Our long and winding trail into mountain biking

Our first experience with mountain biking can be traced more than a quarter of century ago, when we moved from New York to Park City, Utah. The early 80s was the beginning of the sport and we bought two Scott mountain bikes, with fat tires, 24 speed and zero suspension. We used them on the asphalt a few times and I may have tried mine on a real trail and found that it was too much work. From that moment on, the bikes stayed in our garage.

Fast-forward to 1990, our move to a new home and the advent of some form of front suspension; we got rid of the first bikes and purchased two Kästle mountain bikes with a semblance of front suspension. Same scenario. We used them a couple of times, I even flipped over the handlebar in the area where the St. Regis hotel stands today, and through divine intervention didn't kill myself then.

After that, the bike remained hung-up, high in our big garage. We subsequently sold the house, including the unused bicycles. Finally, in 2005, I relapsed and purchased two state of the art mountain bikes (front and rear suspension, disk brakes, the work...) My wife gave me the kind of look that said something like “you'll never learn...” The first Fall season we got our new bikes, we began to use them on the easy stuff, like the rail-trail and made a few timid forays into single-track territory.

We were clumsy but we seemed to like it (failure didn't seem to be a valid option...) The following summer season, I am now retired and we have much more time available. We become more attracted by the world of single-track and – unbeknownst to us – began to pick up more technique and start enjoying it more. Each subsequent season, we added more days, more challenges, more skills and much more fun.

Make no mistake, this is a hard sport and I bet that there are a multitude of mountain bikes out-there that, like our first two sets of bikes are hanging indefinitely in some garage, even though they were purchased with the very best of intentions! In some next blog, I'll try to explain why getting “traction” in mountain biking is so hard; stay tuned...