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This is the third summer since my first trip to Dryer Road Park, a mountain biking park just a short drive from our home. On that first visit, I rode the trusty Trek rigid-frame bike that my parents gave me at age 15. I say “trusty”, because it’s seen me through innumerable jaunts around my hometown, along the Lehigh Valley Trail, up and down the Erie Canal towpath, all over the RIT campus, and through Brighton before we moved into the house.

The Trek got its first taste of “true” off-road riding (or at least as close to “true” as I’ve ever experienced) on that visit to Dryer, and I was hooked. With Jason as my guide and coach, I got my first experience with single-track riding, climbing and descending dirt trails, weaving through trees and bouncing over roots and logs. It was a blast, and the winter of ’05-06 found me utterly jonesing for a trail ride by the time March rolled around.

As a birthday present in 2006, Kelly and Jason refitted the Trek with a slew of new components, and gave it a complete tune-up at The Mendon Cyclesmith, Jason’s employer at the time. With a longer stem, a Thudbuster seat post, a new set of Shimano V-brakes, new grips and a freshly-tuned-up drivetrain, the Trek was ready to serve for another summer.

This year brought a new experience, though: night riding with a group of experienced mountain bikers through another area park. With steeper climbs, nastier descents, more-aggressive riding companions and the newly-breached specter of darkness, it was a rough ride in more than the obvious way! I set new personal records for exertion (or over-exertion?) and – though my memory is certainly distorted – seem to recall spending more time pushing the Trek than riding it.

I’m certainly no athlete, but I’m no slouch either. My resting heart rate (awake) is 55, and I can comfortably run 4 miles in a little over a half-hour. I might be a little sore the next day, and I’m not about to win any races – on foot or on wheels – but I like to think I’m a least “reasonably fit”. Given this, I was actually somewhat receptive to Jason’s suggestion that my equipment might be holding me back a bit.

Our collective suspicion was confirmed a few weeks ago, when I tried out a properly-sized, full-suspension bike on the trails at Dryer. Suddenly, with whole new gear ranges available to me, the “previously-unclimbable” could be refiled under “possible”. Descents no longer shot the shocks of every rut and bump up my forearms – there was a suspension fork to take care of that! Standing up off the saddle mid-climb? No problem! Crossing the logs (and log piles) that had been so intimidating on the Trek? Done!

So today, I finally bit the bullet and deployed the plastic. I bought a Jamis Dakar XCR Comp from my favorite bike-shop-proprietor Craig:

Riding gear on the passenger seat and new bike in the back, I headed to Dryer from the shop. Though it’s never as fun to ride alone, I had an absolute blast bombing around the trails on the Dakar. For those scoring at home with Dryer’s handy PDF trail map, I hit Tree Beard and cooked around the upper rim of the park on Ziggy, then headed downhill on Bones to pick up Epping Forest. I climbed up the connecting trail between Chutes n Ladders and Alpha Betty, then headed across the plateau to round out the ride on Gully Down on my way back to the parking lot.

I wasn’t about to pull out all the stops today, on a brand new bike, with only a few rides under my belt for the season, but I did manage to stay on the bike for plenty of things that would have otherwise found me with my feet on the dirt. In all, it was a great ride – and I’m looking forward to trying my hand again at night riding before the summer’s end!