F-Blog – Fearful gorgeousness

Sunday last delivered me a fine offroad session up Albion Hills way — just some trail that the ATVs use. It was gorgeous and it scared me. Intermittent sand patches, which are pure Hail Mary on a bike wearing street tires — you just have to remember to give’r on the throttle and steer like a man awakened by poisonous snakes in each hand, and hope you make it across to the traction again.

Almost lost Naomi (that’s what I’ve named she-bike) when I ran out of bite going up a hill and had to back it down — bike’s so heavy it wouldn’t even roll backwards downhill through sand and rocks. Was I sweating and whimpering, please don’t let me drop her, she’s too young? Yes, and in several tongues.

Next day I went down another ATV trail I noticed going off the tertiary. What a night-fugging-mare. Gravel. Deep, skiddy, corn-flake dry, hurtful, mean gravel, perfect for an ATV with fat tires, and the opposite of perfect for me. Got about 200 feet in, realized I had to turn around or have no end of drama, but as usual, when I try Naomi just sits there like a 250kg carcass, mosquitoes coming in like a million Spitfires and it’s a wall of jungle on either side, no room for my proven 20-point turn escape technique. Needed, located, my superhuman, turned the blob around like she was balsawood and roared out of there, drenched and panting, sticks and stones for a wake.

Stayed on road from then on. Stumbled into Cayuga, home of the Cayuga International Raceway, and what was there but roadbike racers. Watched the superbikes peel a beautiful course for an hour or so, had a burger back in town on the river, let the sun drop and then headed home via the escarpment, the 400-mile long, 400-or-so-foot-high limestone scar mostly covered with forest and farm that I am eternally discovering the wonders of. I’ve climbed it, caved it, hiked it, mtn biked it, contracted full-body blooms of poison ivy on it and now I’ll be touring it. Tomorrow, I hope.

Finally got a (mediocre) shot of Naomi and me out west of Hamilton. Will try to do better in the coming decades.

Paul Fenn

F-Blog – Fearful gorgeousness