Last spring some friends and I decided to get together for a “fisrt ride of the year”. I didnt know then, but that ride was going to be one for the books. 25 miles later and the four of us barely made it back to the cars moaning and groaning, grundles throbbing, muscle failure, cramping, out of breath, out of liquid, seriously rough shape, why….
Let me take you back….
Last April tuning up my K2 Hardtail, just hanging on the front lawn putting it back together, when my brother Peter shows up. He just got a new Schwinn mountain bike and was itchin to get it out on the trails. Then the phone rings, coincidentally enough, its our other friend Shawn and he’s game and wants “in” on this ride. Okay, where are we gonna go, well we decided to head for one of the local trails that we all knew for a nice, couple of mile ride. Then Dave, my roommate, decides he wants to go too. Its a beautiful Spring day, LETS DO IT !!!!!!!
We head to a nice flat trail…..we thought, but the only thing we know about it is…… where it starts. Probably not the best idea. We headed out, ill prepared and not expecting to do very much but a few miles, maybe. It started out nice, slight incline, straight shot ridin’ next to a stream through the woods. We hit a couple small side trails within the first couple miles, nothing special, but a little bit of play time for me, just tryin’ to find more ways to hurt myself.
We eventually came to a dirt road, like a sand pit dirt road, where the stream emptied into a nice little pond, surrounded by boulders and sand piles. PLAY TIME!! I was off to try to kill myself again, hoppin’ off boulders and… OOPS… landing on an incline, soft sand…. thank goodness for brain buckets… and dry socks 
, I flipped just right to have my feet land in the water. We took a little break then hit the “road” again.
This dirt road eventually came to an end… fork in the path… left or right. Shawn and I went
right, Dave and Pete went left ( which was ill advised by Shawn and myself I might add). Dave and Pete ended up an a foot path around another small pond with “giant thorn thicket bushes” overgrowing the trail ( which was mostly jumping from rock to rock anyway) carrying their bikes on their shoulders and getting mangled in the bushes and dug up by thorns. Eventually leading to an uphill climb through overgrown vegetation, no path, just a clearing in sight 500 yards away at the top of a hill.
Now don’t think that Shawn and I had it any easier. We got stuck at a washed out river crossing and had to literally throw A COUPLE HUNDRED cantaloupe-to-watermelon sized stones and rocks into this river crossing to build a land bridge. Yeah… that’s right…. a land bridge. And it only took like an hour and a half. Oh, I cant forget the forest of hanging vines and tree branches we had to dance and snake through on the other side of the crossing, then the 75 degree upgrade hill we had to climb to get to the trail, all with our bikes on our shoulders.
I want you to remember that none of us had been out riding yet or ,for that matter, at all active during the winter time. I collapsed at the top. Then we could hear those guys from over the hill on the same trail.
” BANG! We did it! Now lets head back.” Yeeaaaaahh right! We had to see where this trail went now. I mean come on, you know how it is. Thankfully one of us knew where we were so….. we decided to press on.
After a couple more hours the riding was really startin’ to take a toll on my hind end, I’m talkin’ serious ass ache, not to mention my legs were not ready for this, none of us were ready for this ride. we got to a point where we had to decide… keep going until we get to the road and take that back to the cars or, turn around and head back on the trail ( 6-7 miles I’d say). None of us could sit at all without serious pain, so we either go to the road for a smooth, but long and hilly ride, or a slight down-grade standing most of the way because of the pain. We decided to go to the road, which was about 3 miles further away than the original 4-5 miles that was first assumed, uphill, over gravel and through ruts and over roots and rocks… ooohhh my poor whipped tail!
PAVEMENT NEVER FELT SO GOOD!! 
I’ll tell you, when we got to that road, I never felt such an emotional moment with my own taint. The gratitude flowed all the way from between my cheeks to between my cheeks. I’m not usually for country roads for riding, at this point I did not care, all I wanted was a smooth ride. Aaaaaahh. Until we figured out which way we had to go…. uphill for about 5 miles, that’s right, more uphill, awesome!
Well I dont like to admit it but I had to walk my bike a couple times. And to top off the whole “HellRide” we had to travel on a highway road, heavily traveled @ 50 mph, with no breakdown lane. There was about 8 in of pavement off the side of the white line, a 6inch drop, and gravel to ride on. This is a highway used daily by trailer trucks and dump trucks and buses. Here’s the kicker…..
We’re on a downhill section, Pete’s in the lead trailed by Dave at about 50 feet, behind him is Shawn @ 100 feet back with me right on his tail, like 10 feet back. We’re doin’ about 25 mph, an oil truck goes by, and I see him pull off the road about 100 feet in front of Pete, leaving nowhere to go except up onto someones front lawn, launching over their driveway, and maneuvering of the rest of the yard back to the street, remember there is no breakdown lane, nowhere to ride and the street has endless traffic in both directions moving at 50+ mph.
Oh boy, here we go, Pete’s now up on someones front lawn trying to regain control of his bike, Dave’s not really paying attention to whats about to happen until the last second so he runs completely into Pet’s ass end, how they didn’t wreck is still a mystery to me, but they pulled it off somehow. Meanwhile Shawn is swerving deep onto the front lawn. I go straight, I hit a truck. I go left, I get hit by multiple cars. I have to go so deep right to miss every one and everything that i could tell you what kind of furniture they had, leather, I know this from my close-up view through their front window. So… across the lawn over the driveway and…… A DITCH!! Nothing, just a ditch and woods. My only option is to do a diagnol launch next to the mail box off a decent sized mound of earth, try to clear the front end of the oil truck, and hope 
there’s no traffic there when I land in the road or my other option, eat it at 30 mph slamming in to the trees and spending the rest of the day at the hospital. There was absolutely no time to stop, this was a split second, luck or death decision.
I had no choice…. LAUNCH & PRAY & SKILL…. I pulled the hardest, heaviest bunny-hop off that mound that I ever have. I’m talkin’ slooooow motion. Over the front end of an oil truck ( at least 8 ft), half table-toppin’ it so not hit the truck, checking for oncoming traffic, and lineing up my landing as to not hit one of the other 3 guys and not wrecking on impact. Wait for it…. wait for it…. wait…
BANG BABY!! YEAH THAT’S RIGHT!! LANDED IT!! And that’s just the kind of rush I ride for. That’s what it’s all about.
As for the rest of the ride, it was action-packed with muscle failure and cramping along with our grundles screaming in anguish. Pete had to keep singing the Rocky theme some for the whole second half of the ride. If not for that tune, he wouldn’t have ever made it to the car… Thanx Sly. I couldnt sit on my bike for at least 2 weeks after that. Nor did I want to.
All in all, we had about a 25 mile bike ride, first of the season, through the woods, dirt roads, country roads, and heavily traveled main roads all to end the day sitting on icepacks and stinkin like icy hot patches
Never start your riding season with a ride more than a few miles long and always know where you are and how far it is to get back. You also have to start doing some cardio and some sort of strength training in your legs before the season, or start out nice and soft for at least the first couple of rides. Or you could end up looking like this snail before you’re even halfway through your ride.
(P.S. Don’t forget to have an inspirational theme song ready, you might need it to get home:))
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