Absolutely trashed myself in the heat today, so I'm sitting here with my legs up drinking the last of my Neil Peart Memorial beer from Carton and useless for everything except ... another story!
So as I was riding today, I was thinking about how all of my rides are on my Routt right now because ...
shit happens. So that got me thinking about how I always prefer off-road when I have the choice ... So this one goes
waaaaaaaay back to - my first ever official "mountain bike" ride!
Back in my college years, I was really into lifting. And by the time I graduated, I was just looking for some cardio options that I wouldn't hate. I'd done one bodybuilding competition prior and the thing I remember most about it was how much I hated the cardio equipment I had to use at the gym during my cut down. So I tried running and ... yeah, that wasn't going to work. (Oddly enough, lately I've been thinking I might try some trail running just to get back in the woods while I'm waiting for my new frame.) So I'd already started snowboarding with a few school friends and two of those guys were into mountainbiking, so I thought I might give that a try. After graduation, I took some money I'd saved and bought a brand new Mongoose Sycamore. It was dark green, rigid and had this new technology called "grip shifts". I bought it off the floor at Toms Atlantic Cyclery in Atlantic Highlands (I think it was Tom's at the time - might have still been Frank's, which was in that spot in the 1980's. Not sure.) I was for all intent and purposes homeless at the time - I had just lost my apartment in Jersey City when my roommate moved back to Italy for the summer, and I wasn't going to move back into my childhood home. But I owned pretty much nothing, so I actually had room to store it in my car. The first thing I did when I bought it was stop by my parents' house and take a ride over to Thompson Park where I'd heard there were "trails" next to Brookdale Community College. I never found them. So right off the bat, my first ride was a failure.
Luckily, one my oldest friends told me that a guy we both knew was really into riding and he'd connect us to give me some ideas for places to ride. So eventually we connected (took a while because in the mid 90's we didn't all have cellphones so it wasn't exactly super easy to connect with someone like me who was practicing amateur homelessness.) He suggested we meet up at Hartshorne. I knew Hartshorne from hikes my dad used to take us on, so that worked. We met at the lot off Navesink River Road and ... off we went. Or I should say HE went off. I kind of struggled just to keep him in my sights. The first hill nearly killed me. The second hill actually did kill me. And the third hill took what was left of my corpse and wiped its ass with it. After that, I don't remember too much because I was focused on trying to keep what was inside from making an appearance on the forest floor. And I miserably failed in that - I think I threw up about four or five times. Let me paint a picture for you ... Jeff showed up in full gear: his clothes seemed to be made specifically for the task at hand, and he even had these shoes that
attached to his pedals! And gloves - he was wearing gloves! His helmet looked like it was forged in an air tunnel. His bike was a brand new GT something or other with a suspension fork and Spinergy wheels (I thought they looked really cool.) For my part, I was wearing those high-top Nike boots that were so popular back then, along with cut-off Pony sweat pants and a Lollapalooza t-shirt (I remember that specifically because when I puked on it, it actually didn't look that out of place against the rainbow of colors already there.) And my helmet was a silver box that made me look like ... well, let's keep it family friendly and say I just looked like a "mushroom" ...
Eventually, I told Jeff that I needed to stop or I was pretty sure I was going to die - I had a chill despite temps in the 90's, and my field of vision was reduced to just a 6 inch circle surrounded by a black abyss wherein the faces of my dead relatives were beckoning me to follow the light. His reply was , "You'll be fine - just stay on my wheel." So ... yeah ... that didn't happen. Eventually, we finished the ~ 8 or 9 mile loop and it felt like the single worst experience of my life. I was pissed.I thought I'd wasted my money on the bike because there was no way I was ever going to do that again. I had a headache, I was nauseous and I had to sit in my car for 20 minutes before I was sure I could drive back to my parents house without passing out behind the wheel. And why hadn't anyone told me you need to bring water on bike rides? I stopped at the 7-11 in Red Bank on the drive home and drank a liter of Gatorade, which I promptly threw up in the lot.
So that was my first experience with actual mountainbiking. After that, I didn't ride off-road again for at least a month. I eventually tried riding with Jeff again and it was more of the same (although he did introduce me to Watching right before MTBers were kicked out for what I guess is now forever.) It almost turned me off to the sport altogether, and I think if I'd continued riding with that dude, I'd have quit and never gone back within a few weeks. Luckily, though, I took off for a road trip that lasted 6 months at the end of that summer and then moved to Bethlehem for grad school the following spring. So after that summer, I was able to start riding solo more and take a little more time to develop.
For the record, I don't think Jeff was purposely trying to be an asshole - I think he figured I was fit since I worked out so much and all I needed was a little time to get into it. I don't think he understood how advanced he was relative to a true newbie like me (I would have thought, though, that he'd have realized that by the second time I covered my shirt with my lunch.) But that experience definitely colored how I am when I ride with less experienced riders: my personal rule is that the pace is theirs to set. I just could never do that to someone - ruining your concert t-shirts is never going to be my goal. It took me another three years to upgrade to a better bike (grad school played a role in that) and another year or two after that to actually get my first set of SPDs. And somewhere along the line, I gave up the sweat shorts and t-shirts for more technical gear. I suppose it could be said that I still look like a dick in a helmet, but probably not a lot I can do about that at this point. And the only other time I ever threw up again while riding was when I did my first race, so I never again ruined a summer music festival t-shirt, which is something.