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2009-06-20 4:43 PM

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Subject: A tale from the mounatin bike trail
I've enjoyed reading everyone's freaky experiences at the pool!  I don't have any stories from the pool yet, but I had a funny moment while on my bike ride today. Can I play?  Well, I'm gonna...

Decided to do a cross-training day on my mountain bike today and as I'm riding along the trails, I notice a skinny-tire track.  These are real trails, not hike-and-bike trails, btw.  I think to myself, "Cool, someone is out here on a cross-bike!"  Just as I'm thinking "Geez, I hope I can catch him/her," I do.  Except he's not on a cycle-cross bike at all!  It's a red step-through frame with upright seating, wide sweeping handle bars, probably 27" steel wheels, and full fenders.  The guy riding it was in a big group of what looked to be first-timers out on the trail being led by some guy giving directions.  The best part about the whole thing wasn't the bike though, it was what the guy riding the bike was wearing.  Khaki pants, tennis shoes, polo shirt, and a helmet....but not just any helmet...a full-face street MOTORCYCLE helmet!  O.M.G.  It must have been about 94F when I saw them.  I bet that guy was dying!


2009-06-20 7:02 PM
in reply to: #2230952

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Subject: RE: A tale from the mounatin bike trail
lol... that reminds me of when I was a kid, and we were inspired by footage of some mountain bikers on MTV or something.  We thought it would be a really cool idea to go take our bikes into the woods and ride around.  Bear in mind, this was like 1993 in rural upstate NY.  We were riding cheap-a$$ ten-speed bikes from K-Mart.  So we went up into this part of the woods that had some dirt roads carved into it in preparation for a rich-people housing development -- like three 10-year-old kids and my 5-year-old little brother.  My brother's bike, I swear to God, had training wheels on it.  None of us had bothered to bring our bike helmets, of course Undecided

Fast-forward about 20 minutes, when we come to a ridiculously steep descent entirely covered about a foot deep in smooth, oval, baseball-sized rocks.  We all just tore down that thing about as fast as we could.  Our bikes, handling skills, and entire lives were no match for it.  All of us miraculously made it down the hill on our bikes without crashing, except for my poor little brother who went down HARD.

Fast-forward another 20 minutes.  I, by myself, am wheeling my bike and carrying my brother home (no serious damage, he just had some scrapes and bruises).  His bike is pretty much totalled.  I don't even want to describe the level of trouble I was in. 
2009-06-20 7:34 PM
in reply to: #2230952

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Subject: RE: A tale from the mounatin bike trail

I'm more of a mountain biker than a road rider so I've seen a lot of cool or weird stuff on the trails.

I came up on a woman taking a dump and I saw the log fall.  I've had two girls flash me once on the trail nearly causing me to wreck.  I remember watching some kid on a Walmart Huffy center punch a tree.  He was 12 or so he was fine.  I probably would have died.

Another time I stopped to pee so I go off into the woods by about 10ft.  I never realized how close together the trails where until that day.  I'm peeing and a guy and girl come crusing by and they both looked right at my wee wee (must of had binoculars to see anything)

Earlier this week a buddy and I went riding on a fairly hard trail.  The trail loops around a large lake and once you are 6miles out, if you decide to give up you have to go through 6miles of hard trails forward or 6 miles of really hard trails back  Or you can swim 800m across.  I saw a group of college looking kids.  It was 2 guys and 2 girls.  One guy was on a REI Novaro or whatever, the other a dual suspension that had a spring around the rear shock and had his seat slammed to the bottom.  The other girls on their high barred looking hybrids.  Then they brought along this little rat of a dog and they had 1 waterbottle.  My buddy and I took a long time on the trail because we stopped and goofed off a lot with some jumps or obstacles.  Something that would normally take us 1:20, we spent 2 hours out and we still didn't see them when we got back.  Then a group of 3 people who just started riding headed out with 1 waterbottle also.  I sensed a lot of failure about to happen.

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