Page 12 - Spring 2012 magazine-1_Neat
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As I squeezed between my husband’s car and the wall in our garage this spring, I was pulled up short by my shirt
sleeve. I swung around, afraid to see what grabbed me. It was only one of my bike pedals from the bike hanging on
the wall.
As I struggled with my caught sleeve, my mind drifted back to another spring about four years ago, when I decided
to try a new adventure, mountain biking. When I arrived in the Mojave Desert in 2005 I thought: Where is the green?
There are no trees. Where is the ocean, a bay, a river or a moist day? I was out of my element. It was a surprise to me
that only a year later a woman in her sixties from the East Coast now living in the Mojave Desert could enjoy hiking,
rock scrambling and experiencing desert adventures.
An organized mountain bike ride was offered in the Friends of Red Rock Canyon newsletter, The Desert Trumpet.
The description read, “Mountain Bike Madness: No experience is necessary for this introductory mountain bike
ride…” Sounds great, I thought, even though we had never gone mountain biking. “How hard could it be, it’s a new
adventure,” I offered my sales pitch to my husband, Tony.
“But we don’t have mountain bikes. Our bikes are Atlantic City Boardwalk bikes, no shocks, no knobby tires and no
clue about mountain biking," Tony said, trying to curb my enthusiasm.
“But we have helmets,” I replied while blowing off three years of dust from the bikes.
The morning of our adventure arrived with Tony continuing to voice his apprehension. But he loaded the bikes and
two cracked helmets in our truck anyway. It was a beautiful morning when we met the other two eager bikers and the
two trail leaders--John, an avid mountain bike racer and Jen, an Interpretive Naturalist in her 20s. Off we pedaled the
six of us, me dressed in my yellow Capri outfit with matching socks.
As we began our desert adventure, I was enjoying the ride, pedaling along a level path and thinking how wonderful it
is to be biking in the desert, my new home. The morning sun was already heating the dry desert air and warming my
back when the path suddenly changed.
Up steep hills and down rough ravines the physically demanding ride on my aging body rattled loose every tooth in
my head as I traveled over rocks, through sand and pounced along the stone wash.
About 10 minutes into the ride, my bike hit a huge rock catapulting me in the air.
I landed in a bush. I soon learned that when your front wheel is in the air you have
no steerage. As I whizzed by the hundreds of blackbrush, I was exerting every
muscle in my body to keep the bike wheels on the rugged trail,
praying I wouldn’t land in a yucca plant.
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