Ali's Rocky Ride

by Molly Hurford

  I don’t want to admit to her that I really don’t care what it does for my recovery as long as it tastes this good!

  After we have our smoothies and pack up, it’s right back to the mountain, and we breeze through the rental line like we’re regulars. Because we kind of are.

  Once we put our gear on again, this time with all of us in our baggies instead of a mishmash of leggings and bike shorts, I have to say, we’re looking pretty cool. Phoebe snaps a picture of the three of us holding our bikes, with the mountain behind us, and while we’re pretty unrecognizable with our massive full-face helmets, I’m excited to get a group picture.

  This one is definitely going on the wall in my room, next to the posters of pro women (and a couple of pro men) like world champion mountain biker Kate Courtney and the amazingly awesome downhiller Micayla Gatto. I also have pictures of my brothers and me at races, plus a few photos from the Joyride bike park earlier this summer and all of us competing. Phoebe called it my aspirational and inspirational wall when she saw it, and she’s exactly right.

  Before I can feel inspired, though, I have to face my current nemesis: the chairlift. I was hoping to be smooth about the chairlift at the bottom, remembering the steps we go through every time—walk up with your bike, roll it onto the bike rack, then sit back down on the ski lift chair and pull the bar down—but I still manage to miss putting my wheel in the right spot.

  Luckily, the attendant is really nice about it, and makes sure we’re all secure before we whoosh our way up the hill. And at the top, there are people unloading the bikes for us, so there isn’t as much stress then. Just have to jump off and not fall on my face, which I manage, though I do trip a bit.

  It’s getting to be less freaky, the “going up the hill at high speeds” part of the ride, anyway. Today, we don’t spend a lot of time riding around at the top. We go straight over to the easiest run, and Phoebe leads us into the trail, cautioning us to leave plenty of space between each other as we follow her down. This time I’m behind Jen, and Lindsay is behind me, and we’re going a little bit faster than we did the other day, because we’re a lot less nervous about it. After all, we went down much tougher trails yesterday, even if they didn’t involve a mountain. Today Phoebe wants us to really focus on speed—going down the easy trails as quickly as we can but without losing control.

  I think that sounds easy…until I see Jen hit a corner ahead of me a little too fast and almost fly off the side of the trail before she skids to an awkward stop. She waves me by and gives me a thumbs-up to indicate that she’s okay, so I swing around her and keep going down. (I would stop, but you’re not supposed to block the trail, and she’s already stepping back onto her bike.)

  Her almost-crash makes me focus harder, since I was starting to let my mind wander. Now I’m paying ultra-close attention to the trail, trying to feather my brakes—“squeeze them gently; don’t grab,” Phoebe always says—as corners approach, so that I can hit them at the right speed. Just like the pump track, I think.

  Of course, there are a lot more trees here, but still, it’s pretty similar. And like Phoebe always tells us, we want to go into the corners at a smooth, comfortable speed so we don’t need to brake while in the corners. That’s what Jen must have done back there, I realize.

  I take the next turn a little bit faster but still pull on my brake a bit so that I can slow down enough to safely make it through the turn. I can actually hear Jen behind me, her tires making whirring noises as she closes the gap between us. I know she’s trying her hardest to catch me, and that only makes me want to go a little faster.

  There’s a tiny whoop toward the end of the trail that I nervously rolled over last time instead of trying to get air, but today I’m more determined. So as I see it coming up, I actually pedal a couple more times in order to pick up speed, instead of braking to slow down enough to roll over it. I hit it at full speed—well, full speed for me, anyway—and remember to think light and let my bike do what it wants underneath me. And it really wants to jump.

  I also remember Phoebe teaching us the ponytail trick, and while I don’t have much hair jammed into my tiny ponytail, I remember the basic idea. Heading up the jump, my ponytail should be in the air, and I can feel the wind on the back of my neck blowing upward, so I know I have it right. When I start to press my weight down so that I land smoothly, I feel the air whoosh back down.

  This all happens in under a second, but it feels like time has slowed down enough to let me have this smooth moment. I hear Phoebe give a loud “Woooo!” from where she’s watching at the bottom, and as I reconnect with the dirt, I roll the last few seconds to where she’s standing.

  She high-fives me, and I pull my helmet off as Jen rolls the jump, only getting a tiny bit of air. “That was great!” Phoebe tells me. “You seemed so much more confident!”

  “I felt more confident,” I admit. “Now that I know the turns a little better and understand this bike, it seems easier.”

  Jen skids to a stop next to me, with Lindsay right behind her, and Jen whips her helmet off.

  “This bike is sooooo mushy feeling,” she says grumpily.

  “That’s just how the suspension feels,” Phoebe tells her, but she does go over to Jen’s bike. Jen hops off, and Phoebe presses down on the seat and watches it depress a few inches. Then she lets go and it pops back up. Then she presses into the handlebars and the same thing happens.

  “It seems okay,” Phoebe says, and hands the bike back. “You’re still not used to suspension from the road bike or BMX bike, since neither have any. It’s great for making the ride smoother and for helping you carve in corners, but it does take some getting used to before it really feels like it’s working right. You’ll get it.”

  Jen still looks mutinous, but nods.

  “Do four more runs, then meet me back here,” Phoebe tells us, and we head toward the lift again. It starts to feel almost routine, whizzing up the mountain and pummeling down it on our bikes on repeat. I never thought riding a downhill bike would feel so easy, but I’m thrilled by the sensation.

  Apparently I’m the only one, though.

  “This is so boring,” Jen complains after our third run down.

  “But I do feel like I’m getting faster,” I counter. “That third corner? I definitely hit it smoother than I ever have that time.”

  “And only one more run until we’re done,” says Lindsay. “I bet I can beat your time down it!”

  “You’re on,” Jen shouts, her annoyance forgotten at the chance to race. I don’t have the heart to tell them that we don’t have timers, but maybe it’s for the best if they aren’t able to tell who wins.

  When we finally make it down our last hill repetition, Phoebe is waiting at the bottom. “Nice work, girls,” she tells us. “I think that run was your best!”

  “Umm…Thanks. And also, snacktime?” Lindsay asks, looking hopeful.

  Phoebe looks like she’s about to say “Already?” but Lindsay gets hangry easily, so Phoebe clearly thinks better of it. “Sure, let’s go sit in the shade and have a sandwich,” she says, leading us toward the picnic tables. She stashed a bunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into her backpack before we left, and she hands out half a sandwich to each of us.

  “Not a whole one?” Lindsay looks crestfallen.

  “We have more riding to do, and you don’t want to be super full,” Phoebe says as she takes a bite. “You want a slow and steady stream of calories in, not one big dump. And you can really only do a couple of runs before you need another break, anyway.”

  As we all nod, a shadow falls over the group. Great. It’s Steven and Leo, in their much-cooler-than-our-rented-stuff downhill gear with all their team logos, their hair artfully mussed, and their helmets hanging from their handlebars. They look like a poster for the bike park, to be honest, and it just makes me grumpy.

  CHAPTER 9
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  “How was your ride?” Steven asks.

  “Good, so far,” Jen says. “But I crashed pretty hard on that last run.”

  Instead of making fun of her—which I’m pretty sure they would do if it had been me on the ground instead of Jen—they both reach in and high-five her. “That’s awesome,” says Leo.

  Awesome? If I crashed, I wouldn’t hear the end of it. I roll my eyes, but Leo doesn’t notice.

  “That’s what I keep telling them!” Phoebe nods enthusiastically. “Lindsay, what’s the first rule of biking?”

  “Umm, keep your bike clean so your parents don’t make you keep it outside?” she says cautiously.

  “Okay, after that one.” Phoebe rolls her eyes.

  “Right! Don’t be afraid to make little mistakes, since they teach you how to avoid big mistakes and they teach you where your limits are!” Lindsay says, much more confidently.

  “That’s a good one,” says Steven. “I probably should have followed that and skipped a few of the big mistakes,” he adds.

  Who knew Steven could be thoughtful?

  “Want to do a run with us?” Leo asks. My brothers might drive me crazy, but they do include me in a lot of stuff, and for that, I’m grateful. But this will be the first time we’ve all downhilled together.

  “That would be great!” says Phoebe. “Lindsay, are you okay with Steven following you? Jen, I’ll go with you, and Leo, why don’t you go with your sister.” We all nod, because clearly Phoebe has made up her mind. Jen looks a little moody that she’s not riding with Steven or Leo, but I think I understand why Phoebe kept Jen with her: her show-off nature might get her hurt if she’s trying to go extra fast to impress my brothers. Phoebe can keep her in check.

  Still, it means I’m stuck with Leo. Great.

  So, this time on the chairlift, I’m crammed between him and Phoebe, while Jen sits behind us with Lindsay and Steven.

  “Try to enjoy it,” Phoebe whispers. “You’ve been doing great, and he’ll see that. Just stay calm.”

  Perfect. No problem. When we get to the top, I try to get off the chairlift smoothly but fumble a little bit. Hopefully Leo doesn’t notice, but I’m sure he does. I grab my bike grumpily and walk toward the green (easy) trail that we’ve been riding every time.

  “Ali,” he calls. I look back. “Let’s try this one,” he says, pointing at one of the blue square trails. That means it’s intermediate, so it’s going to be harder than the green beginner trail we’ve been doing. And I haven’t been on it, so it’s going to be a blind trail, with my idiot brother behind me. Sure, what could possibly go wrong?

  I realize that I’m trapped. If I say I want to do the easier trail, he’ll know I’m too scared to go down the harder trail with him watching. But if I do the harder trail, it’s going to be much more obvious when I mess up.

  What would Phoebe say? “Reverse that thinking. Visualize. Meditate.” None of those things is very helpful right now, to be honest, but I know what she would probably tell me. Going down the blue trail should be fine. Leo would never suggest that I do something that had a real risk of me getting hurt. I know that. I just…can’t mess up.

  That’s it. My mind is made up. Blue trail, yes. But I’ll be smart and cautious, I decide as I pedal over. I’ll take my time around each corner and not wipe out.

  The first part of the trail is straight downhill, though a lot steeper than the gentle roll-in on the green trail. Leo is right on my wheel, and I tighten up on the brakes a bit and ease my weight back to hover a little more over the back tire. My pedals are nice and level, my knees are slightly bent, and my elbows are winged out. I’m in perfect attack position.

  The first corner comes up, and I slow even more, taking my time edging through it. Annoyingly, I need to pedal a few strokes to speed back up on my way out of it, and my timing feels all screwy. But I haven’t made a mistake yet.

  “Could you let off the brakes a little?” Leo shouts behind me after the third corner I need to pedal out of to regain momentum. “I know you can go faster than this.”

  I would look back and glare at him, but I’m nervous about the trail, and rather than speed up, I find myself slowing down even more. I can see out of the corner of my eye that Leo is right on my back wheel, and as another small jump comes up, I slow down again so that I don’t launch into the air over it.

  “Pull over!” Leo yells, sounding angry.

  I edge my way off the trail and pull my big goggles off. “What?” I ask, glaring at him over my shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” he asks, looking as irritated as I feel.

  “I was riding down this trail,” I say.

  “Wrong. You were oozing down the trail slower than I could jog it,” he corrects me. “I’ve seen you hit jumps much bigger than that. Why are you suddenly going so slow?”

  “I’m not doing anything different,” I say defiantly, crossing my arms.

  “Okay, here’s the deal: I promise I won’t make fun of you if you wipe out once on the way down the rest of this hill. Heck, I’ll even give you twenty bucks if you wipe out,” he says, looking very serious.

  I grin. This might be the easiest twenty bucks I’ve ever earned, or the most painful. Either way, somehow he’s managed to rev me up.

  “Fine,” I say, and pull my goggles back down. “Try to keep up.”

  As I push off and start descending again, I hear him shout, “Don’t do anything too stupid!” like he suddenly realized what he’s asking me to do.

  But it’s too late for that, because I’m already off at top speed, blazing down the trail and feeling irritated that I got goaded into going faster than I wanted. I’m nervous that I’m going to crash in a corner, but also happy to be moving quick enough to feel the wind whipping the bottom bits of my hair around. First corner that comes up, I almost tap the brake, but I stop myself and lean into it, pressing down and using the tread of the tires to hook into the dirt to get traction. I swing along the banked turn like it has rails, and fly down the next small descent. I hear Leo whooping behind me, but I’m not focusing on showing off for him anymore. Now I’m all about making a statement and making this the best run of my day.

  Which, duh, is when things start to go all wrong. I hit the next corner, a left-hander instead of a right turn, and when I try to hook up the way I did in the last corner, I don’t push hard enough or evenly enough and I start to skid out. Luckily, downhill bikes have flat pedals, so I’m able to bounce my foot against the ground and basically stand like a flamingo, hopping once, twice, and then I’m back upright and pedaling.

  Phew. That was close to a wipeout, and I think Leo will have to count it.

  I can see the bottom of the chairlift through a copse of trees now. I’m almost there! I pedal hard when I hit a section that’s straight and a little flat, to try to get my speed up.

  Downhilling is weird—there are a lot of times when the “down” part is so steep that the way you speed up is by just not braking. There aren’t that many spots where you can actually pedal, so when you do hit a spot like that, you have to make it count.

  As we hit the wide-open straight shot down to the chairlift area and the end of the run, Leo tries to sneak around me. He runs his bike up a bank on the side of the trail and tries to dive around me using his momentum, but I pedal another few really hard strokes.

  That does the trick—I barely manage to stay ahead of him. But the hard effort costs me a bit of control, and I wildly come into the bottom roll-out from the run.

  Normally, you can gradually slow down before you get back to the village area, where people are walking around. Not this time. I careen into it, practically flying off the ground. I start to pull on the brakes as I see the trail coming to an end, and they squeal as they engage. I skid just a little, almost fly off the trail, but I loosen my grip on the brakes and get back to riding a
straight line.

  Still wobbling a little, for a terrifying second I have the feeling that I’m about to crash-land. Luckily, I manage to slow without any major incident—but it takes me until the very end of the trail to get steady again. Leo is right on my wheel and smoothly comes around me and skids to a stop in front of me.

  “That second half was much better,” he says. “You really did a good job in that corner where you almost slid out.”

  I knew he would say that.

  “And when I said ‘wipe out,’ I didn’t mean at the end, where you might hit another cyclist or someone walking in the village,” he adds. “Pick your battles.”

  I scowl and hold out my hand for my twenty dollars because I really feel like that almost-crash earned it. I mean, I had a foot on the ground. And I didn’t crash into anyone else.

  He laughs, unzips his shorts pocket, and fumbles for his wallet. “Fine, fine,” he says, and slaps a twenty into my palm. “Treat your friends later,” he adds, and points to the hill where Lindsay is right ahead of Steven, and Jen is leading Phoebe.

  “For now let’s do another lap, and you can try to stay on my wheel,” he says, starting over toward the lift line.

  Everyone else pedals after us as soon as they hit the pavement.

  Riding behind Leo is less scary than riding up front, but it’s also a lot more work. I can tell he’s pushing the pace, which forces me to go faster than I normally would, but it also shows me how quick I can take certain turns and corners. So when we finish the next run, I’m grinning as I pull up only a couple of seconds after him.

  “Following a wheel makes it so much easier to go faster,” Lindsay notes as soon as she pulls off her helmet. Jen nods.

  “You girls are doing way better than most kids I’ve seen starting out,” Steven tells us, and we all grin like idiots. Even if my brothers drive me crazy, I take their opinion of my riding very seriously.