The weekend before last I had a chance to take my bike and go exploring.
Exploring is the right word. Previously I wrote about how I enjoy riding in hilly land and discovering what is beyond the horizon and on the other side of every hill. But there is another, slightly different, and somewhat overlapping, aspect. For me the perfect bike ride is not a trip on the highway, main road, or residential area–however hilly they might be. The good bike rides are those that go on the back roads, traveling through the dells and narrow gulleys, passing by the lonely houses and old farms where few live, and not many go. The more strange and full of wilderness a place is, the better.
My recent exploring ended up as one of the best bike rides I’ve ever taken.
We live a few miles distant from a river. The opposite bank rises steeply, covered with trees, a wall that brings the world up short. Most of the opposite bank doesn’t look occupied–a blank wall of trees being all you see–but I recently came to realize that there was a road following much of the railroad track which follows the river valley. Curiosity, of course, pricked me and it went onto the list of places I needed to explore.
It was a beautiful sunny Saturday when I went out for the ride. I crossed the river and then the railroad tracks and started up the narrow road. The steep hill face was on my left, with fallen trees and gullies gouging the earth. On my right was the railroad tracks and beyond that the glittering water of the river.
I kept going. After the first cluster of houses at the intersection with the main road the remaining dwellings quickly spread out, following each other only at a distance. I pedaled on, enjoying the view and marveling at the hill towering directly over me.
Then, abruptly, the road came to an end. Well, not exactly to an end, but the thin narrow strip of the paved road stopped, and what continued on through the trees was a narrow rutted track. The path ahead, disappearing into the trees, looked so tenuous it seemed to deny continuing on for any length.
“Rats,” I said, coming to a stop. Then I noticed there were a few people outside the last house at the end of the line. They appeared to be having some type of garage sale. I knew from the map that the road was supposed to continue to the other side, but the map bases for the topographical maps is quite old. Could the road actually not come out on the other side? I was left waffling as to whether I wanted to bother trying to continue on or just give up and turn back.
“Does the road continue through to the other side?” I asked a lady nearby.
“Yeah,” she said. “It does. But the going gets rough.”
That was all I needed to know. I didn’t care how hard the road was. I had a mountain bike–albeit a very cheap one from Walmart–and all I cared was that the road kept going. This narrow tree encroached path looked like the perfect place for some exploration.
As it turned out, “rough” only began to describe the way ahead. “Vehicularly impassable” would have been a better description. At first it wasn’t too bad. The road began to climb up the side of the hill. The railroad tracks and the river were below, beyond a steep bank. While the way was narrow, it was still passable by car or truck.
Then I came out in a small clearing. At the edge of the clearing there was a small, one room, windowless shack with a sign nailed on the front that said “90 acres for sale. For terms call–” and it gave a phone number. Beyond the shack there was a stream that ran through a gully and cut off the path forward. I got off the bike and did some exploration on foot and discovered that a winding path did ford the stream directly ahead (though it looked dangerous to try and take a four-wheel-drive vehicle across). The other choice was to take a path which swung up behind the cabin and followed the edge of the ravine to who knew where.
A split in the road is always a difficult choice for me. Which way to take? Which way would be more fun and filled with more strange things? Often, I choose the more indirect route, so long as it looks more interesting. This time I thought it would be much more fun to follow the ravine back up the hill than simply ford the stream and continue on directly.
I followed the path upward but it became too steep and overgrown so I eventually had to dismount and walk a distance. Eventually I came to another branch in the path. This time I had the choice of continuing on up, or else going back down in the direction of the original trail. My exploring instinct said go ever further afield. There were so many glorious places I could lose myself. I was now throughly off the beaten track. There was not a house anywhere in sight, not to mention electricity or any other sign of modern civilization. The only marker of humanity I had was the two rutted wheel tracks in front of me.
Reason won out this time. If I kept going ever more afield I would never end up finishing what I had initially set out to do–that is, follow the road that ran parallel to the river–and I don’t like leaving something undone. Telling myself that I could come back some other time and follow all of these other paths, I turned and took the other road which followed the gully back down.
The road pretty much disappeared entirely before I reached the bottom and managed to come back on the original track. I continued on, the road still climbing, the river spreading out ever further below. Trees closed in on every side, bedrock jutting out from the hillside on my right. Trilliums bloomed in white profusion in the thick brown carpet of last year’s leaves. It was quite a sight. I did take the digital camera with me, but of course more often than not I didn’t take pictures (much to my later regret).
I was much enjoying myself, except for one problem. Once deep into the uncivilized land I had to go to the bathroom. And, shall we say delicately, it was number two. Irony of ironies. Perhaps the first time on all my bike riding that I had to go really really bad was the one time I was far away from all amenities. I could not believe it and yet . . . well, one had to believe, if you know what I mean. I began to consider the various . . . possibilities, considering my circumstances and all that, but I was spared. The need passed, and I was allowed to continue on. (Note to self: In the future always bring necessary materials for such a situation. Preparation is the best guard against necessity.)
What goes up must come down, as they say, and after having followed the side of the hill up until I was looking down on the river valley spreading out below, I had my chance to descend once again. It was a hair raising descent. The path was narrow, rutted, steep, and with a long sharp embankment on the right. I am not one of those people who likes to take part in the extreme sport of hurtling at full tilt down an unbeaten path, but I wasn’t exactly going to dismount my bike and walk down the hill I had worked so hard riding up. So I chose the judicious use of brakes and thinking, “Aaaiieeee! Don’t hit the big rocks! Don’t hit the big rocks!”
There were two dangers in hitting a large rock laying in the middle of the path. One, I could go flying and perhaps dash myself to pieces on the rocky trail, or I could go sailing over the embankment to whatever fate awaited below. The other possibility was that I would hit a big rock, land rather unscathed, but completely bend my front tire rim out of shape. Then I would have to kill myself for my own incompetence. So, neither possibility was good.
I made it to the bottom in one piece. But I did have a problem with my bike. In fact, I am sorry that I do not have heaps of filthy lucre that I could by a very good mountain bike with. What I have is a cheap Walmart bike (hey, it fit my budget) and on this bike the front handle bar is attached to the stem via a friction fit collar. Previously I had suffered trouble with my handle bar rotating and coming loose in this collar and so not long before this bike ride I had tightened the clamp down as much as I dared. Well, midway through bouncing and careening down the hill the handle bars rotated once again under the force of my weight. This was not at all helpful for staying on the bike, or conducive to steering. I made it to the bottom all right, but am now mad at my bike, and looking for some jury-rig where I can make the handlebar never move again.
Eventually the road came out of the encroaching trees and became once again a paved pathway which decent civilized people could travel on with their vehicles. I passed through some good river valley farmland being freshly plowed, then crossed back over the river. The rest of the trip home was uneventful.
There is still more exploring to do, and I hope to sometime get other people up there . . . in the hopes that they will enjoy the sights as much as I did. It is amazing what wild places you can find in your own back yard.
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