A long hard road

I remember the first time I road my then shiny and new GT Outpost in anger. It was March 2008. I rode it along a canal, I think, right at the beginning, but it wasn't very exciting and it didn't make my heart sing. I wanted something more, and it involved adrenaline, mainly. We then road it around a country park near Preston, but it was only a 2 mile hack and that didn't quite float my boat either.

Then we went to Gisburn. Right now, most of the mountain biking world knows where and what Gisburn is. A year ago (oh how things change, thank you Adrenaline Gateway, thank you nice Council people) things were very very different. Gisburn was a hidden little backwater, certainly not a trail centre, just a tiny collection of routes which a involved a 30 minute internet trawl to yield something as simple as an up to date trail map. No toilets. No signposts. No cafe. No showers. No one else there.

The red route was a 10km hack around mostly forest roads, with a little bit of singletrack thrown in. 'The Rollercoaster' was work in progress and as a result a er.....diversion had been put in place which involved walking mid calf deep through assorted bogs. I remember sitting on the forest road after the diversion and asking Al why I was putting myself through this. Everything hurt. I was severely unfit at this point, drenched in sweat, bright red in the face and to add insult to injury had walked into a tree branch, though it thankfully missed my eye.

And then.

Then we found the singletrack. And I fell off. And I got back on. And I rode some more. And we found the rock garden in the middle of the bit where all the felling had happened, below the barn forest road. And I had to get off and walk it. And I remember muttering under my breath about not getting off one day.

And that was how I got bitten by the singletrack bug. By the mountain biking bug. By the understanding that all the pain of the uphill will always be rewarded by the sheer glee of the down. By being reminded what my body was designed to do and relishing the feeling of bruises and aching muscles. By being absolutely covered in mud, across my face and up my back, and knowing that I'd found something which would get me up off the sofa and out into the big wide open spaces.

I rode that rock garden 4 weeks later. On a GT Outpost. But that's another story.