BIKES!

East coast mountain biking is very different from cycling on the western slope of the Rockies. As you know, I’m from Colorado. In the west, the trails are smooth, fast and sunny. The biggest challenge is holding your breakfast in on the way up and holding on for dear life on the way down. Not so for the east coast. Here, you need to make sure that pieces of the bike don’t rattle loose as you bounce your way down the trail. And by trail, I mean a swath of roots and rocks that somehow a bunch of bikers all decided to ride down. How they came to that decision I don’t know. When it is dry, it is a challenge just making out the terrain features as you fly in and out from shade to complete darkness. When it is wet, or gasp, humid, it is a whole other ballgame – you have to fight the fog, roots, mud, leaves, and rocks for purchase. I can tell you how that fight usually goes.

But beyond all of the differences, there is something really incredible about nailing your first technical uphill and pinning your first tight, flat corner. There is also nothing better than figuring out the quick rhythm of eastern biking, where you can either connect loop after loop for an all-day ride filled with rope swing stops, or catch one of those loops for an hour study break. Once I switched to a lighter pair of Ryder sunglass lenses and could differentiate between forest and trail, the world of east coast biking has been the best type of study break rush ever.