On The Pedals

By Jason Giacchino

Winding Down

Ask me in the middle of summer and I will tell you that I’m dreading the cooler temperatures of fall. Being a native New Yorker, fall not only means shorter daylight hours, crisp nights and painfully cold mornings, mudded out trails, and less saddle time, it also means the onset of a brutally long, cold winter. It’s only natural to feel a bit depressed from the carefree warmth of endless summer rides. The reality of course is that fall has arrived and, like it does every year, slipped onto the scene so casually and gradually that the transition almost went undetected. Sunday afternoons are again alive with the excitement of football games blasting from the flat screen while the kettle boils away to make a cup of steaming tea during commercials. Seemingly overnight, the trees have given up their green leaves to a potpourri of orange and yellow. The fields are ripe with colorful mums and plump pumpkins while the neighboring corn stalks crack and crumble into dust.

Of course, it’s not nearly as depressing in reality as it appears when anticipated months in advance, it just requires a different mind-set. Time spent in the saddle have to be replaced with time spent upgrading components, doing maintenance, and reading about riding. After-work hours typically spent at the trail head must become replaced with coffee shop visits and newspaper mulling. Fall is nature’s way of forcing us to slow down and take a deep breath; an intermediary between the nonstop entertainment of summer and the heart slowing domestication of winter.

While I try my best to be content with the situation at hand, years past have actually proven to inspire quite a bit of fall-time motivation: Namely in the realm of planning fairly epic trips to the more elevated ski areas. The cooler temperatures of fall do have their benefits when one’s definition of bliss happens to be pounding across endless twisting singletrack. The color, the sounds, and the rich aroma of fallen leaves are simply bonuses that accompany the cool breeze’s invitation to ride hard for hours on end. I was proud to have planned and executed no less than four picturesque mountain bike trips this past summer while the temperatures and sticky humidity did their best to curb our enthusiasm. Unfortunately for the weather- mission failed. My riding buddies and I made the most out of every fleeting minute of the excursions and have the memories to prove it. I find it hard to hide the fact that curiosity to revisit these parks without the dome-like shade of the summer leaf canopy above is beginning to rise. Places beautiful in the summer are typically gorgeous in the fall.

Fall offers another bonus in the form of deferred terrain maintenance. The cooler temps make such mundane tasks as filling in rain ruts, packing jumps, and flattening new singletrack much easier than when the summer sun baked the land. What is it about dragging an assortment of garden tools out into the forest with a heavy gray hoody and work boots that fits the definition of a post card photo which would say only on the back: “mountain biker in fall”?

I’m personally enjoying the slowing pace, taking my time to plan out a few choice fairly local weekend destinations and spending a lot more time in the work shop. The days are getting noticeably shorter and thoughts of picking up either a helmet or bar mounted light are sparking to life. After all, having so much more time to stop and think does allow for some interesting revelations. I still stick to the claim that I could be satisfied relocating to a warmer climate but between you and I, fall has its benefits. Its winter that I can’t handle... Although I should report that snow riding is a blast like no other.