Relentlessly Upward

It takes a carefully maintained sense of balance to enjoy a mountain bike ride.  I am not just talking about what you do with the handlebars and leaning the body.

There was a road that headed uphill from camp -- I think.   A little information from maps certainly helps, but you only want enough encouragement to try it.  You don't want somebody spoonfeeding you all the answers in advance.  Much of what I care about is simply not available on any map.

I got what I was hoping for: a monotonic climb, without any of those useless and disheartening drops.  Relentless climbing.  It is so easy to slip into a daydream on the way up:  you are true to your calling, your Noble Suffering.

The Little Cute One was running along side me.  She wasn't suffering any.  She wondered why good ol' Pops was so slow.

Surprisingly, reaching the top is not the most glorious moment on a ride like this.  I love the last minute or two of the climb, when you see blue sky poking through gaps in the trees that are almost horizontal with you.  You are afraid that it is just a tease.  The anticipation builds with each new peek at horizontal-blue.

At the beginning the road was smooth, but it got rubbly in places.  For some reason I can't see rubble as Noble.  I guessed that we would summit next to a creek, where my little dog could get a delicious drink.  She got to ride down in the milk crate of course.

I wish there were more roads like this.  They didn't have GPS navigation when they built these roads, but they had surveyor's equipment.  It wouldn't seem to cost more to build roads on isoclines.  Well maybe it would: the curves would be longer.  But the maintenance costs would be lower.

I prefer gravel/dirt two-tracks over single-tracks, for several reasons.  But the best reason is the uncertainty of the ride.  Of course that means that some roads don't work out as hoped.  The ritual of uncertainty-and-challenge is addictive.  I hardly ever get into the same mood on single-track trails.  In general camping works the same way.  

 

(Her first milk crate ride after I first adopted her.  She doesn't look too happy.  But now she starts dancing around when she sees me putting my bike costume on.)