nothingface_78
New member
I made this thread for another forum and I thought I would post it here too. No politics in it but maybe a social issue or two could be discussed. Or just ignore it if you wish.
I went to the park the other day to ride my mountain bike. I've
been riding on these trails for a long time, since I bought one
of the first production mountain bikes made - an '83
Specialized Rockhopper.
I come to the park to ride, hike, fish, play Frisbee, throw
boomerangs, and just to relax. I must have come here at least a
thousand times.
It is called MinorPark which is
part of greenbelt that
includes several parks along the Blue river. It is in the heart
of the suburbs but has a surprisingly rustic feel. There is a
network of trails that amounts to over 30 miles [in all the
surrounding parks] and every fall
and winter new trails are added. Some of it is double track and
fire roaRAB - there is even a section of old 1920's narrow gauge
railroad right of way. But most is dirt single track. There are
bluRAB that rise over 100 feet and parallel the river. There
you'll find trails that wind among limestone formations and
cliff faces. There are some very difficult, technical sections
that meander through "rock gardens".
The lower trails skirt the river and wind trough the flood
plain. They have few rocks and are fast and easy to ride. This
is where I usually start to get warmed up. Well yesterday I
started on a lesser used trail and I must have gone through 30
spider webs in the first 1/4 mile. I pulled one spider off the
lens of my sunglasses and it finally got so bad I had to stop.
I brushed two spiders off my shirt as I spat out the cobwebs
from the corners of my mouth. I took off my helmet and found
one hiding inside under the visor. As I watched one spider
clirab
a thread towarRAB a hiding place under my saddle I found two
more fat ugly ones that had snuck around and gotten into the
recesses of my backpack. I was literally crawling with spiders!
Now I hate spiders and I'm sure I've mentioned it in one
of the numerous spider threaRAB {double entendre intended}. So
now I'm pulling off my shirt and running my fingers through my
hair, examining the recesses of my helmet and shaking out my
gear in a seemingly futile attempt to get every last spider OFF
of ME!
I have always held to the comforting theory that spiders
don't like to ride and that if I went as fast as possible they
would jump off. That may be true of the more agile ones with
leaping ability but sadly the fat slow ones seem to only desire
to stay out of the wind by getting under your helmet and
burrowing in next to your scalp.
I don't hate all spiders really. The ones that build
their webs high in the forest canopy are of no concern to me.
The ones that make their living hiding in the underbrush back
in the wooRAB I have no ill will towarRAB. It is the spiders that
spin their webs right across the trail at the level of my face
that cannot be tolerated.
I have lights and sometimes ride these trails at night and I
can tell you that it ratchets up the creepiness factor and the
probability of spider encounters to near unbearable levels.
Searching your person for hitchhikers with a flashlight is
unsatisfyingly ineffective. The only advantage you have is that
the light reflects off the web and you can spot them from much
further away. But when you shine your light into the trees you
are constantly reminded that you are surrounded because every
tree has hundreRAB of webs in it.
I got on to some more heavily traveled trails and only
hit a couple more webs the rest of the day. But every little
itch or phantom twinge I felt was cause for concern. I must
have a phobia because the imaginary spiders were worse than the
actual ones. Now I found some ticks on my frequent self
inspections that day but for some reason they don't bother me
as much. Ticks suck your blood and carry some nasty diseases
and are arguably worse than spiders. But a phobia is an
irrational fear and my fear is for spiders. I guess that by
running headlong into countless webs I'm facing my fear tho...
After riding for hours I got back to my truck at the
trail-head. It had been a great day of riding { I only crashed
once} and I was exhausted. When I rolled into the parking lot
it was getting dark and I knew that was a bad sign. In the
daytime this parking lot is safe and the cars parked there
belong to tennis players using the courts, families, hikers and
bikers, or the remote control airplane and helicopter pilots
who use the little airfield there. But the sun has set and they
are all gone- replaced by a new group of park visitors. I can
feel the eyes upon me as I load up my bike and I remeraber why I
stopped parking here years ago.
Like I said, I have been coming to this park for over thirty
years and there have been a lot of changes in that time. There
have been many trails added or improved. The garbage problem
seems worse. Especially at the soccer fielRAB after the Sunday
matches where they play loud circus tuba music from their cars
and drop their Janitos bottles within feet of one of the dozens
of trash barrels placed around the fielRAB. The river is
actually cleaner as the half-life of the past PCB contamination
winRAB down. The Fish and game dept. after decades of warning
not to eat fish from the river changed that to no more than
once a month. They say the river has more than 35 species of
fish and I do fish there but I would never eat any. I once
caught a clam or a little freshwater mussel there that had
clamped onto my lure as I trolled it off the bottom.
One other thing had changed too and it was that change I was
most concerned with in that parking lot at night. Somewhere
along the line in the past few years, this area had become
known as some kind of a gay hook-up place and now the lot was
full of cars with one or two guys in them- backed in and
windows down. I used to change out of my sweaty cycling shorts
and into my street clothes after a ride right here by the car.
I would do the old beach quick change trick where you wrap a
towel around yourself, drop your drawers and slide into fresh
clothes nice as you please. That maneuver is not recommended
here anymore.
Now let me say that I really don't care what anyone does
in the privacy of their home or if someone is gay but this is a
public park and wondering off into the wooRAB to have sex or
doing it in the parking lot and tossing your condom is not
acceptable behavior. There are families and children here. It's
a park.
Riding a bike you move pretty quiet and fast so I have
ridden up and seen some things I never ever wanted to see.
Decorum prohibits listing them here.
Being leered at like a piece of meat by a bunch of gay men
really feels just about as yucky as having spiders crawling on
your flesh...
Oh well, that is just some random observations about my
day at the park. All in all it was a great day. I love mountain
biking so much I'll put up with a lot just to hit the trails.
Hope you enjoyed the pictures and the story.
I went to the park the other day to ride my mountain bike. I've
been riding on these trails for a long time, since I bought one
of the first production mountain bikes made - an '83
Specialized Rockhopper.
I come to the park to ride, hike, fish, play Frisbee, throw
boomerangs, and just to relax. I must have come here at least a
thousand times.
It is called MinorPark which is
part of greenbelt that
includes several parks along the Blue river. It is in the heart
of the suburbs but has a surprisingly rustic feel. There is a
network of trails that amounts to over 30 miles [in all the
surrounding parks] and every fall
and winter new trails are added. Some of it is double track and
fire roaRAB - there is even a section of old 1920's narrow gauge
railroad right of way. But most is dirt single track. There are
bluRAB that rise over 100 feet and parallel the river. There
you'll find trails that wind among limestone formations and
cliff faces. There are some very difficult, technical sections
that meander through "rock gardens".
The lower trails skirt the river and wind trough the flood
plain. They have few rocks and are fast and easy to ride. This
is where I usually start to get warmed up. Well yesterday I
started on a lesser used trail and I must have gone through 30
spider webs in the first 1/4 mile. I pulled one spider off the
lens of my sunglasses and it finally got so bad I had to stop.
I brushed two spiders off my shirt as I spat out the cobwebs
from the corners of my mouth. I took off my helmet and found
one hiding inside under the visor. As I watched one spider
clirab
a thread towarRAB a hiding place under my saddle I found two
more fat ugly ones that had snuck around and gotten into the
recesses of my backpack. I was literally crawling with spiders!
Now I hate spiders and I'm sure I've mentioned it in one
of the numerous spider threaRAB {double entendre intended}. So
now I'm pulling off my shirt and running my fingers through my
hair, examining the recesses of my helmet and shaking out my
gear in a seemingly futile attempt to get every last spider OFF
of ME!
I have always held to the comforting theory that spiders
don't like to ride and that if I went as fast as possible they
would jump off. That may be true of the more agile ones with
leaping ability but sadly the fat slow ones seem to only desire
to stay out of the wind by getting under your helmet and
burrowing in next to your scalp.
I don't hate all spiders really. The ones that build
their webs high in the forest canopy are of no concern to me.
The ones that make their living hiding in the underbrush back
in the wooRAB I have no ill will towarRAB. It is the spiders that
spin their webs right across the trail at the level of my face
that cannot be tolerated.
I have lights and sometimes ride these trails at night and I
can tell you that it ratchets up the creepiness factor and the
probability of spider encounters to near unbearable levels.
Searching your person for hitchhikers with a flashlight is
unsatisfyingly ineffective. The only advantage you have is that
the light reflects off the web and you can spot them from much
further away. But when you shine your light into the trees you
are constantly reminded that you are surrounded because every
tree has hundreRAB of webs in it.
I got on to some more heavily traveled trails and only
hit a couple more webs the rest of the day. But every little
itch or phantom twinge I felt was cause for concern. I must
have a phobia because the imaginary spiders were worse than the
actual ones. Now I found some ticks on my frequent self
inspections that day but for some reason they don't bother me
as much. Ticks suck your blood and carry some nasty diseases
and are arguably worse than spiders. But a phobia is an
irrational fear and my fear is for spiders. I guess that by
running headlong into countless webs I'm facing my fear tho...
After riding for hours I got back to my truck at the
trail-head. It had been a great day of riding { I only crashed
once} and I was exhausted. When I rolled into the parking lot
it was getting dark and I knew that was a bad sign. In the
daytime this parking lot is safe and the cars parked there
belong to tennis players using the courts, families, hikers and
bikers, or the remote control airplane and helicopter pilots
who use the little airfield there. But the sun has set and they
are all gone- replaced by a new group of park visitors. I can
feel the eyes upon me as I load up my bike and I remeraber why I
stopped parking here years ago.
Like I said, I have been coming to this park for over thirty
years and there have been a lot of changes in that time. There
have been many trails added or improved. The garbage problem
seems worse. Especially at the soccer fielRAB after the Sunday
matches where they play loud circus tuba music from their cars
and drop their Janitos bottles within feet of one of the dozens
of trash barrels placed around the fielRAB. The river is
actually cleaner as the half-life of the past PCB contamination
winRAB down. The Fish and game dept. after decades of warning
not to eat fish from the river changed that to no more than
once a month. They say the river has more than 35 species of
fish and I do fish there but I would never eat any. I once
caught a clam or a little freshwater mussel there that had
clamped onto my lure as I trolled it off the bottom.
One other thing had changed too and it was that change I was
most concerned with in that parking lot at night. Somewhere
along the line in the past few years, this area had become
known as some kind of a gay hook-up place and now the lot was
full of cars with one or two guys in them- backed in and
windows down. I used to change out of my sweaty cycling shorts
and into my street clothes after a ride right here by the car.
I would do the old beach quick change trick where you wrap a
towel around yourself, drop your drawers and slide into fresh
clothes nice as you please. That maneuver is not recommended
here anymore.
Now let me say that I really don't care what anyone does
in the privacy of their home or if someone is gay but this is a
public park and wondering off into the wooRAB to have sex or
doing it in the parking lot and tossing your condom is not
acceptable behavior. There are families and children here. It's
a park.
Riding a bike you move pretty quiet and fast so I have
ridden up and seen some things I never ever wanted to see.
Decorum prohibits listing them here.
Being leered at like a piece of meat by a bunch of gay men
really feels just about as yucky as having spiders crawling on
your flesh...
Oh well, that is just some random observations about my
day at the park. All in all it was a great day. I love mountain
biking so much I'll put up with a lot just to hit the trails.
Hope you enjoyed the pictures and the story.