Ridin' Friday: Cache Creek Sidewalk or Why I Might Be A Masochist

As strong as you get, there will always be one more hill you can't quite pull off. I'm pretty sure that's in the Constitution. Maybe even the United Nations bylaws.

By the time I got to the Cache Creek Trailhead the Sunday of my attempt at Cache Creek Sidewalk, I'd proven that one pretty freaking thoroughly on the extended uphill it takes to get there from the main road. I wasn't too tired to keep riding or anything, but I did have to stop once or twice for the sake of my legs.

But at last I made it, and easily found the sidewalk. I mounted up, thinking that maybe if this was fun I'd try my luck at following the little connecting trail to Putt Putt (another trail touted by a ranger as fun for newbie single trackers) and make a loop of it. The view looking down from Cache Creek Sidewalk is pretty, and I was a-bristle with spit 'n' vinegar and curiosity.

I headed down a curving downhill portion of the trail that is liberally sprinkled with medium-to-large rocks. Rather quickly, I realized this wasn't going to be so easy. The thing about single-track riding, especially when you're on a single track with a steep drop on one side, is that when your front tires bounce off rocks, you just don't have a lot of time to correct your course. As I gained momentum on the downhill, I averted two near-falls, feeling a hint of anxiety rising in my throat.

Then I hit a particularly large rock and in correcting, bounced off another, then another. I realized with a little thrill of fear that while basic physics was in control of my bike, I was not. Then I was landing in a patch of brush on (thankfully) one of the wider patches of trail. After making sure I could sit up (I could), I realized my feet got knocked off the pedals and I'd pitched over the handlebars of my bike.

"Man, I wish someone were videotaping that," I thought. Followed rather quickly by "ow." Everything seemed to be working, despite what looked like a series of scrapes on my calf. Nothing serious, but one of those falls that pays for the helmet. As for my bike, which took the brunt of the fall, the handlebars twisted around themselves so that the brake cables were a tangled mess. I got them all untwisted, and established that everything on the bike seemed to be working.

Evidence for my masochism #1 - I then got back on and continued riding. Cache Creek Sidewalk just isn't that long, I figured. Plus, getting bucked off a horse is way scarier and that's happened to me before. What kind of wimp can't get back on a bike after a little fall?

So I kept going. And you know what? I am not the tiniest bit ashamed to say that it was hard. Scarcely a straightaway on the whole trail, and not one rock-free patch. How anyone gains momentum enough to make it up some of the hills I can't tell you, since the entire practice of single-track riding has got to be one of the more anti-momentum activities since sitting. God knows, I finished, but it was one of the hardest 1.5 miles of my life. It was gorgeous, but between shoving myself forward, trying not to rebound down the cliff on my right and sweating/swearing a lot, I didn't really pull off pictures.

I reached the end, and realized I must look really disheveled. Not because I was actively thinking about my appearance, but because a man on the main trail with his kids did a double-take and asked if I was all right. I explained the fall, and the man insisted on looking over my bike. Turns out part of my difficulty in controlling the bike was because I knocked out my front brakes in the fall.

See, your brakes are supposed to look like this:

And one of them did. However, the other one looked like this:

If you're good at those "find the difference" puzzles, you already know what's wrong. Spoiler - If you guessed that one of the brakes was mysteriously missing the little silver bolt holding the cable into the actual brake mechanism, you are correct. Without it, using the brake had no effect on the actual motion of the bike. I still had my back brakes, which are more important in mountain biking, but it kind of freaked me out. When I made it to Hoff's for a repair, it turned out I also bent a key part of my gear shift and knocked both wheels out of alignment. Since Hoff's is awesome, it only cost me $30 to fix it all, and no charge for the new bolt, but who knew a little fall could do so much damage?

Evidence for my masochism #2 - looking back, I think I had a good time. I still want to do single-track riding. I can think of what I would do differently and I am as excited as ever to see if I'm right. By the end, I recall, I was a lot closer to getting this right. Surely getting it totally right is just around the corner.

Am I insane?

Or am I just a bike person now?

And is there really much of a difference?