Christmas Ride

Medium-rare is the mountain bike ride that is fueled from the carcass of an eight-pound rib roast with a horseradish and garlic crust. Kitima spends most early December mornings like G.I. Jane grunting through a regimen of one-armed pull-ups and no-armed push-ups in an effort to be able to hoist the annual hunk of bovine flesh from fridge to counter to oven and out again. Now I know why meat has to rest.

On the Eve and on Christmas Day we went over to Dryer Rd. Park. The first day we met her friends Mary Ellen and Chris, who, like us, got up at the crack of eleven. There isn't a dawn at noon.

The trails were medium-packed and like riding on a tremendously long and twisting pair of white corduroy pants with a bizarre pattern; possibly factory seconds. I found myself trying to identify tires from the tracks left behind. This could be a trivia game for the gal and boys back at the shop.

"I'll take cross tires in the mud for $400 Alex."
"The tire shown here, know for it's prowess in the slop, is only available in tubulars."



Being Thai I wonder if Kitima is having thoughts of the Bridge Over the River Kwai as she rides across this span. Is this Western Thailand? Is it the Burmese Railroad? Is that a Brit manning the TNT plunger?

Safely across she gives the thumbs-up.

At the top of Owl's Maze I attempted a reverse-fakey-butt grab-arbor-vert-Superman. It ended tragically. The bike was fine.

Here I am about to launch into some epic air; at least ten feet but the Thai camerawoman (I won't mention any names) suffered from premature aperturation.