Take the Good with the Bad
2/24/04 - A 10-minute walk up the hill from my childhood home is a windswept open space marked by a towering oak tree. The tree is one of the few bits of green that emerges above ground height and whenever I needed an escape...

The Little Things
2/9/04 - Spend a while doing any one thing--months into years into lifetimes--and that one thing will become part of you. It will become this thoughtless reflexive current, the proverbial "second nature."

Target Practice
1/30/04 - It's hard enough to get through a technical section of singletrack, but it's more difficult while being shot at. That's right, shot at.

Free of Fear, Free to Ride
1/23/04 - He looks like he's survived a car wreck: dazed, confused, limping, bloody, concussed. But this is not a David Lynch flick; no, the scene in question is at the bike shop, sometime before noon on a sunny September saturday.

"Hey Man, Wanna Join Us?"
1/22/04 - I'd just flung my lucky "Green Eggs & Ham" baseball cap into the driver's seat of my car, popped a fresh piece of gum into my mouth and was slipping my helmet onto my head--a pre-ride routine I'd followed just about every Sunday morning since March.

Exploited?
12/12/03 - Up until last week, my buddy Ray only rode a bicycle when he had to, which was mainly just when his truck was smoking from somewhere other than the driver's seat or his drivers license was revoked for doing something fun.

Don't Fight It--Ignite It
10/6/03- Sunday was good. A little riding bender now and then is refreshing--it puts things in perspective, or at least brings your limits back into focus.

Untitled
8/19/03 - When I arrived at the accident, the fallen girl's friend was laying in the mud beside her and stroking the girl's damp, bloody hair. Drizzle spattered on the crumpled body lying limp in the trail where the rock drop-off had tossed it...

One Too Many Blows to the Head
Though it’s been crashed on, sun baked and the pads have become hard and crusty, I can’t bring myself to get rid of my helmet.

The Trail Blazed
I was having a semantic debate with a friend a few days ago, in the wake of a recent Grimy Handshake. In it, I had referred to the markings on trees used to denote a trail as "flashes." He asked me if I had intended to write "blazes."

Mmm... Mmm... Good
Shivering in the cold pause between the dark of night and the light of day with only a hot cup of chicken noodle soup to keep me warm, I wrap my hands around the container and absorb its warmth with my palms.

Get Your Hands Off My Hardtail
Reality TV, with its top producers and million dollar budgets, couldn’t have planned it better. This was a simple competition of love versus money versus need.

Desire to Heal
As I sit here on my porch, bathing in the bright California sun, I contemplate my future in mountain biking. I find myself in this spot a lot thinking about many things, but today, I wonder how much longer I’m cut out for this biking stuff.

Off-Road Initiation
I have certainly ridden bikes before. Let me preface this with that. The first time was on the cedar deck of my parents' home when I hopped on a pint-sized bike with training wheels and still somehow managed to crash and burn.

Trivial Crap
I collect junk. I think it runs in the family, because my dad collected junk too, and I was surrounded by junk when my mind was just a moldable wad of clay...