MOUNTAIN BIKING

I grew up in the suburbs. It was fairly normal to ride a bike to get around; I had an old Schwinn Sting Ray 5-speed that I rode around on. There were woods around and my friends and I would ride around in the woods, either to get to someplace on the other side, or just to explore and to be off by ourselves. We didn't think much about it - we just sort of did it. As a teenager, however, it was no longer considered "cool" to get around on a bike and most of us abandoned our trusty steeds to a back corner of the garage.

In 1993, I got the urge to start riding a bike again. I lived in Philadelphia and no longer cared if it was cool or not (although in fact, the bike messengers had a cool counterculture bike scene going). So I got a bike and discovered some great trail areas around Philadelphia (Wissahickon). There was some really awesome technical singletrack and I went out and rode it as often as I could. When I moved to Los Angeles, I enjoyed riding in the Santa Monica Mountains. There are some great trails out there, but watch out for the rattlesnakes - I once had my passage blocked by a big one, on a narrow section of uphill singletrack...

If you enjoy mountain biking as well, please ride responsibly:

• Respect hikers and equestrians
• Ride under control
• Don't litter - haul out what you haul in
• Get involved in local trail maintainance efforts

Too many great trail areas have been closed to bikes because riders didn't share well.

For more information about mountain biking and trails, check out the IMBA.