 
 |
To
see a larger version of any of the
pictures below, just click on the picture.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
The husband . . . the bikes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Back Hollow Trail across a meadow in Canaan Valley.
|
|
|
|
Entering a hand-hewn tunnel
on the North Bend Rails to Trails
. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Overlooking Balsam Swamp
with Bald Knob in the background
|
|
|
|
Coming off a trail by the Hughes River
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A rocky creek bed crossing
at sunset on the Canaan
Fire Loop Road #13
|
|
|
|
The Black Water Canyon
sight of an awesome 10-mile
downhill ride
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By the time I got around to trying mountain biking, I was old enough to know better. Not
that I would ever let that stop me from doing something, even if it meant tearing up every
stiff joint in my body.
My earliest experience on a bicycle was at age 5 when, trying to
show off for the big kids, I ran into a barbed wire fence. I got a scar, my family was a
day late departing on vacation and the pattern was set for my rides yet to come.
As middle age began to settle in, I planned a fitness program
that involved a bicycle. Actually it was a Huffy. Most of the exercise came from lifting
the heavy bike onto the rack. By the time I got to my riding destinations I was exhausted.
I’d turn around without having ridden, drive home and lift the bike back down.
Exercise routine complete for one month. After wrestling with the heavyweight champion of
bikes, my protesting muscles refused to continue the bike fitness plan.
A few years later, my husband talked me into giving biking
another chance. We were on vacation in the West Virginia mountains. The bike I rented was
built for someone with a height similar to King Kong’s. Every time I stopped and had
to straddle the sky-high bar, I was grateful to be female. Because of my sore seat,
oversized bike and mushy muscles, I spent most of the ride grabbing the thorny branches of
Hawthorne trees, wobbling through briar patches, stepping in piles of deer droppings and
stopping to catch my breath (wish I could go as fast as it does).
"This is great," I exclaimed while wiping the blood
from my palms and tears from my eyes, "You can see so much more than you do while
hiking."
The next morning I rushed to the local bike shop and bought an
entry-level Schwinn mountain bike. I went back to the trail and looked for the steepest
hill I could find...or that I could climb, to be more precise. The exhilaration was like
being a kid at Christmas again. I did a bonsai run down a ski slope over water breaks,
then turned into the woods to fly down a gas line wedged between the trees, my feet
flopping off the pedals and hands slipping from the brakes the entire ride.
I didn’t have a clue what I was doing and I loved it!
Since that first wild ride, my husband and I have spent hundreds,
make that thousands, of dollars to continually recapture that feeling and enjoy ourselves
mountain biking. And I’ve continued the tradition of self-injury as an indicator of
how much fun I am having.
I’ve peeled the skin off all my major joints, created a
facial scar that make-up conceals and cracked my noggin (oops, helmet) on every type of
greenery found in the 900,000 acres of the Monongahela National Forest. I’ve pulled
the filling out of my teeth eating nasty sports bars to keep from bonking and I’ve
laid down in the middle of forest roads and wept with sheer pleasure...or exhaustion.
I’m a "real" mountain biker.
I would like to own at least three or four bikes and tons of
other
bike-related gadgets, without which I cannot survive. The laundry is
composed mostly of dirty bike clothing. The pantry is full of sports drinks and the
husband’s bathroom is full of bike magazines.
I even read mountain biking magazines. My favorite articles are
about first aid and how to relieve pain. Because I’m so experienced in the injury
department, I also write biking articles.
Isn’t every sweet or bittersweet ride an epic story? |
Check out Lexiann's Links Page
for Mountain Biking links. |
