I am always on-line, messing around with different websites, signing up… seeing what they are all about etc. So one day I came across RidersVoice.com [ a site for snowboarders to rate/ review the boards they own/ ride ] and I created a profile and started rating my boards. A couple of days later I got a ‘thank you’ email from some dude from RidersVoice, I wrote back and we found out that we are practically neighbors. he lives about an eight minute walk from my place. I thought that was extremely random.

His nickname will be.. uh… Neighbor.

So yeah, Neighbor and I have been communicating, but seeing the fact that it was Winter and Winters are meant to be spent somewhere on a mountain and NOT in the City, we never met up until a couple of weeks ago. He’s cool. Italian, has two female roommates, works and is is into some of the same things I am really into. Basically… I am stoked to have a friend in my neighborhood that is of legal drinking age hahaha.

Last week he was planning on going to Mountain Creek, Vernon NJ to go downhill biking. He’d been asking me if I wanted to come along and I said “sure… no problem! I am Dutch and biking is in my blood”. I really did not foresee a lot of problems. I mean, I have been biking since I could walk and really, how hard could it really be to go DOWN hill? haha… In all fairness, I was expecting a nice leisurely nature bike ride.

WRONG!!

My first clue was when I saw what came with the bike rental:

• a huge helmet, you know, covering the chin and all
• knee/ shin protection
• elbow/ arm guards
• gloves with the the knuckles covered in Teflon
• a plastic shield/ body armor covering my back / chest and shoulders.

Another dead giveaway: the place wasn’t called Mountain Creek for the Summer, no: it changed it’s name to DIABLO. Now… I don’t speak Spanish but I do know what Diablo means…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfJ5AZxWVN4]

Still not too concerned I peddled around on the property and we decided to go up the lift. The same one I used to ride in Winter…  with my snowboard under my arm and a smile on my face. I don’t know what happened but I got scared shit-less! Seriously… I started to sweat and Neighbor became seriously worried that I was gonna choke up and cry.

We got off the lift and took the wrong trail. It has the same color/ shape coding as in the Winter. We ended up on a nice black one. All I saw were tree stumps, rocks, pebbles and stones, gravel and I just prayed to God and the Queen in Holland that I would survive.

I made it down and I sucked bad. I mean I seriously feared for my life. However, I was determined to get it down. After the 4th run I felt confident and was actually getting a bit braver, faster and secure in my riding/ braking and what not. I was smiling and thought I was the shit.

Last run: Neighbor thought it would be fun to take some ‘action shots’. For some reason I had this vision of me crashing on this part that consisted of just rock. I got so scared. I told myself to snap out of it and be confident. ‘It’s all in your mind girl’ I told myself. I passed that specific part of the run down and I was happy as the hippo. Next was the swirly park part and I felt like I could do it.. no problem…

Long story short. I crashed royally. Twice. Of course on the last run. On the Rocks… just like how I enjoy my drinks… I can tell from experience that that protection I wore… the body shield etc. really works! Neighbor looked so scared, I mean it must have looked pretty bad and truthfully… it hurt and I got super scared and I wanted to cry, but I knew that I had to get right back on that bike cuz otherwise I would never do it again… so that’s what I did.

I was stoked. I mean, I was scared, I got hurt and I didn’t let it stop me from trying something new. [well maybe the fact that there were hardly any women there and a ton of guys might have had something to do with it as well..]

Lesson: you are scared, you fall, you get up, you have fun, you fall, you are scared, you get back up and just do it again… with a smile, looking fabulous [not really haha] but feeling like a million dollars.