Two Rockers Meet the Immovable One
By Mark Schulze & Patty Mooney (guest contributors)

Rock and a hard place

Author: Patty Mooney.

My buddy, Dan, and I took off fairly early -- 9 AM on an already baking morning. We affixed our neon mountain bikes to the roof of Dan’s green SAAB Turbonet 100, then blasted east on San Diego’s Highway 8 for the Granite Springs Trailhead at Cuyamaca Rancho State Park.

My wife, Patty, and I spent years volunteering as members of the Mountain Bike Assistance Unit at Cuyamaca. Although numerous mountain-lion encounters, and even related deaths, have been documented recently, we never spotted any lions, though once in a while we’d come across deer, rabbits, snakes, lizards and even wild turkeys. Probably our most exciting moment as “MBAU” members was when a San Diego gang came up to practice shooting with a medley of guns. We heard gunfire and saw the blazing of firearms. We alerted Ranger Earl by radio, waited, then watched as the gang ambled down off the sage- and manzanita-blanketed slopes, without any weapons. The ranger jotted information, then dispatched the four muchachos back west down 8. Later, rangers would discover where the gang had stashed their stolen weapons behind a rock.

That was a summer day just like today, but not as scorching. Has anyone else noticed a rise in global temperature over the last few years?

Anyway, when Dan and I arrived at the parking area, there were only a couple of cars there. So most San Diegans were at the beach or in the air-conditioned comfort of their living rooms. By now it was very hot and we both fully unzipped our jerseys. It was about then when I realized my cycling shoes were missing. Not a good thing to forget. I would have to ride my clipless pedals in regular athletic shoes. I wasn’t not going to ride! Dan, who is one of the fastest guys I ride with, but still not as fast as me, had a good chuckle, thinking that now, finally, my “handicap” might work to his advantage.

We walked the bikes through an entryway at the trail’s beginning. Then we mounted up and began to climb. At first it was awkward, shoes sliding on those slick wads of metal, but soon I developed a balance and rhythm that shot me out ahead of Dan where I commanded the lead for the next half hour. It was habanera-hot, and sweat gushed off our brows. I thought longingly of sprinkler systems, swimming pools, the Pacific Ocean, flash floods.

Granite Springs Trail penetrates the southeastern sector of the 25,000 acres known as Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. The dirt and gravel jeep track winds up past old stands of oak and pine and at the top features an experimental singletrack called the Harvey Moore Trail which eventually leads to Sunrise Highway. Cuyamaca Rancho is one of the few parks where trails are being opened to mountain bicycling, which is thought to be directly related to the persistence and dedication of the Mountain Bike Assistance Unit.

Grateful for periods of shade between exposure to a naked sun rising at a fiercer angle, we bore on, breathing, in full, deep rhythm. We kept at it until we reached the horse camp at the top of Granite Springs, where the trail’s namesake had long since unfortunately dried out. We took our compulsory leaks, foregoing the porta-potty and aiming to quench the parched plant life. Then we got on our bikes to begin our ascent toward the Harvey Moore singletrack.

“Hey,” Dan said, “Did you feel that?”

“What?” I said, wheeling my bright-green Klein Attitude onto the trail.

“A cool breeze, like rain approaching.”

As we were atop high-desert mountains on a hot summer day, his conjecture seemed far-fetched except suddenly I felt a cool breath of air, too. There did appear to be a bank of gray clouds forming to the north; and now, a scent of rain.

“You know, maybe it’s time to head back,” I told Dan as I fastened my helmet and donned my gloves.

“We’re outta here,” Dan agreed, straddling his Hot Chili Habanero.

I jumped aboard my Klein and then the four of us -- two men and our high-strung mounts -- were soon flying downhill, reveling in the old adage: “What goes up must come down.”

Halfway down the trail, since the storm seemed held at bay, we decided to take a newly opened singletrack dogleg off the main trail that led to a viewpoint of the park. We gasped at a panoramic view of backed-up clouds edged with dark creases gathering over a golden field. A big thunderstorm was heading this way and a bolt of lightning lacerated the sky.

“Uh oh, let’s get a move on,” I said. We did not state the obvious -- the fear of getting hit by lightning. We beat it. Still, the weather overtook us. After we started getting peppered by rain, we found a safe spot away from trees where we lay our bikes down and huddled near some deflective bushes in the rain. It went over fast and furious, drenching us, actually a welcome respite from the simmering day, very tropical.

After it passed, we climbed back aboard the bikes and pointed them downhill. The wet Lycra provided air-conditioning on our descent. As we picked up speed, and a spray of mud coated us, I pulled ahead of Dan. Riding clipless pedals was tricky but not a detriment to my competitive nature. Just as I pulled around a tight hairpin, leaning hard with the bike, outer leg splayed, I saw what I thought was a bear lying fifteen feet ahead in the middle of the trail.

Whoa! I lurched to a stop. Dan barely avoided colliding with me.

The “bear” bolted to its feet. No, it wasn’t a bear. It was bigger than a bear. Its head was probably five feet high and 200 pounds with the beard. It must have weighed 1,500 to 2,000 pounds, its primary bulk in its muscular chest, shoulders and hunchback. Its body tapered to a set of brawny rear haunches -- a creature that a hundred years ago made Buffalo Bill Cody’s adrenaline surge during his numerous jaunts to pursue its ancestors.

What the hell was a buffalo doing in the Cuyamacas? Well, this one was at attention, poised for anything. That massive hunk of inertia topped with a set of curved horns which were at their fattest point the same size as my upper arm -- was a compelling sight.

“Hello,” Dan said, approaching it and wheeling his bike closer for a better look.

“Back, Dan.” I gestured for him to stop, remembering Yellowstone where the buffalo roam and are known to have stomped many an uninformed tourist into the ground. This was not a casual bovine encounter. The Big Guy could kill us, or make us wish we were dead.

Slowly and calmly, Dan and I backed up around the hairpin, out of sight of the Immovable One. A good sign was we didn’t hear any shuffling hooves or grunting. Dan and I portaged our bikes down off the trail, to a point past Big Guy’s position where we could regain the trail. And once we did, we were outta there! Laughing and shrieking like a couple of ten-year-olds.

About the Author:
Patty Mooney has been riding a bicycle since she was seven years old. In 1986, she and her husband, Mark Schulze, discovered the sport of mountain biking while traveling through Canada where a mountain was rated by the amount of headers one was liable to experience while riding down it. Both Mooney and Schulze were hooked and bought a couple of Alpina Sport mountain bikes to ride the local San Diego trails. They married in the mountains on their mountain bikes, then began racing. And then it occurred to the video production duo to begin producing how-to mountain bike videos which were the first of the genre. First, in 1987, there was "The Great Mountain Biking Video" featuring Ned Overend, John Tomac, Julia Ingersoll, Tinker Juarez, Kevin Norton and Martha Kennedy. In 1988 came "Ultimate Mountain Biking: Advanced Techniques and Winning Strategies," with Tinker Juarez, Jimmy Deaton, Glen Adams, Margaret Day, Cindy Whitehead, Ot Pi Isern and John Howard. When the sport of Mountain Biking became part of the Olympics in 1990, all the fun and glory were captured in "Battle At Durango: First-Ever World Mountain Bike Championships." Finally, in 1994, the couple produced the multiple-award-winning "Full Cycle: A World Odyssey," the mountain-bike

travel adventures of - you guessed it - Mooney & Schulze, who hit up nine countries including USA, Canada, Costa Rica, Wales, Greece, Switzerland, Tahiti, Australia and India. Schulze and Mooney now produce, shoot and edit for broadcast and corporate clients like Oprah, Inside Edition, Extra, MasterCard, Discovery and others. The couple can relate many stories of the "olden days" when they rode with the pioneers of the sport and when beer and chili were still served at the races. They still ride their beloved local trails every chance they can get. To learn more about their titles which are now available on DVD, go to

Visit the authors at: www.newuniquevideos.com