I hate rollercoasters. It’s not that I hate going fast (I do hate it), it’s just that I dislike going fast when I’m not in control. Or when I’m out of control.

When I’ve gone on trips with my brother-in-law, David, it always seems like we’re going fast and out of control. You’d think I’d learn, but we Williams were born with strong backs and weak minds.

Dave is a geologist, a seemingly normal guy who grew up sensible in Amarillo, and now holds down a nice-paying job with lots of responsibilities. But Dave will fool you. He’s nuts.

He loves speed, loves pushing the envelope. He’ll ski double diamond blacks and complain they’re not steep enough. Dave’s blue eyes always sparkle with adventure. He never runs out of energy, weighs no more than he did when he was a senior in high school and he always has these fantastic plans. Put all of that together and you can see why he fooled us again into another crazy adventure.

That’s why when he brought the three mountain bikes to Lake City on our annual July vacation and informed us we were going on a little trip around the Alpine Loop, we nodded in agreement and signed on for the ride. Dave is an avid mountain biker and expounds regularly the benefits of hard-core biking. We were all thirty-somethings in good shape so how tough could it be?

The Alpine Loop runs to and from Lake City, Colorado, elevation 8,658 feet. That means the road runs through the clouds. Bring an oxygen tank. The ascent reaches heights of 13,000 feet. The route covers forty-nine miles but Dave convinced us that if we started up near Engineer Pass and got picked up at American Basin, this steep, difficult ride would be cut in half (or more) and would miraculously take only three hours. Did I mention that at that time, neither Kenny nor I had ever ridden a mountain bike?

We were dropped us off early in the morning about a mile below Engineer Pass. We snugged up our conical helmets, hopped on the bikes, checked our watches (8:00 a.m. sharp), and feverishly began peddling up the mountain. Over our panting, we could hear Dave laughing at us when, after only a few hundred yards, we took a break. There is very little oxygen above the clouds and Kenny and I were fighting each other for what little there was.

Dave, meanwhile, was cruising up the mountain with ease, his skinny deer legs pumping the pedals up and down. He turned and looked back at us and smiled his cheesy smile. He had tricked us once again.

We pushed the bikes up the steep road for what seemed like months, past the snow banks, our lungs burning. Jeep after Jeep passed us on their way around the Loop as we made our slow ascent, the stunned looks on their faces confirming we had made a terrible recreation decision. We reached the summit and collapsed.

Through the fog in my brain, I glanced at my watch. 10:00 a.m.

We drank all of our water, glared at Dave and tried to muster the energy to say something ugly to him. Instead, we saved our energy for breathing. Then we were off again, trying to keep Dave in sight.

The views were spectacular and the air was chilling. The road grew narrower, rougher and the fall off the side of the road longer and more dangerous. The road dropped down, curving, swooping like a rollercoaster. And I hate rollercoasters.

Dave flew down the road, both of his knobby tires spinning in the air like an MTV commercial. He swerved to miss holes and rocks and this blurry form flashed down the mountain. Kenny likes speed as well, but being neither mountain goat nor mountain biker, his descent took on comic proportions.

Somewhere along the way down, Kenny did not swerve to miss the holes or the rocks and his knobby tires did not spin in the air like an MTV commercial. In fact, one tire did spin in the air but not in thrasher mode. It did not spin in the air because it was bouncing along the road supporting Kenny’s full weight, and he’s a big boy. This was the front tire. The other tire, the back tire, was indeed spinning in the air, reaching for the blue sky and if I hadn’t known better, I would’ve sworn he was attempting some sort of mondo mountain bike trick, some kind of ‘walking-the-dog-down-the-mountain’ routine.

Somehow, through prayer or fate, Kenny righted the bike just before going over the edge. Twenty yards down the road, Dave was doubled over in laughter at Kenny’s pogo stick dance. He was also holding his knee, cut wide open, bleeding like a stuck pig. Dave had taken a spill, had bent his thousand-dollar bike, and his knee had a gash that would require stitches.

“That leg’s gonna need stitches so it’s too bad we’ll have to turn back, huh?” I asked.

Dave had that look in his eyes. I looked at Kenny for duplicity in developing a quick plan to extricate us from this Hades on wheels but I could tell he had gone over to the dark side. “Saddle up,” they said together, like demons. Dave wiped his knee with a handkerchief and climbed aboard his death machine.

Time: High Noon.

I went up a hill and down a mountain. The mountain stood before me demanding I ride up its precipitous road. It started snowing. So the three of us, Dave included, pushed these titanium technical marvels up Cinnamon Pass. In the snow.


I caught up with Kenny somewhere in between blowing hard and blizzard. The big lug’s big head was hung low, his breathing labored. I had adopted the bright idea of breathing only every few minutes. We leaned on our bikes exhausted, the air wet and white. I lifted up my heavy head just in time to see the hot flash of lightning. The snow turned to rain.

Time: 2:30 p.m.

We found energy and pedaled furiously to the top of the mountain. Perfect spot to see lightning up close and personal. And we did.

Dave ran over to us. “Toss the bikes down and get over here!” His voice was commanding, scared.

A bolt of silver and the crash of Heaven’s tin threw us to the ground, the hair on our necks and arms standing on end, our hearts pounding. We and the lightning rods we rode were in the middle of the clouds in the smack dab middle of a mountain thunderstorm. As lightning dangerously kaleidoscoped around us, we hopped on the bikes and pedaled like madmen down the other side of the pass.

Before I knew it, I was side by side with these two knuckleheads, hurtling downhill to certain death. I tested the brakes, still not sure which handbrake controlled the back or the front and my tires skidded perilously. Gravity had its grip on me and I was out of control. And the big curve came up on me before I knew it.

I crashed.

I crashed, tumbling through brush and bumping rocks as I skidded. It hurt but at least I wasn’t floating in the air off the mountain and at least, unlike Kenny and Dave, I wasn’t still riding speedily down the mountain. I watched the dynamic duo flying down the mountain, (pedaling for goodness’ sake).

Time: 4 p.m. Eight hours into the trip.

Our family was waiting for us at the bottom of the mountain. The three-hour tour (that took eight hours) was over.

I learned a lot about trusting Dave and his fantastic ideas. His trips always involve speed and pain and a general lack of control. So when he came to me with the bright idea of the three of us paragliding down into the Grand Canyon and landing on the banks of the Colorado River so we could fish and camp for three days, I told him flat out ---“No way. Not this time. I know how your crazy plans turn out.”

I convinced him we’d need at least a week in the canyon to do it right. A man’s got to stand his ground sometime, you know?