After endoing and faceplanting into the dirt while listening to Slayer on the bike, I came up with the idea of sharing a few things I've learned over the past 15 years of mountain biking in San Antonio. Some might be obvious, but here they are:
01) Avoid listening to aggressive music while in an aggressive mood on a machine built for aggression. Ignoring this will lead to spectacular accidents.
02) A little vaseline rubbed into your eye orbits before you ride keeps the sunblock from leaching into your eyes as you sweat.
03) While we're playing with the vaseline, some rubbed in and around your nostrils tends to keep trail dust out of your lungs.
04) There is a huge difference between riding at dusk and riding at night. Night is really really really black when you are in the boonies.
05) You cannot ride at speed in the darkness. Even with that really cool mountain bike light you dropped a hundred bucks on.
06) The sudden smell of cigarette smoke while racing through a tree-shrouded creekbed at night usually indicates trouble. Especially when you don't smoke.
07) No matter how far back you lean, that 80 degree drop is going to flip you.
08) If you hit drop out at a fast enough speed, your foot will come out of your shoe.
09) People really do get hurt from hitting trees.
10) It will be hotter than you think once you get out there and begin riding in earnest. By the same reasoning, it will also be colder than you think after you've stopped for awhile to rest and then get back on the bike.
11) To quote a buddy from the 1990's, "Before you go balls-out on a trail, ride through it slowly to check for dangerous turns and stuff."
12) That sound of motorcycles in the distance as the sun sets? Vampires. Get the hell out of there.
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