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A Ride Report from Portland Oregon.
Carrying the grace of a California Boy - green, golden, and filled
with the light of the spirit of mountain biking, fate parted the clouds of a common
Northwestern morning, brought out the sun, blue skies, and other gifts of
the Gods reserved only for the elect, and we rode the splendid trails of the
Forest Park, a gem of urban green space of which Portland can be truly
proud.
As with any graceful hint of sublime perfection that a graceful God
gives his manly minions, there had to be the Zen flaw, the trace of imperfection
which the Lord, in his supreme creative wisdom, uses to unite the opposing forces
of light and dark to create the natural wonders of his magical realm, the
bountiful earth.
In this case the perfection was a fantastic forest of great variety,
saved for a grateful mountain biking public, who, as the day wore on appeared in
droves to reap the bountiful harvest of wide, broad dirt and gravel roads.
As is to be found in so many places in America and indeed all over God's green
earth, the mountain bikers outnumbered the hikers three to one. Only the
ultimately wise and grateful bicyclists seem to truly appreciate the wonders
of outdoor living saved, so it would seem, expressly for them by a wise and
giving civic government.
The flaw, as is also so typical in America's unenlightened sectors
of managed recreation, was singletrack trails of glory, pronounced by signs to
be illegal for bikes.
Beautiful as the forest was, and it was stunningly beautiful: water
cascading down small rivulets through the fern-laden canyons; thick
multihued carpets of deciduous leaves blanketing the roads and the forest
bed; occasional clouds and misting rains falling through the spectrum of
gold and yellow light rays from the sun bursting a myriad of rainbows and
colors upon the evergreens; the very width of the road somehow muted and mottled the mystic,
primeval quality of the entire experience. The innocence of the forest somehow
seemed corrupted and gross. What is this awesome power of the fire road? Like a
satanic satyr in the midst of a soiree of vestal virgins, the fire road
seems an unwanted crudity upon the face of the woods. Its too big. It begs
attention to itself. It says "bulldozer was here!"
After climbing up the 4% grade for nine miles, we came out on
Skyline Rd. We took the pavement another mile south and then dropped back in on
Springhill Rd., another fire road. From there it was Fire Lane 7. The
leaves were incredibly thick and, with a lack of gravel, the wet earth had
become somewhat soupy, though not sticky. We found ourselves on a steep
descent fighting the road's efforts to defeat traction and reclaim us, face
first, into the ground from which we sprung, spirit beings now on bikes, 48
years ago. Barely managing to hang on to our bikes and lives, (a somewhat
tenuous combination at times) we arrived in one piece at a trail
intersection. It took no effort whatsoever to turn a blind eye to the
symbol of all ignorance, the all-potent omen of great riding, the
negative declaration that symbolizes, nationwide, the forces of ignorance,
oppression, stupidity, bureaucracy, waste, mismanagement, and officious
zealotry, the no-bikes sign. We hung a right and rode north. God, in his wisdom,
has provided men with challenges that will lead them from the dark of animal ignorance and
obfuscated confusion toward the light of wisdom and ultimate truth. In this case, the
ultimate truth was blindingly simple, pure wisdom, unfettered joy, and passion unleashed.
Reverberating through our subconscious minds during the entire fire road portion of the
ride was the nagging knowledge that something was wrong. There had to be an
alternative to the broad avenue of overstatement and overwrought crudescense
that the fire road represented so perfectly. There had to be a flat,
meandering, single track trail that wandered through the woods, gently
following the curves and contours of the hill, caressing the flanks of the
ridges with a narrow tread that seemed to whisper to the trees of a mystical
presence, a leaf-strewn silence, a stream-crossed route back through time to
the dawn of life on the planet. There had to be and there was. This was
just such a trail.
To traverse such a route, meticulously balanced on a high-tech
charger of two-wheeled, silent running, was to bring both worlds of ancient beginnings
and silent creative power of God and life into pure focused harmony with the
modern world of human invention, skill, inquiry and rigorous endeavor. We
unified the forces of nature and man. We found the perfect balance, a
mirror of the balance we maintained on our two-wheeled steeds, between action and
inaction, man and nature, good and evil, light and dark, perfection and
flaw, justice and oppression, entropy and negentropy, being and the void. We
became criminals and righteous men in one pure moment of stolen bliss. No man can
call us wrong for having seized our prerogative and found our moment in the
sun, our simple true knowledge of what is ultimately right and true despite
the common laws of everyday life and mundane men. It was a really nice
trail.
Saturday, it was raining again, as it did on Wednesday, as it did on
Thursday. As it does way too much for my liking, year 'round, here. But
yesterday, for a brief moment, the sun shone on us as we rode four miles of
narrow wonder, unified with the forest, undivided in our attention, our
balance, our knowledge of right and truth, and in having a hell of a great
time. Wish you'd been there.
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