Details? When you've taken off your glasses because they're spattered in sweat from the extended climbing and you're coasting so fast tears blur your vision. When your cap and jersey and helmet straps are caked in silt. Salt? When one ride is so climb sweat filled that your legs cramp on alternate down strokes (left, right, left, right) but on the next and climbier sweatier ride they don't. When you laugh out loud with the joy of the moment. When you curse the "friend" who brought you to such a breaking point.
That's some reasons why and what for and how come.
I snicker when people here talk to me about "the grade". Seriously? That climb is so trafficked and thankless and hot and exposed, with no descent worth mentioning. The grade. Tell me about some shaded, one-laned, backroad or a hike-a-bike to illicit singletrack if you wanna talk about riding. For real. Shit.
People come into the shop (or wherever) and talk about being a local. Do they do that where you are? I talked to some old gal who has been here "forever" and she throws a attitude after asking (and I suppose I should have seen it coming) how long we've lived here. Lady, I've lived here for 13 years now. (whoa) My kids go to school here. You "guess" that's local? I roll my eyes. What do these "locals" know about that one section between the 2 East-West ridges where it feels all quiet and it's always still (always) and a mountain lion is maybe- it feels likely- behind the next 180* twist around another fallen Monterey Pine? Or the single perfect line through the broken asphalt screaming down the North facing back way into town while the road, as it Ts, leapfrogs toward you so fast it's as though your vision was frame by frame? Oh. This used to be a bookstore.
We used to live in a small mountain town in Colorado, at 8,750'. I rode a lot of bikes there. I used to live in a small desert town in Eastern Utah. I rode a lot of bikes there, too. These places were/are hard to get to, hard to get by in, and hard in which to ride. We were young and thought ____ __ ___ ___ the ______s. We had a lot of locals only attitude our ownselfs. We were full of shit.
I don't care what you ride. I don't care where you ride*. I care that you ride.
*If you live in Santa Cruz, or Telluride, or Moab...you might _____ that you ha[ve] all the answer_. I don't care that you've gotten tired of your backyard, and no one knows the goods anyhow because they're from somewhere not where you are at the moment or have been all your damn life... Look how good it is. Go find some nook or cranny unknown to you and check it out. You might rediscover how kickass your riding is. This could apply somewheres else, too, if you are tired of your local. Prolly not if you dig riding dumb stuff like Laureles Grade, though.
That's some reasons why and what for and how come.
I snicker when people here talk to me about "the grade". Seriously? That climb is so trafficked and thankless and hot and exposed, with no descent worth mentioning. The grade. Tell me about some shaded, one-laned, backroad or a hike-a-bike to illicit singletrack if you wanna talk about riding. For real. Shit.
People come into the shop (or wherever) and talk about being a local. Do they do that where you are? I talked to some old gal who has been here "forever" and she throws a attitude after asking (and I suppose I should have seen it coming) how long we've lived here. Lady, I've lived here for 13 years now. (whoa) My kids go to school here. You "guess" that's local? I roll my eyes. What do these "locals" know about that one section between the 2 East-West ridges where it feels all quiet and it's always still (always) and a mountain lion is maybe- it feels likely- behind the next 180* twist around another fallen Monterey Pine? Or the single perfect line through the broken asphalt screaming down the North facing back way into town while the road, as it Ts, leapfrogs toward you so fast it's as though your vision was frame by frame? Oh. This used to be a bookstore.
We used to live in a small mountain town in Colorado, at 8,750'. I rode a lot of bikes there. I used to live in a small desert town in Eastern Utah. I rode a lot of bikes there, too. These places were/are hard to get to, hard to get by in, and hard in which to ride. We were young and thought ____ __ ___ ___ the ______s. We had a lot of locals only attitude our ownselfs. We were full of shit.
I don't care what you ride. I don't care where you ride*. I care that you ride.
*If you live in Santa Cruz, or Telluride, or Moab...you might _____ that you ha[ve] all the answer_. I don't care that you've gotten tired of your backyard, and no one knows the goods anyhow because they're from somewhere not where you are at the moment or have been all your damn life... Look how good it is. Go find some nook or cranny unknown to you and check it out. You might rediscover how kickass your riding is. This could apply somewheres else, too, if you are tired of your local. Prolly not if you dig riding dumb stuff like Laureles Grade, though.
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