Yeah great song by BTO - I know. I'll have to share my Fred Turner story sometime...anyways - i got a couple responses re my drowning man story below. It's part metaphor and of course there is always truth behind metaphor but emotions are always suspect. Anyways - I have to celebrate the fact that I actually get paid (not much mind you) to teach a course on Mountain Bike Skills! So off I go with 4 of my students to the Sandilands to enter the real classroom - God's creation! Yeehaw (with my apologies to the Duke brothers)!!!
Later,
G
4 comments:
I'll raise a glass in celebration any time someone gets paid to ride. That rocks...
Thanx much! I'm loving it - I get to ride three consecutive days in my own little bike paradise. Admittedly, it is a little less fulfilling riding at a slower pace with newbies but I get to share the sport we both love with future addicts.
Ironically, I forgot my SPD shoes for the ride today - showing just how little sleep I've had this week due to my insane schedule. It probably slowed me down though which was a benefit to my students.
G
My introduction to "real" mountain biking was riding an old department-store bike near Frostfire with Milt Reimer. It was probably fall '88, and he and his brother-in-law Kirk had been riding hard on their fancy (fully rigid, of course) real mountain bikes all summer. Thankfully the riding wasn't technically difficult, and the scenery was unbelievable, but I was in considerable distress for most of the ride. Burning lungs, dizziness, exhaustion...all from trying to keep up, I guess. Given the intense physical pain involved in everyone's first rides, it's amazing that anyone continues in the sport.
Over the years, I've introduced many newbies to riding, and I've learned some things about the process. I was a truly terribly teacher/introducer at first, thinking that adrenaline was the way to hook new people on riding and not being sympathetic to the cardio demands if you haven't been riding a lot (or at all). So I'd take them on difficult rides with challenging descents, not realizing that the goal should be to minimize their pain and make them feel as safe as possible. Part of growing up, I guess. I'm sure you're way past these kinds of obstacles...
I'm guessing my first mtn bike ride was around 88 or 89 as well. My first real mtn bike was sweet - a KHS fully rigid bike with Suntour shifting and an amazing paintjob - black with purple metallic paint splashes.
I vaguely remember you ditching out of phys. ed. to build a trail but I think the majority of us guys had no clue what you were doing. I started making a trail in Riverside around the same time - revitalizing some old dirtbike trails but that was all after school. I roped my younger brother Blaine into helping me hack away at the Morris River underbrush and admittedly we had a pretty sweet trail that pretty much only we used. Tight, tight singletrack using the banks of the river for speed and approaches to little jumps. I remember getting those crazy thorns stuck in my tires though.
Bike technology has come a long way! I'm still happy with my Giant NRS-2 (modified somewhat) but it is getting a few years old now and needs a new front fork, new drivetrain, and new rear wheel. Funny how disc brakes result in poor wheel maintenance. I used to tweak my spokes all the time but my last five rides have been one spoke short and with some serious wobble in my rim. Me bad.
Great reminiscing about bike history though! Can't say I miss the days of rigid too much though.
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