22-Jul-97
DiskDancer@aol.com
I'm cruising along at race-like speeds w/ my friend, Nick. We figured that in our secret riding spot, we would be free of idiotic elderly couples who feel they need to do a "service" to the trail. We were unfortunately very wrong. In the forests surrounding the suburbs of Seattle, Wa., we have somewhat of a mud problem most of the year. The vast majority of the trail using population are unfortunately older, retired couples who take it upon themselves to drag huge bows of Douglass Fir into the mud patches, so as not to get their $5 pair of Keds all dirty when they walk across it. With me in the lead, speeding cross country over these log-infested death-traps of mud and debris, I experienced the first real crash to be felt while on my brand-new $800.00 Kona Cinder-Cone. I went strait through the first mudbar on the trail, wobbling slightly as my rear wheel tracked between two telephone-pole- sized branches. I barely had time to restablize before hitting the second mudpatch, when I biffed incredibly hard right in the middle of the 20' long sludge pit. I was ok, so I got up, and started riding again. I noticed a strange, intermitten hissing, and on the off-chance that it might be my new bike, instead of my friend's $300 store bike, I dismounted, and looked things over. I'd tacoed the rear wheel, giving me automatic-braking all the way home. It really sucked. I suppose the only upside was that I got to upgrade the rear rim from a Mavic 238 to a 220, the lightest rim in the Mavic Line. Oh well..... I guess there'll always be people who want to keep their shoes clean at the expense of the safety of others.

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