perfect score

Mountain bike. In Japanese, the syllables become "maan ten". Three alphabets comprise Japanese written language: two phonetic--hiragana for vernacular and katakana for English and other foreign words--and one of characters like Chinese, called kanji. The kanji for the sounds "maan ten" translate literally to "perfect score". My friend Muga, who runs a charming and pretentious bike shop in Kyoto, explained this joke to me. Mountain bike=perfect score.


Four times now my friends have taken me mountain biking. Each time I come home bruised and elated. I don't know how to handle a bike with straight bars and suspension; I don't trust myself to roll over rocks and through sandy banked corners. But I like being perpetually challenged, and I like spending time with trees and dirt--things the country girl in me misses in her city life.

This is my jam: five or ten minutes into the ride, chasing eager riders who know what they're doing, I take a digger--last week I knocked the wind out of myself and bruised some ribs, this week I wiped out in some sand and landed hip to end of bar--and then I brush myself off, relax, and start getting into the rhythm. By the end I'm exhausted and sore; I can't wait to do it again.