Lately I've been expanding my horizons, bicycling-wise, and trying out some of the Franklin Mountain trails on a used mountain bike I bought late last year.
I'm not going to go into particular trails in this post. The Borderland Mountain Bike Association has lots of information at http://bmba.wordpress.com/
I just want to post a few words of warning to fellow roadies, especially middle-aged ones like me, who aspire to go off-road.
The mountain trails around here are not for the faint of heart. I've been venturing out from where Redd Road ends, just past Helen of Troy, following the old jeep paths and single-track trails uphill toward Transmountain Road.
One of the trails ends with what is called "Ten Minutes of Hell," maybe 1,000 yards of pure, vicious rock surrounded by cactus that steeply ascends to a bluff next to Transmountain Road. In my case it was more like 15 or 20 minutes of hell since I had to walk quite a bit.
At least when I went out on my own, I tended to ride slow. The other day I asked a friend to show me some of his favorite trails. Of course they included TMOH. Just after we turned back to go downhill a further north on another trail, I fell and landed precariously atop a lechuguilla and prickly pear cactus. Fortunately I avoided catastophe and was able to pick out most of the cactus spines without much pain.
This kind of bicycling is a whole other sport. Road bicycling, except at a competitive level, actually doesn't require a lot of coordination. You sit on the bike and pedal. Mountain biking on trails like these requires a lot of coordination, great balance and reflexes, constant focus on the trail ahead, and tolerance for pain. While occasionally I will max out my heart rate on the road bike, I found myself consistently running out of juice climbing the steep sections of rocky road.
I'm not sure I will ever convert to mountain biking, but I hope to make it an occasional part of my cycling diet. If nothing else, it keeps me humble about road biking. Riding 20+ mph on the road is nothing compared to 5 mph on a rocky uphill trail.
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