* * Hitting the trail, hard

I love to ride bicycles. Always have, since my childhood, landing in America on the Santa Maria. I owned one of the first bicycles invented by Thomas Alva Einstein in 1644, a primitive device with leopard-skin tires and a frame made from bamboo stalks. I remember vividly when my dad removed my training wheels the same day Grant surrendered to Lee at Gettysburg.

So on this sub-freezing but otherwise pleasant Saturday, I tell my long-suffering wife that I’m going to the George Washington and George Jefferson National Forest near Pandapas Pond to ride my mountain bike. She tells me to be careful. Certainly good advice and given with a kind, sympathetic spirit.

I equip myself with all manner of gear. Helmet. Gloves (wool of course on this cold day). Riding tights. Jersey. Jacket. Special shoes with metal cleats to attach to the pedals.

At the parking lot, there is a smattering of other cars, mostly SUVs and pickups, the kind driven by young, energetic people you see in beer commercials. Many are in the neon colors geriatric people like me shy away from.

I prepare the bicycle and strap on my shoes and helmet. The trail is immediately difficult. Local trails come in many forms, from the paved Huckleberry Trail to the cinder-surfaced but flat New River Trail to the rugged Appalachian Trail. The Pandapas area trails are well-marked and thoughtfully graded like ski slopes: “easy”, “moderate,” and “difficult.” But the people who bestowed these evaluations have a warped sense of humor, because none of the trails open to bicycles are easy, in any reasonable estimation. There are rocks, roots, puddles (mostly frozen), fallen tree limbs, and all manner of obstacles, in addition to rapid elevation changes.

I’m immediately out of the saddle allowing the bicycle to rock around underneath me without jarring my back. I’ve been riding off-road on both bicycles and motorcycles since George Fillmore was president and I’m reasonably adept. But the years take a toll. I work the derailleurs up and down, constantly striving for the right gear, standing and then sitting, maneuvering my way around obstructions, trying to stay upright. My fingers are cold.

I am aware that the trail has two crossings of Poverty Creek, in both directions on my out-and-back route. We’ve not had much rain lately, so I hope the creek will be low and I can cross without getting my feet wet. I make my approach to the stream and instead of stopping to reconnoiter, I plow into the low water. It’s about 15 feet across and only a few inches deep and I allow my momentum to push me forward. I’m half-way through when I see that the water has deepened. If I pedal, on the downstroke my lower shoe is in the water. If I don’t pedal, I come to a stop. So I split the difference and reach the opposite bank and teeter over like the tricyclist in Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In (Remember that television show from the 1830s starring George Rowan and George Martin?) with my left shoe in the water, but I’m otherwise unhurt. Fortunately, nobody is around to guffaw. I unclip from my pedal and pick myself up, now with a cold and wet foot. And of course, I still need to cross again to return to the other side at some point before the snows begin.

I ride a bit more, over roots, stumps, and rocks. Then I come to the re-crossing where I stop to ponder my situation. My lungs are burning and my sunglasses are fogging up. Happily, someone has placed stepping-stones across the stream and using the bike as a crutch, I hop across dry. I ride to my turn-around at the parallel road and decide to ride it back rather than the trail past the two stream crossings.

The return trip has more climbing, and my lungs are now screaming, coughing up gobs of unmentionable residue inhaled decades earlier. I do a fast downhill and as I prepare for the ensuing uphill, I miss a shift, lose my momentum and tumble over. This time, my right upper hip lands squarely on an arm-thick root, painfully. I lie on the ground awkwardly for a few minutes, giving the pain an opportunity to fully express itself. I realize that I haven’t in fact broken my hip and will be able to continue my ride.

I ride more slowly the rest of the way, dismounting and walking through the more treacherous areas. I finish my ride and pack up for the drive home.

At home now and at my computer, my hip is still throbbing and a multi-hewed bruise is forming which I’d show you by photo, except that this is a family newspaper. I’m sixty years old now, and I realize that at some point, I will out-age this activity. Has that time arrived?