Rubber Side Down

 

In my neck of the woods, there’s a trail that is part of the fabric of my life. 

Sounds funny, I know. Maybe I’ve lived here too long, where one great trail becomes a close friend because there aren’t hundreds of others like it. But as helplessly as falling in love, I have become devoted to this particular circuit of dirt. 

It sits in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, but it feels like the desert, with dry red soil surrounded by cinnamon-colored cliffs. Pine trees march up the edges of the trail, and the top loop provides a dazzling view of Mt. Meeker and Long’s Peak.

But to reach this nirvana, one must conquer the rock garden. It’s about a mile long and starts with a stiff climb right from the parking lot. As it ascends, it rears up in lumps and bulges and ripples of imbedded rock, with occasional strips of earth in between. These challenges come one after another, in a parade of technical moves that demand ever more from a rider’s already-taxed aerobic system.

In a word, it’s rad.

I learned about the trail when I was such a raw beginner that I had no hope of riding it. Yet it captured my imagination immediately. I got it in my head that anyone fit and skilled enough to clean the whole thing in one nonstop effort had reached the pinnacle of mountain biking. 

This is the real deal, I thought. I gotta make this happen. It became the church, and I the devout.

As I improved my skills, I climbed the trail many times –  sometimes just seeing what I could clean on a trip through; other times spending hours on that mile, working on different obstacles. Sometimes I’d ride it with friends, us egging each other on to clean the hardest spots. The days when I struggled, crashed, and gasped for breath vanished forever behind those incredible days when it felt easy, when mind and body came together in an effortless union.

Even when I wasn’t on the bike, that trail was with me. I’d ride sections of it in my mind while I was falling asleep, standing in lines, sitting in traffic. 

But each year it eroded and the climb became a touch more difficult, often just enough, it seemed, to equal my gains in skill. It was a yearly renegotiation, with me trying to bring more to the table as Mother Nature kept upping the ante.

As time passed, it seemed that I could only reliably clean about 85% of the rock garden, either due to poor fitness, fluctuating skill or just plain bad days. I got down on myself about it, thinking, “I should be able to do this by now.” But then I’d watch the majority of the other riders out there, and they weren’t mastering it either.

And then, almost three years ago, I hurt my back. I ruptured a disc, and coming back from that particular injury is a long, hard road. Aggressive climbing is definitely off limits for months. 

And discs become forever weakened. As I struggled to heal, I kept re-injuring it — about once a year, it seemed.

Being away from mountain biking, and especially from the challenging trails that I loved, was like a little death. I found myself turning away when I saw other mountain bikers heading out on rides; it was just too hard to watch. Staying away from the rock garden turned out to be far harder than riding it. 

Today, I’m still coming back from the third re-injury last September. I’m not doing hard climbs, but at least I’m riding. And in the meantime, I’ve learned a lot about my back and how to keep it strong and balanced. I’ve also learned a lot about being tough where it really counts — in the mind. 

As for my trail, the one thing that keeps me connected to it is another little strip of dirt, which climbs gently to meet the main trail from another direction. This option at least allows me to descend the rock garden, a grin-inducing experience in its own right.

I sometimes stop on the descent and look up the hill. The sunlight etches the rocks and ridges, bringing a sharp clarity to the trail’s character. The sky frames a particularly tough, tall rock face. 

I look up at it and smile. Although the time is not yet right, I know I will ride this climb again. I don’t know if I’ll ever master it, but I’m not sure that matters anymore. 

I turn back down the hill, clip in, and let off the brakes.

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