A guy called me the other day. Someone gave him my name. He wanted to talk about the history of Tallahassee mountain bike trails. Shit man. I don’t know anything about Tallahassee mountain bike trails. Actually, I know one thing. If you built one you damn sure don’t get credit for it. It’s an odd situation. I came along late to the game in 1990. I certainly did not build any trails, but the main way trails were built back then was people rode the same path until it became a trail. So, whether we happened upon ephemeral seams between neighborhoods and parks, or were explicitly told to ride a certain path, we were all a part of the process.

My world was smaller then. My world started at the Senator Apartments on Virginia Ave, #69. I rode a 1986 Fuji Palisades road bike. 2 years later, by the time we moved into 247 Lipona St. it was all Check Your Head by the Beastie Boys and mountain bikes and nothing but them ever since. We wore soft Hi-Tec hiking boots strapped into toe-clips, or as Squatch and Hi Tops call them, “toe baskets.” The uniform was cut off Army fatigue shorts, and cotton t-shirts. The entire point of riding was exploration, and a constant progression of skills and “hits” throughout the town. The gazebo on Park Ave, the downhill from Westcott to the union, the bunny hop over the slab behind Fisher Lecture Hall, and the half pipe behind the old Varsity theater, a relic from the clay bed railway that used to run through Tallahassee. Moving from spot to spot we rode homeless camp trails, maybe dropping off or bumming a cigarette from a resident. We rode any in-between space, anything not quite claimed or guarded. The rumor of an actual trail, some discreet flagging to follow, captured our imagination with an enduring obsession to ride it and trample it into a path. The Fern trail, now a standard commuter route from town to Tom Brown Park used to start behind the Winn Dixie on Magnolia. We circled the loading dock conspicuously until the coast was clear to drop in and grind along to the far frontier beyond the Armory.

We had a secret trail behind the other Winn Dixie on Tharpe, built obsessively by our friend Sean behind his house on Alliegood. I never thought of this, but maybe this affiliation with trails is why I favor Winn Dixie over Publix. The first time we rode to the forest from town in search of the Munson Hills trail it was an all day event. Breaking free past Capital Circle felt like I’d ridden to another country. I wore my school backpack crammed with snacks and illicit supplies. We probably took 20 breaks. Now? That’s a 90 minute out and back from the house.

So, when organization and advocacy came to town in the mid 2000’s, I was not into it. I’m still not into it. I didn’t recognize the motivation to ride as exercise, get more riders on the trials, or compete in an organized event. That part of cycling was always there, progressing along its own path towards that day when all the trails became public access issues and land management concerns.

I suffer from an over-developed sense of loyalty honed by movies of the 1980’s like Red Dawn, or Tuff Turf, when all James Spader had in this world was Robert Downey Jr. and his dobermans, Zeus and Apollo. All of these people talking about what to do with “our trails” had nothing to do with their creation. They built an Atlanta Bread Company on top of the Fern trailhead, then John H got busted for reclaiming the line, and he took that like a man, but I didn’t. I’m still mad about it. At 54 I still feel like a doting little brother around the mountain bike pioneers of this town. I think I always will. I hope so. They gave me the world, a view across the handlebars, and the joy of discovering a dumped Maytag washing machine full of buckshot holes, or a deer trail that sneaks you into the back of the Leon Sinks State Park to ride the hiking trail.

Progress came to town and moved in for good. It put down stakes and elected slate after slate of officers. Some of those pioneers lived in both worlds, familiar with the heft of a machete on trespassed land, and the sign-in sheet at the City Focus Group. Those are the real players, code switching with ease like the French Resistance. I tried, but it wasn’t for me. People say if you don’t vote you don’t have a right to complain, but I have news for them, this blog is a digital monument to complaining without requesting permits or rights. You can hate that, but you can’t stop it.

After almost 35 years of mountain biking in this town, some years more fervently than others, not much has changed despite the arrival of progress. Most of our trails are still the ones created by outlaws, yet claimed as a whole by a community that doesn’t remember, or never even consider, how they got there. Anyone with a sense of adventure can still explore and enjoy a ride beyond the land use Master Plan, which is a title out of central casting if ever I heard one.

I look forward to reading this historian’s account, and in our conversation it was clear he was well on the scent, tracking down these legends hiding in plain sight, or sometimes a bit further off the traveled path. I thank the current leadership of the Tallahassee Mountain Bike Association for making this move. It could potentially heal a calcified division that may only exist in my heart, but its there all the same. A blanket amnesty, expunging of records, and keys to the city might be too much to ask for, but the truth is a great place to start.

Juancho

I’m farming this thing out to AI. You decide the winner!
As written by ChatGPT.

Bruce Springsteen on the Grateful Dead

Look, I respect the Grateful Dead and what they’ve done, but I gotta be honest, their music never really resonated with me. I come from a place where music is about the raw, gritty truth of everyday life. The Dead, they have this psychedelic, meandering vibe that feels like it’s more about escaping reality than confronting it.

When I’m writing songs, I’m thinking about the guy who’s working two jobs, trying to make ends meet. I’m thinking about the kid who’s growing up in a tough neighborhood, looking for a way out. My music is rooted in the struggles and triumphs of the working class. The Dead, well, they’re more about the journey than the destination.

Their jams can go on for 20 minutes, drifting from one idea to the next without a clear direction. For me, a song needs to have a purpose, a story that hits you right in the gut. It needs to be tight, focused, and powerful. The Dead’s music, while technically impressive, can feel aimless and indulgent. It’s like they’re playing for themselves rather than for the audience.

And then there’s the culture around the Dead. The whole “Deadhead” scene, with its tie-dye shirts and endless touring, feels like a distraction from the real issues. Music should inspire action, not just a haze of good vibes. So, while I respect their place in rock history, their approach just doesn’t align with my vision of what music should be. I want my songs to be anthems for the everyday heroes, not just a soundtrack for a trip.

And, Jerry Garcia’s response, as determined by ChatGPT

Look, Bruce Springsteen, he’s got this image of being the working man’s hero, and I respect that. But if I’m being real, there’s something about his music that feels too boxed in, too rigid for my taste. The Boss, he thrives on structure, on these tightly woven narratives that spell everything out. It’s almost like he doesn’t trust the listener to fill in the blanks or take the journey on their own terms.

In the Dead, we believe in the power of improvisation, of letting the music take you where it wants to go. Springsteen’s songs, while powerful, can feel like they’re confined within the lines of a well-drawn map. Every verse, every chorus, meticulously planned and executed. There’s a certain beauty in that, sure, but it lacks the spontaneity, the freedom to explore and discover something new every night.

And then there’s the whole persona thing. Bruce is all about this blue-collar, down-to-earth image, but sometimes it feels like a bit of a costume, you know? It’s like he’s playing a character on stage. With the Dead, what you see is what you get. We’re not trying to be anything other than who we are. Our music is a reflection of our collective spirit, not just one man’s vision.

I get that his songs resonate with a lot of people, and that’s cool. But for me, music should be a living, breathing thing, not just a series of anthems with a predetermined message. It’s about the journey, the experience, the magic that happens when you let go and let the music lead the way. Springsteen’s got heart, no doubt, but sometimes I wish he’d loosen up a bit and let the music flow.

It;s a close call y’all!

North Tampa is all acne and double chins, pit stains and varicose veins. I drive in circles around a strip mall lot anchored by a yellowing Winn Dixie. Sushi, Thai, Falafel, Subs, Poke bowls and Bubble tea, around I go unable to make a decision. With my father in the hospital I study each restaurant not for what sounds good. but for the underlying disease it will evoke in my own aging body. I go with the middle-eastern spot. It is almost empty. A bear-like man and his daughter in her school uniform are ordering at the counter. I wait behind them, still and dumb as a coat rack. The little girl is taking her time choosing each ingredient for her wrap with serious consideration. Me? I would eat the cold fries and greasy napkins off the lone dirty table.

I wear a sticker on my shirt with a grainy photo of myself, but it could easily be my father. He is on the fourth floor tower of the hospital, and also someplace far more difficult to find. Lost in his own mind after cracking his skull on a tile floor, he is lost in the continuous now. “Where is your car?” He asks. I answer that question over and over in a loop, unable to explain why we can’t walk out together and go home. “Bring me down in this chair to the first floor. Put a towel on the seat. They took my underwear.” Each time I tell him no I feel a little bit more like a piece of shit until I have to leave. Now I stand here, a giant pile of shit, and hungry. It is taking a long time, but I don’t care about anything.

It is my turn and I order. The restaurant is halal, and I take note that I did not step into a strip mall falafel shop, but a community. The man and his daughter speak a language I don’t know with the cook and the manager. I put that placid, friendly white guy face on I use in these settings to communicate I am benign. The bear-like man engages me, asking who is in the hospital. I tell him my father, and the words stick like chalk. He changes the subject. He owns a meat market in Ybor City. I ask his daughter if she works the cash register or is she a butcher? She smiles and says she does sit at the counter and help the customers check out.

Their food is ready and he settles up, wishing me the best for my father.

I pull out my wallet to pay and the proprietor waves my credit card away. “He paid for you. It is enough to make a coat rack cry.

Before the accident, Manny rode his bicycle to work. The morning it happened, the story was taking over the news across the country. By the time it was over, when Baby Jessica finally emerged from the well in the arms of firefighter Robert O’Donnell, Manny was already in Intensive Care. While waiting for the ambulance, the soap-scrubbed Christian woman who stopped for his crumpled form on the side of the road was praying. Kneeling over him with her hands stacked on his chest, she was not performing CPR, but beseeching a holy intercession on behalf of the young man’s broken body.

Manny never returned to work at the restaurant. Long months of recovery in a county rehabilitation facility, a nursing home. passed as the puzzle of broken bones slowly shuffled back into a functional form. His brain remained in a hazy twilight of conscious hibernation. He awoke to eat. He walked slowly between the parallel bars, a cast of nurses shadowing him, a sheet bridled about his waist for support. Like his body, his brain was negotiating new avenues of moving ketones and lactate from neuron to neuron. When the doctors signed off on his discharge, Manny was outwardly healed, and inwardly re-ordered, his personality and cognitive scope both exponentially more grand.

7 months after the world forgot about Baby Jessica, Manny was just learning again of the miracle.

I’d researched him for days waiting for him to get my message and return my call. I knew he was an Air Force helicopter medic in Iraq. I knew everywhere he’d been to college. I expected a skilled diplomat, savvy in the handling of distressed family members at his hospital almost a year into this pandemic.

So I was caught completely off guard when he charged me on the sidewalk, veins bulging in his head. His physical stature identical to a vending machine, one fist clenched, the other finger pointed at my face spitting inside his KN95 about me being the one harassing his staff and taking photographs in his hospital.

Apparently it is perhaps not legal to take photographs of hospital employees inside a hospital not wearing a face covering, an action that sounds very unlike me although I can’t be certain I didn’t do it.

After so many fruitless calls, cordial requests, and insistent private online messages requesting a moment of accountability, what choice did I have? What choice would you have if it was your loved one with their back to the wall, certain to not survive should the virus saunter its way from an uncovered nose to their lungs? His dutiful assistant failed to provide the gentleman with the full context of our many interactions and instead provided the miserly synopsis that finally got him out of his chair to find me.

Despite his size and military training he was the one in danger. Motivation to protect one’s reputation stands no chance against the drive to protect one’s family. If he killed me he would need a surgeon to cut my hands from his throat.

Security, roused from their listless stupor, came to his aid, which he quickly dismissed. In between his threats of arrest and my presentation of evidence we grappled our way to a new understanding. Yes, it has been hard. Yes, fatigue sets in, and yes, every single god damn person should have their face covered in a hospital, and hold each other accountable to the highest standard of safety for the patients, if not each other.

As the temperature between us dropped he sighed, “I wish you had just called me first.” I clutched a bench to keep from spinning off the earth from the irony, my phone log a solid line of call attempts dating to last week. “Man” I deadpanned, “thanks for the suggestion. I’ll try that next time.” We exchanged cell numbers and agreed to keep the lines of communication open, as the saying goes.

A box of fresh masks appeared at the front desk, and shortly after he texted me. He thanked me for bringing the issues to their attention, acknowledged they needed perhaps a renewal of pandemic vows so to speak. Most importantly, he inquired as to my loved one’s condition, status, and care plan. He checked in again last night, just before I fell into a hard sleep.

It’s touch and go out there everyone. We have to dig in with our fingernails if we are going to make it through this together. The virus is truly the least of our worries.

Juancho