the one guiding me through my workouts over the past few months, helping me maximize my benefits while minimizing injury. Truthfully, it’s more like he just repeatedly answers questions like, “Is this going to keep me from getting fat? Is this making up for the buffalo I ate earlier?” Being my personal trainer must be his version of personal hell. Anyway, several weeks ago I started getting really sick of the constant running, stair-climbing, and calisthenics, and I suggested we look into buying bicycles. I used to ride my bike all the time as a kid and I figured it would be a great way to combine exercising with adventure.

We’ve now owned our bikes for about three weeks, and it has turned out the be one of the best investments I’ve ever made, maybe with the exception of the time I bought four packs of caramel apples all at once. Mountain biking is incredibly challenging and exhilarating, and with the purchase of a bike rack, we’ve opened the door to traveling near and far to try new trails. (Although considering the incredibly low price we paid for the rack, it would probably be wise to either duct tape the bikes directly to the car or limit our trips to a three-mile radius.) The only problem we’ve run into with biking is me; I’m not exactly smooth or graceful on a bicycle.

On our first day of riding, I hit a tree. I was riding down a sidewalk that had a lot of overhanging branches that were easy to ride through, and I didn’t see the thick tree limb that protruded directly into my path. I slammed into the branch with my shoulder at full speed and came to a jarring halt, while the bike kept going and went crashing to the ground in front of me. This fall would have been a minor irritation at most, were it not for the fact that I was in plain view of a very busy road AND for the fact that I had to explain to the mechanic how I’d damaged my bike. I didn’t even get the chance fabricate a better tale; the tree story spilled out of Bobby’s mouth like he’d been choking on it.

After several long rides over the following week, however, I started feeling comfortable enough to try my first serious trail. Bobby and I headed to nearby Wakefield Park to explore several miles of narrow and winding trails, which proved to be incredibly fun, save for my inability to conquer one particularly short, steep dirt hill. I spent about twenty minutes at the top of the drop while Bobby waited at the bottom, coaxing me to just let go of the brakes and ride. He was not deterred by my near-tears hysteria and frustration, but did start laughing when my several false starts followed by rapid braking led me crashing sideways into a prickly bramble bush. My scratched and bloody arm and shoulder did not find the experience nearly as amusing.

This past Monday night was my worst fall yet, although I was too distracted afterwards to notice if I was injured. We were back at Wakefield Park, and I became so consumed by the feeling that I had a bug in my nose that I neglected to notice that I was approaching a narrow wooden bridge. This bridge had no sides, so when I bounced up on the bridge, I was so unbalanced that I immediately plunged sideways off the edge. Bobby, who was directly behind me, was unable to react quickly enough to my crash and fell off the other side. His yelps of pain were convincing enough that I forgot to see if I was hurt, but he was not so injured that the question of, “What happened?” was avoided. It probably didn’t help when I explained, “I was picking my nose to get a bug out and I didn’t see the bridge in time. Sorry.”

As we’ve gotten more advanced with our riding, we decided to upgrade to clipless pedals, which for you non-bikers means that we use special pedals that actually attach to special shoes via metal cleats. This system increases your power and agility by binding you to your bicycle, but makes putting your foot down in a tough situation difficult. We rode around the other night, practicing clicking our feet in and out of the pedals, until Bobby decided it was time to try jumping vertically with his bike. “Look,” he exclaimed excitedly, and then popped his bike straight up into the air about ten inches. Then he landed and instantly crashed sideways into the pavement.

Bobby was more cautious after his fall, and we rode around carefully for a while longer, circling through a busier part of town. Things were going quite well until the moment we came upon a small group of people sitting on a curb. He claims he was distracted by something I’d said, but all I know is that I looked up at Bobby and he just fell over. No preamble, no accompanying noise – he was upright one moment and falling straight towards the ground in the next. Because of the clipless pedal system, he couldn’t unlatch his feet fast enough to break his fall, but nobody other than me knew that. All of the people watching just saw a cyclist riding along slowly and then crashing to the ground.

We decided yesterday that we were comfortable enough with our clipless pedals to try using them on the trails at Wakefield Park. By the end of our ride, Bobby and I had each only fallen three times, and I started feeling very confident in my superior abilities. A bit overconfident, apparently. As we approached the end of the trail, I let out a loud whoop to check if Bobby was still behind me. Then I looked up, saw that dozens of riders from the local cycling club were congregated at the top of the trail, and instantly fell over. Just slammed into the ground, as a whole group of people stared at me. Not people, though, but EXPERT RIDERS. And thus ended the shortest ego trip ever.

In case you weren’t already sold on the wonders of biking, these are my legs after the past several weeks: