THE PLACE
Isn’t it supposed to be tame here? A fest of vanilla, hamster wheels of loops within prescribed parks, gentle berms and smooth lap riding where people are nice and nothing is scary?
I’m perched precariously above the lead-in to our second rockroll down 20 or so feet of granite. I already bowed out of the first. Everything that I’ve learned the hard way in my mistake-infested years of mountain biking lies between me and the lip down the face. Spaces between rocks rising above moss and earth aren’t equidistant, let alone straight. Everything looks just big enough to hold onto my front wheel, dive through the fork’s travel and directly introduce me to my stem—I can almost feel it. Nothing is on plane, it’s titled sideways—there isn’t a good line, period. And I’m only talking the lead-in here. I’m tempted to straddle-waddle to the rollover, perform that magic trick where feet lift from ground, somehow land on pedals, and then together we shimmy down the rockroll, united we fall.
“How’s that roll out?” I ask, not-so-sneakily attempting to bide my time and mask my voice’s elevated worry.
“Just point for those two trees and it rolls out great,” floats up at me from below.
I pedal, kinda sorta clip in, bounce a bit, grunt and hoist my front end—thankfully not deflected by rocks, time the stroke of pedal cranks alarmingly close to smacking the entry line’s crest and point for the two trees. It rolls out great.
I’m in Marquette, Michigan—or, as longtime, prolific trailbuilder Mike Brunet put it, “Welcome to the middle of nowhere.” We’re well north in
