After a couple of months, I have finally put my mountain bike on a mountain. A couple of other dads and I took our 12 year olds up Highway 2, the Angeles Crest Highway up to Red Box this weekend for a bit of dirty fun. We packed up our bikes on a couple of SUVs and headed to the nearest trail we could find. I remember the old dirt road to the Valley Forge campground from when I was a kid so we drove up, and it was still there. Blocked off to motor traffic, the road goes about three miles down hill.
The trip down the mountain was exhilarating. A few basics, like outside foot down in the turns, had us racing through the silt and rocks. I kept thinking I was going to hit a sharp rock and catch a flat, but my tires held out fine. Suddenly all the squishiness I hate in the street was a welcome relief, but I do like my hardtail and I did some nice lowside action in the soft stuff. There weren't many jumps which I suppose is just as well, I got a bit too ambitious a couple times and that raised the adrenaline, but I didn't fall once. I was glad to have brought my gloves and my shoulders took a pounding, I was glad they were in shape, of all of my body parts. My wrists took some beating too, but I'm all good and typing with ease this morning.
Next time I'll be a bit smarter and make sure that whatever track we take, that we go uphill first. I bonked about halfway back and basically had to push my bike up the hill walking. I felt like Sisyphus pushing that god forsaken boulder, which was in this case, that cheap, heavy 'mountain bike' I bought for my son this summer. That thing must weight 30 pounds, which is fine when you're tooling around in the neighborhood, but not climbing up hills in the dirt. The uphill climb was frustrating and tiring, but we were completely refreshed by the time we sat at the trucks for five minutes. No damage, just exhaustion.
Last night the Saturday trek finally caught up with me. My right quad was pretty sore from switching bikes and sitting pedaling when I should have been standing. My gears are also pretty tall compared to others, so if I get serious that will be one of the first things I mod on the Marin. All in all, a great father son trip. We'll do that again. Up first.
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