skinny dipping

We both saw the lake at exactly the same time. We were just riding along, and suddenly there it was, winking at us through the trees.

It had been a long day. We’d gotten lost on the way to the bike shop — because every ride starts at the bike shop — and we took a wrong turn on the way to the trailhead. We’d spent too much time messing with the bikes. We always spend too much time messing with the bikes.

Also, it was hot. The summer’s heat tasted like dust and smelled like fire. There were trees, but none where we needed them. Why are there never trees on the climbs? This is one of the bike’s great mysteries.

The best rides have an easy cadence to them. You ride, you eat, you banter. You ride some more. When the group separates, you always find each another again. You ride to the big tree, flop in the shade, and swap stories. Remember that one time? Of course you do.

This was not one of those rides. We stopped all the time, but there was no story-telling, just arguing. Which trail to take? We could never decide. Everyone wanted something different. The group split up more times than a ’80’s hair band. We could never find everyone. Tempers frayed.

By the time we saw the lake, we’d mostly given up. We were hot, we were tired, and we felt like nothing could possibly make us happy. Even the downhill wasn’t that great, really.

We had it bad. We felt the malaise that comes from wasting our chance. We had bikes. We had singletrack. And yet, somehow we hadn’t turned them into the good and joyful things they were meant to be. We’d failed.

But the lake, that was another thing altogether. That had possibility.

My friend and I had ridden a little ahead of the others. We were rolling along campanionably, the way you do with good friends on even the worst days. It’s never really a surprise when you think of the same thing at the same time as a close friend. That’s just how it is.

We saw the lake and we knew right then what we had to do with it. The blue water beckoned insistently. Come over here, jump right in. You know you want to. And we did, we definitely wanted to. We rolled along slowly, eyeing the lake, imagining.

-If we swim in our clothes, we’ll have to ride to the car in wet shorts, she said.
-I don’t like wet shorts.
-But if we go over there…

My friend pointed to the other side of the lake where the reeds grew tall. I understood immediately what she had in mind.

We turned our bikes around and began riding back around the curve of the water’s edge. We met up with the rest of the group, and we told them of our discovery, that if we rode to the other side of the lake, we could go swimming where no one could see us. We wouldn’t have to ride home in wet shorts.

We laid down our bikes and stripped off our clothes and scrambled down the bank into the lake’s welcoming waters. The mud squelched up between my toes, and then all at once, I was enclosed in the water’s cool embrace.

It was every bit as good as I imagined, the way the cold water washed over me. Nearby my friend splashed, her hair floating magically on the water’s surface like an image from the cover of a novel about ancient mystics and their enchantments.

Instantly the day became memorable. Finally we were happy.

The water turned suddenly chilly and we climbed up the slippery mud to our clothes. Lycra stuck to our wet skin. I shoved my muddy feet in my socks and narrowly missed sitting in a cluster of poison oak, its oiled leaves red and menacing.

Wet and grinning, we picked up our bikes and set off. There was another climb to go, but it didn’t feel that hard this time. Our spirits lightened, we laughed our way home.

And then we were back at the cars, changing into clean clothes and packing up the bikes. It was late afternoon now. The shadows deepened and the light turned to gold. There was happy chatter as we climbed into the cars.

We were going home with a story to tell. Sometimes that’s the best reason to ride.

This story originally appeared at Adventure Journal.