Louis is off to lands far, but first he showed me some of the 50 year “B lines”.
The man rides like no one else. His terrain (west side Catalinas) has shaped him. Yet many ride here, few like he does.
Louis doesn’t cut vegetation for his lines. He considers it an added technical challenge. The move requires ducking under an ocotillo, hucking a three foot drop, then–immediately upon impact–turning to avoid going straight into a prickly pear? No problem! Great!
Considering that the Sonoran Desert has the greatest concentration of plants designed to lacerate skin, this is pretty remarkable. He’s right, you don’t need to trim back every little prickly plant. Makes the margin for error effectively zero. It’s interesting to contrast this with the current 1-track we’re building at Starr Pass and on the AZT. Whole ocotillos get ripped out by the dozen, chollas are not safe, and prickly pear? Please.
Many of his lines are not covered by cacti, but they are frightening as hell. My confidence has been riding at an all time high after some good runs at Brown Mtn and Milagrosa. So I found myself willing to ride closer to my abilities and not listen to the voice saying “live to ride another day” (aka common sense).
And the result was that it was really fun. It was great to have Louis so I not only knew where the lines were, but also I saw him ride them — knowing that they are rideable makes all the difference. Having someone to follow off things is even better, if you can avoid the disease known as handbrake-ititus.
Take a look at that one. See if you can tell where I’m heading, and what I’m going to do once I get there. I have another pic in the sequence, but I’ve been told that it spoils the surprise, so I’ll refrain from posting it.
It was a great afternoon. For ~5 hours out, we only covered 10 miles. But I was mentally exhausted by the end. That night I couldn’t shut my mind down. It ran repeatedly through the moves I had ridden during the day, questioning the wisdom of it all. No crashes, no close calls. Just pushed further out of my comfort zone than I’m used to. It’s a great feeling to be making progress (or to have an “on” day) and I’ve always enjoyed the technical aspects of riding. But in the end, this isn’t the kind of riding I want to do every day. There are so many other aspects of being on a bike that are appealing, and are not as dangerous.
Like this.
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