Mileage Monster

I was on the trail a little while ago and had a trail side conversation with a fellow rider. It was a damn fine day to be riding. I was huffing it out on the single speed and ran across this dude on a great full suspension rig.

I'm a hard tail steel kinda guy, I won't rule out a carbon or suspension bike (I own a carbon road bike) Honestly I'm not some sort of hard tail steel snob I just cannot afford a suspension bike that I want which is the awesome Yeti 575. Ranging from 3500-10 grand depending on the grupo you want to go with. Even at the low end it's out of my price range. I do have an old friend in Colorado who prob could swing me a last year's demo bike if I was not picky about color and such still I don't have the funds for such awesomeness at the moment. I digress though.

We got to talking and he told me that he'd been riding this particular trail system for over a decade and logged "over 20,000 miles" there. Then he went on to tell me he had logged many more miles on his nice suspension rig. He asked me how many miles I have put in. I had a simple answer which was "I don't keep up with that kinda thing." Sure there was a time when I really kept on top of my miles then I got here to Georgia and just went "Meh" on the whole thing.  It no longer became important to put in the miles it was quality not quantity I'm looking for now. Besides that I did not have the Colorado Trail system at my feet to jump on when ever I please. My other thought was that as a Soul Rider you point the bike down the trail and go mileage and strava be damned the point is to have fun.

I'm sure I could keep up with the miles easily enough on the cell phone or other bit of technological whiz bangery it's just not that big a deal with me when mountain biking on a loop type trail system. Road biking yeah I can see the importance otherwise not so much.

I'm not bashing this rider. He was a totally nice guy we just have different priorities when it comes to mountain biking. I rarely race I think the last time I was in a MTB race was back in 2004 at 24 hrs of Moab. My view is that on my death bed I'm not going to remember that I logged tens of thousands of miles, what I'll reminiscence on is the rides. The near endless (and wonderful!) Telluride to Moab with friends, riding all those times up on the Colorado Trail and Buffalo Creek camping out on the trail. Riding the high country on part of the 10th mountain division trail, Tsali, Dupont and Pisgah in North Carolina. I'm not looking for the miles, I'm looking for the adventure.

Thanks for  reading.