Graffiti trail
Sunday, June 29th, 2008I rolled out of bed this morning to make buttermilk biscuits. Then I set to resurrecting my old hardtail mountain bike with a new crankset.
It’s an old Salsa A La Carte, tequila green, steel, handmade some time in the late 90’s in Petaluma. I bought it off ebay five years ago from a guy in Seattle who was going full suspension. It wears a mishmash of accessories: anodized red handlebars, 8 speed XT, sparkle red vinyl seat. Green and red like Christmas sauce, New Mexico style. Chiles and tomatillos.
I got it working again by 3pm, and by 4 I was out the door. I rode up Trestle Glen and into Dimond Canyon. Every so often I wonder what’s going on in there. It used to be a maintained mountain bike trail, but I don’t think anyone takes care of it anymore. I rolled along the stream canyon on treacherously overgrown goat trails. I was trying to re-familiarize myself with life on a hardtail; I didn’t trust it. I imagined the bike tracking sideways over a bundle of roots, I imagined myself somersaulting down into the canyon. I tried not to think about it. I tried to look ahead, to trust in the horizon rather than fixate on the myriad of details that were occuring beneath me. Let the bike handle those.
I rode underneath the bridge, covered in graffiti. I saw sleeping bags stowed on shadowy concrete ledges. I wondered what I was doing; it felt like I was off the map. I crossed back over the stream and started climbing the other side on impossible, washed out switchbacks. I marveled at deer trails: are those mountain bike trails? No, that’s too crazy. I made it to the top on the other side. Are those mountain bike trails? Inconclusive. Two trails led back to the bottom in a slick wash. The entryways looked like the top of a slide.
Dimond Canyon is a strange forest. There are tracks everywhere, like it’s all been explored and charted. Yet it’s wild and quiet, with a mirage at the top: a driving range. The place feels secret, yet it’s covered in markings. You feel alone, but still you wonder: who’s in this forest with me? What do people do in that rogue canyon next to the city and below the road?
