Twenty-four years ago, I got a cable modem and thought I'd arrived. Continuous online presence felt like the future. My big plan? Finally finishing that mountain bike section of my website.
Turns out, the real future was getting kicked out of Masters B for being too competitive on a cross bike with road tires. Who gives a shift, mountain bike season was about to begin anyway. Five years later, I'd be plotting 135-mile adventure loops through Fish Creek and Graves Creek, thinking about friends who helped me overcome fear... heights with Jill, whitewater with Dave. That perma-grin became standard equipment.
The pattern held. Interval runs with camera breaks, wheezing through Hyalite while philosophizing about how mountains handle colds, fat biking to cabins between rehab sessions. Then came Ogden's enduro stages, 24 miles and 6,500 feet of sketchy exposure that had trail runners warning me about tight sections.
Eventually I'd be coaching Snuggles through bike park drops, giving advice I hadn't conquered myself, when suddenly she just sent it. Two years later I was documenting petroglyphs at Atlatl Rock, and last year cataloging legendary chainless downhill runs, because apparently winning without a chain is possible.
From dial-up dreams to tracking evolution itself, May 3rd keeps showing me the same truth. The unknown isn't terrifying, it's the entire point. Whether it's 135 miles through untested routes or talking someone through their first drop, we're all just trying to find that perma-grin and keep rolling.