Tales from the Trails

...through jarring bar-meet-tree incidents, and provided the painful awareness that flat pedals stick to shins as well as they do Stealth Rubber. Exhausted, muddied and bloodied, I was smitten. Happy as a pig in mud.

...new trails — an entire new trail system! — had been opened just half an hour from Seattle. Raging River, the emerging crown jewel of Pacific Northwest mountain biking.

And then, the whispers began. I can’t remember exactly where I was...

it was one of those situations where you want to look back and confirm everything you saw...but I also felt awkward about the interaction and so kept pedaling with that feeling of someone watching my back. It was such a weird encounter that I kept thinking about all the likely...

...Then I looked to the sides and all I saw was big bushes with no trails around. I heard and saw some bushes shaking and I looked behind me again...

...still saying nothing, he started jabbing at my wheel with his walking stick. At first I thought it was accidental...

...I met amazing people, went to amazing places, crashed a million times but overall, I was saving my own life...