Game of Inches

April 12th, 2016

A good nights sleep on a real bed, probably the last one for a while, ended with the usual alarm clock spitting fire in my ear. I dressed and greeted Max as he was doing some final packing. He’s much more of a morning person than I am (I think it’s the coffee).

Like my final day in Denver, he too had a laundry list of items to take care of before our early start the next day. First on the list was to unload the truckload of boxes in his truck at the local dump before going to the post office to pick up the mounting brackets for his roof box. But the mounts weren’t there and we were told to check back an hour later. We killed the time with cleaning, and having lunch with his sister.

After lunch, we again returned to the post office to no avail. It was now midafternoon, and without the mounts, we were up the creek without a paddle. So we did what any rational person would do, went mountain biking! On our way out the door, Max noticed the mounts had been delivered in our absence, and we tried figuring out how to get two bikes and boxes to play nice on the roof of my car. But pressed for time, we let it be to go have fun.

Max had arranged for us to me up with friends of his for some downhill mountain biking after they were all out of work. Without knowing what I had agreed to, we dawned our helmets, checked our tire pressure, emptied bladders, and began the not-so-fun part of downhill mountain biking, getting to the top. Now, I’d like to think I’m in reasonably good shape with climbing and running, but continuously biking uphill for 30 minutes, even at a slow pace, had my thighs burning! Panting for water, we took a quick break before finally reaching the summit and enjoying the fruits of our labor.

Flying down the 6 in gravel rut with the cool evening air slicing at my arms and face I did my best to keep my bearings. Rock climbing and running are relatively slow sports compared to this. It took every ounce of focus I had to keep the bars in control while they bounced around wildly, skipping over rocks, roots and random divots in the trail. The worst was seeing people biking up this trail and trying to slow down enough to avoid them and not send us both flying off the cliff not 2 feet away at any given time.

Soon the trail narrowed and leveled out a bit and I finally caught my groove. Balance was back, breaking had lessened and smile broadened. Before I knew it, the trail was over and a parking lot gate was upon us, but not our parking lot. We gathered to make sure everyone was ok, and set off for the second half of the trail. A much flatter but far narrower trail. The tree branches like arms grabbing at my shirt as it fluttered behind me. The tree trunks on either side of the trail teaming up to be just wider than my handle bars, and quick turns popping out of nowhere.

Feeling good and getting in the groove, my heart stopped when I over confidently gained too much speed only to be surprised by a pot hole the size of a brontosaurus’ foot print. I slammed my breaks, leaned as far back as I could, and accepted my fate. Thankfully I had done just enough to slam the pot hole, and bounce out of it, briefly rolling on my front wheel. Heart now pounding, I quickly kept moving as I wasn’t the last one on the trail, and the only thing worse than a pot hole, is seeing a stationary biker just in front of you.

Finally making it to the parking lot with a huge smile, we exchanged our close calls at the pot holes and various parts of the trail. Then, seeing we had enough time for one more run, we set off on another trail as far as we could get before toeing the line with sight and sunlight. A great evening to cap our day, we wandered into town for dinner and ended up at a line dancing bar. Max had only worn his bike shorts and neon yellow jacket, but thanks to some beers and a little convincing, we went out to dance and make fools of ourselves. Legend has it that a video of it exists somewhere…

Finally back at the house it was late, and we still had not started packing. After a little push and pull of boxes and bike racks, we found a solution to make it all fit, barely. Bikes secured, boxes packed, and every nook and cranny of the car with gear and food, we finished just shy of midnight.