This past weekend I shed the baby gears and training wheels and leaped into pure adrenaline-based adolescence with my first mountain biking weekend getaway. Recently, I broke down and bought a real mountain bike. My new KONA replaces my 12 year old Schwinn that I purchased during my first year in college. I loved my Schwinn CrossTrainer hybrid bike. I have had it forever and it has never failed me. I had it in the days before helmets became a necessity and when I used it to get to work when my car broke down or didn’t have any gas. But as I started riding a little more serious I realized it was about time to put the bike to rest. I couldn’t keep up and was working three times as hard as everyone else. Since I bought the powder blue KONA I have been on three trails and crashed no less than 5 times. This past weekend was no different, but I learned a little something about myself with this latest crash.

I learned that I love the pure adrenaline of a downhill ride! I love the speed, the splashed mud in the face, the sudden protrusion of rocks and tree limbs, hairpin curves, and the threat of a crash!

I also learned that I don’t love the uphills so much! But that makes sense because who doesn’t love the fast and furious, with instant gratification? I imagine few love the uphill… the slow and steady uphill climb that requires the kind of endurance only developed through training and discipline.

So on this trip I found myself trying to find the balance between the thrill seeking downhill and the slow and steady uphill climb. My heart rate climbed to a whopping 180, and between fighting the feeling of unsteady legs and passing out, I was able to enjoy all that nature has to offer. Fall leaves, cool breeze, and the smell of the great outdoors.

I also learned that I love to get my picture taken, since that is when the Downhill Crash happened. I wish I could say that I flew over my handlebars or that a tree root catapaulted me off my bike into the air a hundred feet. I wish I could say that another rider clipped me and sent me over a hill and careening down into a ravine. Those would be great stories- the kind of stories you sit around a campfire talking about all night.

But that isn’t how my downhill crash happened. I’m embarrassed to say that my downhill crash happened when I was going no more than 1 mile per hour. You see, after I finished the gigantic life-threatening hill, I turned the final corner to see the camera ready to film me at my height of glory….and I couldn’t resist the temptation to pose. Yup, that’s right. I said it. I posed for the camera as I sat on my new baby blue big girl bike. I look cool, I thought.  No, make that HOT.   I am hot and feel like a ROCKSTAR! 

I was so proud that I forgot to keep pedaling. Yup, forgot to pedal. Which by itself isn’t a problem, it’s the clipping out of the pedals that becomes the problem. And when I came to a dead stop, which I did, while I was still smiling at the camera, still clipped in- that’s the biggest problem. And since I can’t fall gracefully, I clipped out my right foot, leaving my left foot clipped in, and fell to the LEFT. But I panicked and so I tried to pull my right leg over the bike, if you an imagine this, and landed head first, followed by right knee slamming down onto a log. All of this while still clipped in with my left foot.

It was quite a trainwreck of a scene and one that must have looked 10 times worse if you were a new rider approaching. I mean, this kind of crash had to come with a glorious story that included at least 5 feet of air and a tree.

But not this time. It wasn’t a tree or hairpin turn or another rider that caused my crash.  It wasn’t for lack of skill in the downhill or endurance for the uphill.  It was my vanity.  A hard lesson to learn, no doubt.

But the picture is great.

/p>