Another weekend of perfect weather made outdoor adventures mandatory. Sally and I were feeling lazy, so I proposed a route that promised very few steep grades. Starting from my driveway, we pedaled companionably across town (if you can call Mentone a town) on paved streets, until we reached the conservancy in Marlboro Hills. There’s only one steep climb and that’s preceded by a thrilling downhill that allows one to use momentum to ascend at least a quarter of it with no effort.

We paused at the secret spring at the college entrance where a tiny pond collects enough water for small fish to propagate. Though it’s within sight of the road, it feels secluded as it’s surrounded by the natural canyon wall and some strategically planted eucalyptus trees. After a short rest, we continued up through the college, taking the most gradual route to the Crafton Hills Conservancy. Due to our lethargy, we contemplated turning towards home at various points but found ourselves at the Back Breaker intersection and again paused to consider our options.

Sally lay in the grass while I reclined on the bench, reveling in the childlike pleasure of having nowhere to be but in the moment. Continuing east meant climbing the fire road, which was mostly not very steep, and turning back involved one hike-a-bike climb (the previously mentioned thrilling downhill), so we opted for the continued gradual ascent. I suppose our old-lady-paced ascent had us feeling appropriately guilty, so I suggested we take the Long Cut which meant a short effort with a meaningful descent back to the fire road. By “meaningful”, of course, I mean exhilarating. We lowered our seats and pointed our bikes downhill, scouting ahead for ruts or other obstacles. The very end of the Long Cut drops off an embankment that’s about 15′ high and you can’t really see the trail until you’re committed, so it lends a bit of excitement.

Having roused our inner mountain biker instinct with a smidge of adrenaline, I continued down the ridge without consulting Sally. She, naturally, followed me. The next section of confidence-building trail had us at the intersection of three options: climb back up to the Yikes trail (not going to happen); continue down Escalator (not all that interesting); or ROLLER COASTER (shudder!). To my utter amazement, Sally voted for Roller Coaster. We were tired and it offered the shortest (read “steepest”) route home.

I know I’ve described Roller Coaster before, but each time we ride it, it’s a new adventure. The trail changes with every rain storm and the traction varies from non-existent to barely noticeable. What never changes is how sweaty my hands get when I describe it. After an introductory, gentle swoop down and then up, the trail simply disappears. Until, that is, your front wheel is over the edge and the hill falls away into an abyss with a menacing rut meandering along the line you want to ride.

Once you have gathered the courage to slide down the steepest part, navigated the berm that forces you onto the edge of the rut, there’s a lovely rollout to the next ascent. And then the trail rolls benignly through a tunnel of aromatic brush, until….you arrive at the final descent to the highway. Oh, I skipped a couple of interesting sections but they pale by comparison to the FINAL descent.

Honestly, the traction was pretty good and Sally was right on my wheel as I made the turn onto what’s probably, no definitely, the most challenging section of trail. At first it’s steep, but there are no real challenges as you can pretty much either control your slide or not, as long as you regain control by the time you get to the part where the ruts start to vie for your attention. At this point, you had better be looking ahead for a place to bleed off some speed because, if you brake too hard here, you will certainly slip into the rut. Okay, if I’m honest, you can ride the rut because it’s not that deep and it’s fairly straight. But, for the sake of the story, let’s say I skillfully avoided sliding into the treacherous rut. There was a point at which I was thinking of looking for a place to bail out, but short of laying the bike down sideways, there were no options but to focus and ride it.

Arriving at the bottom of the hill, breathless and pumped, I looked back to find Sally coming down, skillfully and in perfect control. She had never managed to ride this entire hill before and was justifiably proud of the accomplishment.

Feeling like champions, we rode the rest of the way down the wash trails, our fatigue completely obliterated by adrenaline. When a couple of manly-man, four-by-four, trucks rolled by with their tattooed drivers piloting them, I said to Sally, “They think they’re bad-ass.”

She replied, “They don’t know what bad-ass is!”

My sister is scanning and organizing her old photos and journals and frequently sends me the gems from our past. We looked so carefree and untouched by any premonition of what lay ahead in life.

Remembering, my sister and I refer to periods in our life by which man had been our partner for that decade. I was married for ten years to the love of my life. His joie de vivre was unlimited. Wine, women, song, there was never enough. I moved on. I’d had enough women!

I brilliantly chose another alcoholic, thinking I could fix this one because he wasn’t a womanizer. I spent another ten years on that fixer-upper. He was clean and sober when I figured out alcohol wasn’t the problem.

I finally chose a man who had a reasonable relationship with both alcohol and women AND could fix things. Thirty years later, I still love him beyond all reason. I mean that literally. He’s the smartest man in any room, rabidly opinionated, egocentric to the point of narcissism, honest to a fault, genuinely egalitarian, kind to animals, patient with children, profligate, introspective, unsentimental but eternally romantic. There are so many times when I wonder how it came to this…

A regular winter ride in my neck of the woods is normally one of several local trails, either in the wash or the foothills that surround the valley. But February, in Southern California isn’t your typical winter, with warm sunny days and sleep-with-the-windows-open nights. Daytime temperatures in the high 80s, motivated Sally and me to load the bikes onto the bike rack and drive to Mountain Home Village (elevation 3,700′) where the Mountain Home Creek trail begins the ascent to Angelus Oaks (5,800′). Just a few weeks ago this route was impassable with snow, but today the trail was in fine form.

A couple of years ago, a utility company had restored the abandoned road to a navigable two-track in order to bury fiber optic cable. This had destroyed what had become a beautiful single track trail over the years. Fortunately, there had been a bit of a flash flood in the mountains, in November, which all but restored it to its previous condition. Rock slides, fallen trees, deep sand and wash outs all made the trail interesting again.

When we came to The Avalanche, I had some trouble making it up the steep incline because the traction was loose and mostly because I’m a klutz. I made it half way before spinning out, so I turned the bike back downhill to try it again. A couple of hikers were closing in which was incentive to clear it on the second attempt. Nearly to the top, I stalled, this time high centered on my seat and unable to clip out of my pedals as I was momentarily unsure of which way the bike was going to go over. As luck would have it, the bike tipped towards the outside (towards the downhill side) which probably looked pretty exciting from below, but I got my foot on the ground before there was any danger of toppling over the edge. When I turned around for the third try, the old hikers (probably my age) were standing in the trail waiting for me to clear the way. The old gentleman kindly mansplained to me how I needed to put more weight on my back wheel and then stand up to pedal to the top. I showed what I thought was commendable restraint by not saying anything unkind in return. In his defense, I did look like quite the novice. On the third assault, I found the sweet spot, the perfect speed and gear, and sailed up as I’ve done at least a hundred times before and I’m sure the gentleman was left with the belief that his generous coaching had enabled me to succeed.

We climbed as far as The Bench and decided that there was no compelling reason to pedal the last two miles to The Oaks restaurant as the food wasn’t that good and we were tired, so tired, in fact, that even the downhill seemed like more effort than we cared to expend. But, of course, as soon as we pointed the bikes down the newly restored trail, we regained our enthusiasm. Riding The Avalanche from the uphill direction is merely a matter of carefully gauging your speed as you come into it. Approach too slowly and you are going to have to pedal to the top, which as described previously, can be problematic. If, on the other hand, you sail up too fast to make the slight turn at the top, you could fly right off the trail. Oh, and one more consideration is that approaching from the uphill side, you can’t see if anyone is ascending from the downhill side. I really didn’t want to mow down the elderly hikers…well at least not his woman companion. As fate would have it, just as I accelerated for the ascent, a guy on a gravel bike crested the top of the berm coming from the opposite direction, oblivious to his peril. I skidded to a stop with room to spare but his eyes were as big as saucers.