I think what I had in mind when I took up Mountain Biking was something closer to Hill Biking. I lived in Arizona for so damn long I forgot what traversing a real mountain feels like. If you don’t do it on a regular basis, it makes you feel like a worthless meatbag. Once you do it a few times and your body starts adjusting, it does end up being a lot of fun

Each weekend I try to go out at least once and find a new place to ride. I’ve been using a combination of online trail reviews and maps, plus a book I picked up. None of them work 100% of the time. I combine forces to insure I find something and don’t end up wasting my time.

In my experience, the various trail review sites are hit and miss. Most are user entry and instruct you to “keep going down Road X until you see a rock on the left. Pull off and park. Trail picks up right by the rock.”. Seriously. That’s shitty.

The book I am using is entitled Bay Area Biking and I find it a useful place to start looking for trails. The difficulty rating the author uses doesn’t really make any sense to me. Being a beginner, I’m looking for the easy stuff right now. More than once I’ve been duped by comforting pics of reasonably elevated terrain and the ever deceiving “low” difficulty rating of 2. Only to arrive at the location and wonder WTF IS A LEVEL 5 LIKE IF THIS IS A LEVEL 2?!! I HOPE A BEAR EATS ME, ANYTHING TO STOP THE PAIN!

Once you find the starting location, it’s usually in a park. The park will inevitably have a bunch of trails inside it. Another shortcoming of the book is that it doesn’t show you the suggested trail in context to the off-shoots and other trails. When an intersection appears it’s not always clear which path is the one you are trying to follow. Is it the big Fire Road that goes up the hill, a trail that cuts back…sort of in the direction you came from or that vaguely defined deer trail to the left that looks like it might lead you off a cliff? I can’t wait until I can just carry flexible, digital paper that lets me zoom in and out on maps when I’m in the middle of no where. Enhaaance!

On every outing, I have had my camera with me. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ve kept any of the photos so far (that’s on par though). I did take a pic with my phone last weekend. I had just reached the end of one length of the trail. I decided to turn around and go back the way I had come. As soon as I turned around to get back on the trail I saw this sign. It’s a stereotypically bad camera phone shot, but it gets the point across, “The odds on this trail are stacked against you. Enjoy!”

While getting this shot off my phone, I realized it says “No Weapons” on the top right. Are you fucking kidding me?! If I find a sign at a trail head giving me instructions on how to duel a Mountain Lion, I’m changing out my backpack for a flame thrower.

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