Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Back In Time

Like a trip in a time machine. A broken time machine. Today I went back to where it all began. When I first started mountain biking. When I was riding dirt along Naylor, no trails or trail heads. Back on my black High Plains.

Traversing Salisbury without touching pavement...well, sort of.  On some of my old routes...almost. Cutting back by the ball field...you can still launch off the old sand pile. That's where the fun started. Twenty years ago.

It's also where the fun stops. Jump forward to 2013. Well it was fun back in the day. Drop down by the zoo, weave through the trees just beyond the park. Cross the street and go at it some more. By the lake, pause on the dock, go all out weaving trunks and foliage.

Not so much any more. You can ride by the zoo, on gravel, no bobbing, no weaving. Unless you count the meandering dog walkers who have complete disdain for sharing the trail. Makes me have a new found appreciation for the city.

And I've spent many a year accepting the fact that I AM a vehicle. Here all the paths are marked Official City Vehicles Only..is that me? Is it not? Am I a vehicle? Can I use this trail? I have no freaking idea.

By the pond...it's completely unmarked. I guess? I can ride there? Back there where the magic started. Back where I actually helped blaze the trail a couple decades ago. But it's hard to say. Now it's Salisbury University's. Some kind of Frisbee playground. For adults. Where adults throw discs free of dogs...and probably bikes, but I couldn't be sure. There were no signs, but I was in constant danger of getting whacked in the head by a flying disc. And I'm not overly sure they cared for me ramping off their tee pads. Tee pads? Really? Whatever.

I had more fun riding over the curbs in the EVO parking lot really. Even if I did eat gravel on one of them. Just goes to show the riding is more technical in a parking lot than the actual single track of the big city. Truly, I'm not sure why I went with a 29er...really a niner would have been sufficient!

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