BY PEG O’BRIEN
The only difference between the beginning Female dirt biker and her male counterpart is the need for a good sports bra. All of us, male and female, have a feminine side. This is the side that compels us to understand the fundanentals, and assess the risks and benefits, of any novel activity before embarking upon it. The following excerpt is adapted from the prologue to Women on Top … Of Dirt Bikes, a book dedicated to these most feminine aspects of human nature. In this book, the beginning dirt biker is referred to as a female. Any men who have a problem with that can take up baking.
Prologue: The Mentor’s Greatest Gift ‘Get the#”%* out of my way!’ Curses spurt through my clenched jaw at the biker in front of me, as the bike beneath me, precariously pointed upward, threatens to tip. Forward momentum starts petering out just as the crest of the final slick rock wall is about to roll under my tires. Miraculously, the sound of that other bike throttling away, unblocking my path, growls into my ears. The fresh opportunity this presents is felt more than seen. My eyes rivet straight ahead, to the wall of red rock soaring beyond my ability to comprehend.
The bike accelerates. The knobby tires catch. The bike blasts through its last avail-able milliseconds of friction, and makes the summit. This truly happened, and shocked the biker in front only a little less than it shocked me. Returning up the Pritchett Canyon Trail (outside Moab, Utah), I did not tum my bike over to him to manhandle up the hardest portion of the most difficult trail around. Instead, I pointed my front tire at the back of his rear tire and hammered up the cliff myself. He dismounting at the top for the on-foot retrieval of my bike, as I had made him promise to do. I heard my motor on his tail just in the nick of time, and skedaddled.
Why I hill-climbed that menace, I don’t know. Maybe I’d just had enough. Enough favors, enough groveling, enough grit. Enough of being shoved around by the rocks and the boots and the motor and the handlebars. Enough to find my own hard core, right in the center of my body. Enough to realize that by asserting that core to wield the bike beneath me, I could fly. How my biking mentor knew it was time to get out of my way I’ll never know. That he did fills me with gratitude and him, perhaps, with a tinge of respect in his relief.
