Page 36 of Hard Tail
Matt rolled his eyes. “Just remember—follow the track, and if you see a shortcut no one else is taking, don’t do what Phil did the other week and assume you know better, all right?”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Turned out there was barbed wire across it. I ended up getting a faceful,” Phil told me ruefully.
Now I looked closer, I could see the faint marks. “Nice.”
We set off in single file down the narrow dirt drack, with Matt in the front. I’d assumed that, as the newbie, I’d be bringing up the rear, but Adam insisted I go ahead of him.
It was really thoughtful of him to make sure I didn’t get left behind, I mused as I pedalled away, my eyes unavoidably fixed on Andy’s arse as it wobbled away in front of me.
The trees in this part of the forest were a mixed bunch, much like the lads. Not that I could have told you what any of them were, but there were tall, spindly ones with delicate leaves, and ancient, gnarled ones that looked like they could have earned a few pounds as extras inLord of the Rings.Broad-leaved trees with silvery bark, and tall, scraggy fir trees quite unlike the maypole-like pines I’d seen in European forests. Gran would have known all of their names—I had a sudden flash of memory of walking in a forest somewhere with her when I was little, my small hand in hers, on one of those rare, blissful days Jay hadn’t been there to overshadow me.
Or push me face-first into the stinging nettles. All right, he’d only ever done that the once—and Gran had given him a proper tongue-lashing for it—but whenever he’d been around, he’d always managed to be the centre of attention. Jay was always the talker, whereas I was the quiet one, often to be found with my nose stuck in a book. Jay was the one who’d be falling out of trees or coming home from the park with spectacularly bloodied knees from some daft stunt on the roundabout.
I’d be the one who’d be constantly nagged toleave that, don’t climb that, stop running…because you know what happened to your brother. Conversely, when I decided in my teens I’d like to start karate—mainly, as it happened, because I had a crush on a boy from school who went, but that was neither here nor there—the expected argument totally failed to materialise. Presumably, if Jay wasn’t doing it, it couldn’t be dangerous.
We soon got to a clearing, where the lads stopped and gathered round what I first took to be some kind of forest sculpture—then I realised someone had built a sort of see-saw out of a tree-trunk and some fallen branches lashed together. From his delighted cries of “It’s still here!” I deduced that someone had been Tel.
“Going to give it a go?” he asked Matt.
For a moment, I thought they were actually going to sit on it like kids. Then Matt lined his bike up with the down side and pedalled slowly onto the decidedly unsafe-looking see-saw. I found I was holding my breath as he reached the midpoint and paused to let it tip, but he handled it well and let the bike roll down.
Matt having made it unscathed—perhaps they used him as the mountain-biking equivalent of a miner’s canary?—we were all expected to have a go. When it came to my turn, I gamely approached the see-saw, which appeared to have doubled in height since Andy had wobbled his way over.
“G’won!” Adam shouted.
Oh, bloody hell. What was the worst that could happen? Oh, yes—I could end up in hospital with Jay. I glanced at Matt, and he gave me an encouraging smile. Warmth flooded through me.
“Don’t be a wuss!” Phil yelled, which turned the thermostat right back down again.
I pedalled my way onto the down side. It was harder than it looked to stay balanced, but I made it to the midpoint, at which my stomach dropped sharply as the see-saw did likewise. “Whoa!” I shouted without meaning to, barely managing to stay upright as it jolted with impact and I zipped back down to earth a lot faster than I’d intended—although fortunately without actually falling off my bike altogether. “Hey, that was fun!”
The others all laughed at my obvious surprise. “Yeah, that’s kind of the point,” Andy said. “Something from the mini-bar to celebrate?” He had his hip flask out again, and we all took a swig. It didn’t burn quite so much this time going down.
We strung out a bit as we went through the forest, the order we rode in changing at every gate (although Adam always seemed to end up behind me, for some reason). It was, as Matt had mentioned, fairly flat, but there were plenty of natural obstacles to negotiate—tree roots, deep ruts left by winter cyclists, horse dung and the odd muddy puddle, some where you’d least expect them. As I whizzed through one and felt mud splatter up my back, I reflected that at least now I’d look the part.
“Reckon I’m dirty enough to be a real mountain biker?” I asked Adam the next time we stopped for a gate and a swig of Andy’s “muscle relaxant”.
Adam gave me a speculative look. “Y’could get a lot dirtier than that,” he said with an odd smile.
He was probably right. There were undoubtedly a lot more puddles to come tonight.
“’Ere, Tim—I wish my wife was as dirty as you!” Andy interrupted. Everyone laughed uproariously at the cringeably old joke, including me. I decided I’d better refuse all offers of refreshments from now on if I didn’t want to get done for drunk driving on the way home.
The New Forest, I was beginning to learn, was definitely not one of those places where you couldn’t see the wood for the trees. Although a lot of it was, as you might expect, thickly forested, there were also large expanses of grass and heathland. They were great for varying the pace, letting us cruise for a bit before plunging back into the trees, where all the frantic twisting and turning, braking and accelerating kept us on our toes and took a lot more effort.
We passed through a thick stretch of dense gorse—one variety of forest life, at least, that even I could identify—then the view opened up on one side to show a field full of grazing deer, graceful and majestic in the twilight. All too soon we were at the next gate, which led us into enclosed woodland I guessed must be some kind of timber plantation, judging from the uniformity of the trees.
“Y’all right?” Adam asked, coming up behind me.
“I’m fine,” I reassured him. “Don’t worry,” I added, remembering the magazine article. “I’m not about to bonk.”
Adam grinned. “Y’ sure ’bout that?”
“Well, I don’t think so—but you probably know a lot more about it than I do.”
“Bet y’re a quick learner,” he said in my ear.
