Over Hill Over Dale

Memory is a wonderful thing, most of the time. Women often say that if men had to give birth, nobody would have more than one child. Somehow women can allow the pain of child birth to be overridden by the joy of the child and think, perhaps it would be nice to have another. The memory of the wonderful feelings of joy that come from raising a child seem to dampen or even remove the memory of the pain of child birth. This weekend I had the opportunity to experience this phenomenon.

The Camp and Ride!

A few of us enjoy mountain bike riding on the trails. We also happen to enjoy camping, so we combine the two for a fun weekend experience. Unfortunately, we do not do this often enough but nonetheless, it is still fun. We first began this adventure two years ago and once again we put together this trip to Table Rock State Park and the White River Trail System. (scroll down on the page for info) MAPS 

None of us are in the shape we want to be in and most of us have not ridden much this year so we were a little out of practice. I would classify myself as in the worst shape of all of us - I was the anchor.

The ride was great as we had near perfect weather.

The trails are fun and have just enough technical points for me as I am not an advanced technical rider. 

The biggest obstacle on these trails are the elevation changes. The change can be as mush as 900 feet. The downhill portion of that change can be very fun, however, we all know that if one goes down, one must go back up! This is where that whole memory thing comes into play. As I struggled with some of the uphill portions of the trails, my body told me this was suddenly not the fun experience I had remembered it to be. My mind only remembered how much fun I had the last time we all took this trip and rode the trails. I remembered the comradery of the last trip, it's fun to hang out with friends, have a good meal and watch movies and ride bikes. Yes, the last time we did this I also had a difficult time on the uphill portions and experienced pain like I did this time but somehow I had forgotten that. I believe that once again, in time, I will again be free from the memory of pain and be left with the joy of the good time we all had. I look forward to that!