I thought I would ride right to the drop and send it over without hesitation, yet once again I found myself locking brakes as I approached the edge. This drop is so fresh there isn't a definitive line, and a humpback protrusion half-way down seems to guarantee separation from the Earth in a vertical position. "It's all in the mind" I tell myself, S'quatch, and Powder. So we stand there, at the brink, shaking our heads. It had been such a nice ride up 'til now. I felt fast, my aching left knee delivering sweet memories of my crash at Munson yesterday. I felt well, kind of hard core. Sleep deprived, hungry, with a belly full of turpentine, I thought today was the day.
Well, it wasn't.
I tell myself "you've done worse", "sit back, feather the rear brake and hold on", "the fall wouldn't be that bad". The problem is- the fall could possibly be that bad. Who am I kidding, it has been a long time since I dropped a big flight of stairs, and a couple of hits at Razorback left me speechless and puckered. Can my conviction to ride withstand a sustained recovery from injury? Do you people realize the extent of self-medication I would indulge in? I can see the cable man coming back up the street already, to plug me back into the fat suit.
Or is that just one of the more insidious voices of weakness?
Do I really want nothing but happy rides that end in Picklesimer fields before the sun goes down, or do I also need to spend a night on the cold, hard ground, shivering beneath the monolith of Cedar Rock, burning inner tubes and green rhododendron branches sipping on a few teaspoons of Red Bull tainted water?
I just don't know. I hope it doesn't take all summer to find out.
6 comments:
I'll be the guy running the lemonade stand over at Picklesimer field. I'll pour you a cold, tall glass and you can tell me all about it.
Get a hold of yourself man, you're sniveling all over my nice shirt.
I feel your pain, Juancho. I tend to brake the first time I see a "feature," then back up and try it again. If I cannot overcome my self-pres panic switch on reapproach, I just say "Maybe next time" and forget about it lest it ruin my ride. At Munson, I now scramble over everything, save that tree trunk Sas covered with a ramp that fell victim to the prescribed burn. But that's Munson, my crib, moderate single track at worst. My bogeyman locally is Redbug and its wall of roots. Then there are the drops at places like Razorback or the quarry at Santos. I'm not there yet, and don't know if I ever will be.
But I do find cable TV to be a welcome distraction from this biking self-flagellation, especially during baseball season. And as an ectomorph, I've managed to keep my girlish figure even while munching out as I bask in the tube's warm glow.
Baseball? BASEBALL? And I thought I knew you.
How can a man with your literary chops fail to appreciate our National Pastime? The Natural, Bang the Drum Slowly, even Casey at the Bat (yes, doggerel has a seat at the table). Maybe you should reconnect the cable and check it out.
Cable, baseball? What are you talking about? Now I'm totally confused.
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