There is a ride I am compelled to do every so often. It isn’t one that you will find on a “Ten Best Rides” list or even on most folk’s radar. There are very good reasons for this. This ride kicks your ass and then it kicks your ass some more.

Sure it is pretty, lots of wildflowers, mountain vistas, creaks bubbling everywhere, aspens and dark timber, but that all can be found on a lot of trails. A lot easier and perhaps more fun trails?!

It does have rock gardens and it has Rock Gardens! Challenges galore, many bits are rough, unridable, washed out, eroded, it makes you walk, it makes your tires spin and your pedals smack. It teaches patience, it shows perspective, it provides place.

There are perfect sections that make you giggle, even laugh at the blood burning in your lungs, cause it is so perfect. You have to be looking for it. It is sometimes disguised as rock strewn switchbacks that have “B” lines that flow so well.

Then again there are the “Jedi Trees”, a tiny line of flowing dark loamy soil, barely visible through greenery that is almost handlebar height, swooping here and there, through a massive aspen grove. So fast and relatively smooth, yet lurker rocks hide in the deep dark grass and surprise rock gardens pop into view just when you get to flying.

It traverses places that touch my heart. That feed my soul. Everytime. Riding Fossil, makes me really come to terms with what ever Bull Shit that might plague me. For this ride slams down on me like a reality of rocks, millions of rocks that have become, in many places, all that remains of a trail, that I am compelled to follow. No. Matter. What. Thank goodness it is still fun!