The truth is, mountain biking scares the you-know-what out of me. Always has.
It’s like most of my relationships: The danger is what the thrill is all about; the most beautiful places are always the ones that are the hardest to get to; the only true pleasure comes with a side pain; and it’s all downhill in the end.
That pretty much sums up my relationship with my boyfriend in college, an avid mountain bike racer who fell in love with me, he said, because of my muscular legs.
You should never judge a book by its cover.
Mark was determined to convert me into a full-fledged mountain biker. He dressed me head-to-toe in gear from Pearl Izumi, where he worked as a stock boy. He bought me a pair of Shimano SPD pedals and bike shoes that were two sizes too small. Determined to make them fit, he stuffed beer bottles in each one and set them by the heater overnight to stretch them out. He had me take a shower in them. When that didn’t work, he took me to Moab to break them in.
Instead, he broke me in.
I was climbing up one of those short, steep shots of cement-like slick rock when I realized I was in too high of a gear and ran out of steam. I struggled to twist my feet out like Mark had taught me in the parking lot, but there was too much tension. I toppled over with my feet stuck in the pedals and tumbled down to the bottom, landing with the bike on top of me like a beetle on its back.
Moab was only the beginning of the pain I suffered that summer. I followed Mark around to all of the Colorado Off Road Points Series races. Except for me, it was more like the Colorado Crash Series.
In Gunnison, I ate it halfway through a 20-mile loop in the middle of the desert, bending my handlebars in half and breaking my front brake cable in two. In Durango, I missed the last turn on the downhill, skidded on a gravel switchback and rode headfirst into a muddy drainage in front of a crowd of spectators. In Breckenridge, I went off course and accidentally dropped front-wheel-first over a 3-foot high boulder and cracked my helmet in two.
In Crested Butte, I crashed in the first lap through downtown and landed in a rose bush. Unbeknownst to me, I rode the next three laps with a giant hole in the butt of my bike shorts, confused as to why the crowds were going nuts every time I rode by, especially considering I was in last place. Talk about bringing up the rear.
Mark made me memorize every part of the bike, a lesson I learned while he built me a bike from scratch in our basement in Boulder. Determined to build something small and lightweight, it looked more like a BMX bike than anything a grown woman would ride.
It had a tiny, black frame decked out with brightly colored after-market parts. It weighed a mere 21 pounds and was so light, small and responsive, I found it impossible to control at high speed – when I needed control the most.
At the end of that first summer of riding, a mysterious bruise formed on the inside of my left knee, in the spot where my top tube had bashed into it over and over again. The bruise never went away. Four years later, I was learning to surf when the bruise was ripped open and all this crazy stuff came out of it – dried pus that looked like sesame seeds and orange fluid oozed from the wound. The doctor said my bursa sac had been infected and that cut was the best thing that could have happened to me.
“I can cut that and sew it back together, if you like,” the doc said.
“Why on earth would I want you to do that?” I replied. What I didn’t realize was I would end up with a hole in my knee, to always remember the summer that literally scarred me for life.
Of course I still ride, albeit slower and more conservatively than I did then. I bought a stock bike off the floor in my local shop, even though it was a tad too big. I still get scared every time I ride, but there’s nothing I love more than rolling home with mud-caked legs and dirt rings around my ankles – like bringing a good ride home with me.
The guy might be long gone, but I still have that scar to remind me it really is all about the bike.
Freelance columnist Alison Berkley can be reached at alison@berkleymedia.com.
