Unusual Fun

Sometimes the beauty of fun lies in the least fun part of an activity.

Summer is quickly fading and fall is sneakily peeking around the corner.

Add those two statements together and you have our Wednesday night ride up White Ranch.

I've been hearing, for a few years now, stories of White Ranch but I hadn't actually seen it for myself until Wednesday. I had worked it up in my head to be an incredibly steep, loose, single track trail straight up the side of a hill -- going on for miles, surrounded by hissing rattlers, people stopped every few feet gasping for air, grown men crying on the side of the trail with a clif bar in hand and a stick to beat off the snakes in the other.

Somehow, with that picture in my mind, I was psyched to get to finally do it.

I feel like Belcher is a right of passage into the front range mountain biking scene. If you haven't climbed Belcher, you can't call yourself a well-rounded two-wheeler in Denver.

I expected to walk almost the whole thing -- passing those crying men with my own teary eyes. I expected to vow never to return.

When you build something up in your mind to be so terrible, life rarely lives up to those expectations. Good thing. Turns out that while White Ranch had its bad parts -- some loose sections, some steep sections, a not-so-awesome single track loop at the top, a sketchy descent when it's DARK and you have no lights or mysteriously awesome night-vision goggle eyes like Chris -- it was fun. It was challenging. I fell. A lot. I saw my life flash before my eyes as I almost ate it seriously hard core coming down a steep, rocky part in the dark.

But I liked it.

I want to go back.

Maybe not any time in the super near future.

But I'll be back.

Perhaps with lights next time. Or maybe not. It is, after all, the least fun part of a ride that makes a ride beautiful.