Ah, so that's why I love this sport. I remember the movie "First Descent" – I think there was a line…I forget who said it…where a rider says how it's cool to put something down for awhile and then pick it back up again. This is how I feel about mountain biking right now. While I have done rides on the bike in the past two and a half years, I have not been a mountain biker. Call it whatever you want – severe burn out, injury, or just a backlash against being obsessive about most things I do – but I was perfectly content to put the bike aside for the past couple years.
I've decided to change that. And oh what a sport it is. There is something about getting up in the dawn hours, fixing some tea and oatmeal, putting on the bike clothes as the sun peaks through the large glass window of home, and riding. The heart pumping blood early in the morning, the glitter of the singletrack as the sun's rays hit the frost, the flow as the winding trail takes you where it may and the smells of spring – fresh pine, snow melting…the sacredness of the woods. To cap it off, I saw a moose feeding in a low wetland. He ran along side me for a bit, 75 yards away, before letting me go.
Oh yeah, that's why I like this sport. And that's why I live here. Pilot back in commission. Time to go for another ride, right now! And time to find work in B-town – for no other reason than I want the commute. The commute = ride time, each and every day.
Alta Backcountry 