OPINION: DON’T TAKE ANY TRAIL FOR GRANTED

By Ron Koch

I warned Mike about the bike swallowing rain ruts before we dropped in. Winter rains had their way with the poorly designed Fall Line Trail, creating knee-deep ruts. The fact that this trail is shared with motorcycles just speeds up the inevitable deepening of the Grand Canyon-sized trench, with rocks peeking out just waiting to reach out and rip the sidewall of your tire or derailleur off.

I’ve taken a lot of riders on this trail over the years, and the ruts have caused even some of the best to crash. Mike carefully made his way down, only walking the last section. I was surprised to see him with a big smile on his face.

“That’s rad,” he said.

I kind of laughed and thought to myself, “No, it’s a dumb trail,” but it got me thinking about not just this trail but others I might be taking for granted. Is this trail dumb to me simply because I ride it all the time?

NOTHING LIKE NEW
Of all the trail experiences I’ve had, nothing beats riding a new one for the first time. The new sights, fresh smells and surprises around every turn hit the senses like nothing else. A recent trip to Sedona reminded me of this experience recently. On my fifth day of riding there, I was in search of something new and noticed something on the map that was never mentioned by friends or acquaintances. It also didn’t go anywhere special, ending on a paved road a ways out of town.

As I peeled off the heavily trafficked main route that I had already ridden earlier in the week, it only took a few turns to realize that this trail was something special. It is skinny and hardly ridden. The rocks lack the scars created by thousands of pedal and chainring strikes. On trails I frequent with hard obstacles, I find myself thinking about the difficult section ahead of time and mentally preparing myself for whatever it is. It often takes me out of the moment I am in on the trail. On this new one, I am forced to take each drop, twist and turn as it comes to me instead of anticipating it. I am completely in the now and love every second of it.

As much as I like brand-new-to-me trails, there are often times I like them even more the second or third time around. Since I don’t know what’s coming next, I tend to ride a bit reserved and cautious. The second time on a trail I tend to ride faster and push harder because I know what’s coming. Because of this, I can have more fun, or maybe it’s just a different kind of enjoyment. The sights, sounds and smells might not be new, but the speed and comfort of pushing harder bring a bit more excitement.

This experience tends to carry over to trails that I ride infrequently, because I forget a lot about them, but know the general layout and how hard I can push. This was the case for most trails I rode on that Sedona trip. I remembered where the harder features were and knew just enough to ride them harder than a freshly new one. This caught me off-guard a few times, though. Some sections were easier, but others were seemingly harder.

A FRESH PERSPECTIVE
Trails I ride all the time fall short compared to others. They’re predictable and mundane. Since the “dumb” rutted trail I ride all the time is less than 10 minutes of pedaling from my house, I ride it more often than any other. I’ve probably ridden this quarter-mile-long section twice weekly for over 25 years. I’ve made a point to ride every bike on it that I’ve ever reviewed, a number that’s well into the hundreds by now.

It’s one of those trails that connects a few others, so my loops often have me riding it twice in one ride. I’ve maintained it the best I can, channeling water off to the side, reducing the rut’s progress, but for much of the trail it’s too little too late. I ride it so much, every corner has braking bumps. It also has small jumps, bermed corners, and exposed roots and rocks. It has a little bit of everything in a very short space. Because of this, it’s an excellent trail to test on.

What this trail has probably done more than any other is made me a better rider. Riding the same lines over and over lets you do something that new and infrequently ridden trails can’t, which is practice. Repetition lets you push your boundaries a little at a time, and if you break out the stopwatch or Strava, you can document differences in technique or equipment changes.

As one might imagine, I’ve become pretty good at riding ruts. Once upon a time, I hated and even feared ruts, but now I embrace and respect them. And, the more I thought about this trail, the more I realized just how much it means to me. If it disappeared tomorrow, I’d be heartbroken. That “dumb” trail has become like an old friend and one I have not fully appreciated for far too long. All trails are great for different reasons, even the ones we sometimes take for granted.