I Usually Don’t Throw My Bike

The other day I got out of work early, and figured I’d take advantage of the warm, sunny afternoon before the light faded into dusk. There wasn’t much of a plan: basically just throw some pallets down and make up some lines. I started out by surprising myself, making a gap up to rear that I figured might be a little much for my weak-ass legs. Then I added parts from my son’s old wooden playscape that we tore down this year – he’s too old for it, and it was starting to fall apart.

One of the lines I tried using playscape parts ended up being way harder than I thought… on the part I thought would be easy. The hand/foot holds on the old children’s climbing wall left less room to maneuver (which was actually the whole point) and messed with my head. That resulted in a tad bit of frustration, followed by a mild bike toss.

After trying that line for a while, I created a makeshift skinny using a 3×3 beam, also from the old playscape. The bolts holding the playscape together had rusted so badly that I could not get the nuts off, so I ended up just using a chainsaw to cut up the playscape (while saving the parts I wanted for my trials obstacles, of course). The end result is that the 3×3 beams (legs from the playscape) all have bolted on bits of wood. Eventually I will probably cut the bolts, but for now the result is really bumpy skinnies. While they can be annoying, little things like that make it more of a challenge.

The afternoon wasn’t full of smashing successes, but it was still a good time. I always love being out on my bike, even if it’s a struggle.

One of the best aspects of trials is you can ride anywhere. And on just about anything. What would have been junk – pallets and and old decrepit playscape – have been recycled for trials riding. And my collection of “junk” keeps growing. Now I just need to build up some more permanent obstacles…