Mountain Biking in the Pinelands

11 January

Mike B. picks me up and we drive to John D's house. Hilda greets us with a ten-week-old orange kitten in her hands. We play with Phinneas and Max for a little while, then hit the road around 10 a.m.

We start near Mount Misery in Lebanon-- er, Brendan Byrne State Forest. The forecast snowstorm never materialized. It hardly ever snows down here anyway. The sand hasn't frozen, either, which might make for some tough going. It's below freezing out here. The wind is loud in the pines but we don't feel it.

John leads us down the White Trail. Chris follows; Mike and I lag behind.

A big tree is down over the trail. We have to lift our bikes over it.

We pass what's left of an overturned car. "Delray," it says on the side, in paint slightly less faded than the rest of the body, where no doubt metal letters once stood.



Which was here first, the car or the tree?




Mike finds an empty 40 and pretends to drink.



Lichen grows among rusty parts.



Our next obstacle is pitch pine lowland overflow, a series of deep puddles that I got my feet wet in last time when I tried to walk around the edges. Today I pedal through, following Chris' line. Mike follows without hesitation. Our feet stay dry.

Now we're climbing a series of moguls. At the top we ask John to take us back this way so we can fly down these little humps in the trail. A group of three bikers passes us; one is someone I know from a gym and the bike club. "It was too cold up north," she says.

We're at the top of a sandy bowl. All around us there are little, steep drops and inclines. We ride some of them, trying to find the trail, and have to double back to get where John wants to go.

We hear the sled dogs before we see them. There are more here today than I've ever seen: maybe a dozen cars and a dozen teams, people milling about, Huskies barking.

John and Mike start talking to the nearest racer. He shows us his "sled," a three-wheeler that looks like something between a tricycle and a go-cart.



"When they're going real fast I get down like this," he says.



"Do you race in Alaska?" I ask.

"Naah. It's too cold up there."

I wander around to take pictures of the dogs. They're skinny.



One does his best to lick every last molecule of food from his bowl.





The guy we're talking to tells us that there are several races out here each year. Some of these dogs run a hundred miles, but he doesn't run his more than seven. I say, "A hundred miles is a long way. We ride that."

He says, "I used to ride a hundred miles." He pats his stomach. "That was few pounds ago."

We learn that some of these Husky puppies have running wheels at home that need to be locked down sometimes because the dogs don't know when to stop.

I ask what becomes of dogs too old to race. He says he retires them when they start to tire easily. They become "couch potato dogs," he says.

A racer starts out on her sled, the dogs led by a trainer.



Just beyond the racers is the McDonalds Branch Gaging Station, where I did my field work during the Lost Years. I don't scream this time; I just pass it. If I keep coming out here, how many times will it take for me to have mountain biked past this spot more times than I was in it collecting soil and water? More than once a week for a year, and a handful of monthly visits before and after that, too. I'll never shed the memory.

At Pakim Pond Chris wants lunch. I take pictures.







We follow the White Trail some more and find ourselves next to a cranberry bog.

I pull out my camera again. While I take pictures, Mike takes a whizz. But he doesn't go far enough into the bushes: Chris has his camera and catches Mike in action. I'll spare him the humiliation here, but trust me, it's a good shot. At least he has his back turned. Anyway, take your mind out of the gutter and look at the scenery:





.

After the bog there is a lot of sand. We push through. My rear wheel is sliding all over the place but I manage not to fall. I'm out of breath when I reach John and Chris. "Do I shift down or up? I cant' figure it out?"

"Gear doesn't matter," Chris says. "Keep your weight on the back wheel. Move your butt back."

Mike struggles up to us and asks Chris the same question.

I kinda wish he'd said all this before we hit the sand.

John loops us back to Mount Misery. We're still good for a few more miles, so we head back up the White Trail, past the puddles, the dead tree, the dead car, on our way to the uphill moguls so we can ride them down.

Shortly after we start I wipe out on a sandy curve, hitting the sand with a comfortable plop. The best place to fall is in the Pinelands.

When we get to the top, to the pit, we ride around it, looking for an entrance to what seems like a fun drop into the sand from across the bowl. When I get to it the hill doesn't look nearly as long nor as steep as it did from across the way. I ride down it and grind to a halt in the sand below. Mike and Chris follow. John has already finished and climbed back up to the ridge where we started.

Now we're bouncing back down the moguls. We're back to the dead car in no time. Then it's over the dead tree and through the puddles once again. The wet slog takes whatever I have left right out of me.

It's time for lunch at the Apanay Cafe, the Piney diner on Magnolia Road in Ong's Hat. John heads home but Mike, Chris, and I stay. For the first time in years I find something besides salad on the menu that isn't fried. I get an egg-white omlette, but we're sharing onion rings to balance it out.

By the time Mike drops me off at home it's after 3 p.m.

A propos to nothing, here's a picture of my parents' lotus lamp. The flash drowned out everything in the background.