I went on my 3rd moto-trail ride a few weeks ago. I was determined to do better than my last ride, and had asked my friend Luciano to lead me on easy trails so I could have some fun and get some real practice in. I was doing sort of ok at the start, but as usual, after about 45 minutes, I started to overheat and was flailing and falling in relatively easy terrain, even for me. (again, this is Brazil, and you have all this protection on; the weather is actually cool every other day after the rains, but we happened to ride on a hot day.)
Fortunately, I had the awareness and willpower to tell my friend that I had to stop and cool down. After initially getting off the bike, I paced around aimlessly like a hunted animal, perhaps as a desparate effort to evade the buring heat that was trapped underneath my gear. It was an amazing feeling; it was literally a furnace in there. I ripped the gear off my upper body and told Luciano to go off on his own and have some fun; to just forget about me, the wimp. Then I frantically searched for some shade, settling under a small, pathetic shrub. I spent the next 15 minutes observing how damn hot my body was, cursing Luciano, and swearing that I would never ride in the heat (or in Brazil) again. I wanted snow, ice, freezing rain; I wanted to be cold, to get frostbite, I wanted to freeze my ass off. Those thoughts alternated with low feelings of self-esteem, me wondering if maybe I was just a big pussy, and then realizing that my overheating was a very real and dangerous thing that actually had nothing to do with athletic ability. (I'd like to see my bastard friend Luciano on a snowboard. Then he'd know the meaning of pain! :-) )
After Luciano returned, I commmented that my main problem was simply the heat. It was taking away my energy, and thus I couldn't control the bike at all when it counted most. Regardless, he took it for a spin, and then noted that the handlebars needed to be changed (to a high bend), the gearing was a bit too high which took away from the low-end torque, and my rear tire was a little low on tread. I had already noticed these things, and though they gave me an even larger handicap, they weren't really the main cause of my flailing. Then again, combining all of the above (with me being a beginner) made things quite difficult.
Luciano commented that there was a small river nearby. I didn't even want to put my fricking helmet and upper-body gear back on, let alone get back on the bike, but I knew I had to push on through. So I ignored everything my brain and body were telling me, and went back into the fire. We arrived at this little river, and he encouraged me to just lay down in the slowly moving water with all my gear on, sans helmet. It turned out to be a great thing, and it was interesting how warm my head remained even after laying in the water for a minute.
By this point, the sun had gone behind the clounds, and a fresh, cool breeze picked up. Ah, this was much better. I could do this. We stayed on easy, flat trails. However, at one stage, we hit some sandy trails and my inexperience got me again. Luciano was in front and made a right hand turn over a little berm. I followed, and hit the front brake as I went into the turn. First, you should never hit the brakes (and certainly not the front brake) in a turn if you can avoid it (which I could have), and second, you should never, EVER hit the front brake when turning in sand. Well, before I could say 'shit', my handlebars washed out and I was airborne. I landed on my shoulder pretty hard and rolled; it hurt, but nothing was damaged. It was actually a fun wipeout, except for the sand in my mouth.
Shortly thereafter, we arrived back at the parking lot, which is where the real action was taking place. A bunch of ‘bitches’, as Luciano had called them earlier, were there with a guy friend. They were in front of a little beer/soda stand in the middle of a field, and a group of guys were sitting around relaxing after their ride. The young girls were dancing to some techno blasting out the trunk of the dude’s car. It was damn good techno actually; I looked around and concluded that none of them really seemed to be enjoying the music, but they were enjoying the girls. Luciano said the girls were just your average ‘party girls’ that would basically prostitute themselves given the chance, and many of the girls in Goiania were like this. If they were walking on the street, you could just start chatting to them, and they’d go with you to eat, or have a beer, or whatever.
There we were, basking in nice weather at a little shack in the middle of nowhere, techno blaring, young girls dancing and making me feel like a dirty old bastard (which I am), a bunch of guys screwing around with their offroad motorcycles, just chillin’ out. This was a true taste of daily Brazil life in the heart of the country, laid-back, great energy, simple. Perhaps the same scene was repeating itself somewhere in the heart of America, away from the superficial rat-race of metropolitan areas (Sao Paulo and Rio were not all that different than Detroit or Los Angeles, after all) There could easily be a bunch of moto-guys hanging out at a little refreshment stand in the middle of Kentucky (or a bunch of snowboarders chilling out at the base of the mountain), listening to music with some party girls hanging around, keeping it real.
I've concluded that Brazil probably isn't any more fun, laid-back or easy-going then the US when you get to the heart of things. But it has a helluva lot more problems. Trust me, the US is the best damn place in the world, all things considered, and don't let anybody tell you different! I'll write an article on this topic later.
