I love exploring. It might be the one part of Mountain Biking that I crave more than competition. It provides the opportunity to discover new parks, see beautiful landscapes and feel the exhilaration of well crafted trails. Mountain Biking brings us away from the everyday world of work and responsibilities, placing us briefly in the hands of nature and fate. I pulled up to the entrance of the Balm-Boyette Nature Preserve only to see a huge crowd on this beautiful Saturday afternoon. I immediately recognized a rider. His name is Walt. He rides an extra large Redline 29er MTB with only nine gears. Walt is a regular at the Tuesday Night ride at the Carlton Reserve, he even has a young daughter named Cadence who rides as well. I was happy he recognized me and when his friends learned that this was my first time at Balm-Boyette, they asked me to join them. This was going to be fun.

Sometimes you have to overreach in order to find out what you are capable of. Three years ago when I decided to try Downhill racing people told me that I was crazy. It was one thing to race Mountain Bikes but doing it at high speed down a mountain was suicidal. While DH was a bit too expensive to continue on a regular basis, I knew that the skills would be invaluable. It's 2012 I'm back on a Mountain Bike looking forward to a Florida Cross Country race. The first step was get myself into XC shape but the second step was to hit some of the trails I will be facing in October. That's why I made a visit to the Alafia River State Park. Alafia is beautiful, well run and the SWAMP club does great job tending to the trails. There is an easy to read map at the trail head, plenty of parking, bathrooms and most importantly - shade. I started my short journey in the place where I knew I would have the most trouble - the double black diamond trail known as moonscape...