Stick Month

November. Stick Month. Cold, dreary, windy, grey, sticky trees. Doesn't have alot going for it (sorry to all the Sags and Scorpios out there). Well, I guess there are two stat holidays in the US - Veterans' Day and Thanksgiving. But for Canadians, Thanksgiving is a distant turkey hangover memory and Remembrance Day is only a holiday if you live in one of the groovy Western provinces. 

But today I enjoyed some advantages of Stick Month. I headed out to the Landlocked Forest, our neighborhood mountain biking area and had a blast. Leaf covered trails added a new element of challenge. In some ways, it actually made riding easier b/c when you can't see the roots and rocks, you often ride right over 'em! With the trees stripped of their leaves, I could actually see through the forest and was able to scope out some new trails and obstacles and bridges that I hadn't even known existed before! 

Riding over trails that are completely leaf covered requires you to be as loose as possible to soak up the unexpected bumps as you get tossed around. Its easy to do b/c the terrain looks so much more gentle, almost beckoning, with all those cushy piles of leaves. But don't be deceived! A wipe out in these conditions could be nasty as you get impailed upon whatever lurks beneath. Kinda like my brother Mike's skiing wipe out a few years back when the pillowy snow he launched himself into turned out to be boulders in disguise! A compound shattering of his elbow later, Mike learned his lesson. So I tried to be careful today despite how tempting it was to rip along and skid around the greasy leaf laden corners. Here's hoping Stick Month 2008 will continue to be relatively mild so we can fit in a few more such rides before Happy Holidays month shows up with all of its ice and snow.