today's ride

Weather was absolutely beautiful this weekend, bringing out the springtime optimist in yours truly. I postponed a fishing trip I was mulling around to instead capture this golden opportunity to get the kids back up into the north foothills on the bikes, figuring the tread might be just about right after all the fine weather this week.

Not so fast my friend! There's still a good deal of melting snow up there: many of the northern exposures were either a sheet of ice or mud, take your pick. The topside of Snake proved a muddy mess, I felt a twinge of regret taking the youngsters down that line. Understand it will recover, just as it does every year. But the kids need to learn the ethics of the sport, so I took a minute to explain the situation, and why we needed to find drier tread. What we need up there is a good rain to melt the remaining snow, allow it to drain off.


In the meantime, we spent most of our time playing around on the snaky trails in the middle of Elena Gallegos. The kids, shoot all three of us to tell the truth, had a ball blasting down Snake, to then circle around back uphill to run it all over again. Like, three times!

As I sit writing this post, reliving today's fun, I am all the more aware I enjoy watching my kids' skills grow in a sport I love, just as much as I enjoy ripping a good run myself.


Lately, the boy has taken to bunny-hopping the dirt water bars, while the girl still prides herself on conquering each ascent of Blow Chunks Hill, dab free.


There were times today when I would catch looks of astonishment on the faces of passers by, or slow up to receive their compliments, as the kids offered their apologies and continued on their downhill run. At those moments I thought myself in agreement with their sentiments: you can't teach that kind of enthusiasm for biking, for life really.


But thinking back on it a bit more as I write this, I'm thinking maybe I had a hand in that after all.