Bike Magazine 15.5 August 2008

COVERED: Patches of sun-dappled leaves, the smell of rich soil freshly tilled under spinning tires and pockets of cool shade hovering in the heat. This is where we live.

ESCAPE: Sometimes you catch glimpses along the way, but the true reward waits at the top: Vistas so expansive they seem to get sucked into the sky above. In front of you: a trail dropping in.

ELEVATE: Concentrate, clear your mind, deal with the butterflies, hit the lip, feel the release of gravity-and fly.

HAMMERED: Planks rattle under tires, a vacuum sucks away everything but a single strand of the world, a lone line that you wrestle with your handlebars. This wasn’t here before. You’ve built your own.

BREATHE: It’s in your clothes, it’s under your fingernails, it lives in your scars and in your soul and comes out in your sweat. Ride, live, breathe.

FLOW: The feeling is indescribable, even though you’ve ridden the trail dozens of times. Good trails have a way of pulling you forward, keeping you going. Out of the house, up the next hill, through the next corner.

Moonshot
Darren Berrecloth and Cam McCaul venture to the far reaches of China’s Gobi desert to carve new trails into this raw, arid landscape. PHOTOGRAPHY BY BLAKE JORGENSON