by Peter Robertson

Created on: December 24, 2007

In two hundred years from now the inhabitants of this planet will carry tiny DNA decoders, capable of cloning whatever minuscule fragment of us they discover. No area will be more fertile than a mountain biking trail and the Mecca for these future Dr. Frankenstein's will be The Slickrock Trail in Moab, Utah. I feel confident that the amount of skin, hair and blood deposited on the unforgiving slickrock will keep them happy for centuries. Imagine the startled look on their faces when out of the human growth pod steps a mountain biking specimen clad in a sweaty Lycra shirt, wearing a prehistoric hydration system and shoes that appear to serve no practical purpose.

I'm proud to say, I will be one of these creatures, having deposited copious amounts of DNA at Slickrock. My largest donation occurred in 2002 on my second mountain biking visit. I'd ridden Slickrock before and loved the triumphant physical and mental exhaustion it provided. I had to return.

I conquered the tricky downhill and ledge around Wade's Hole. I plowed through sand and grunted up those infamous vertical walls. Icebox Canyon was behind me and I was the mountain biking king, or so I thought, complacency had overtaken common sense.

I was almost at the top of a particular climb, no harder or easier than most and surely not capable of toppling me. My ego had taken over and I mistakenly lost my respect for the trail. As we all know, that's when they bite!

My back tire spun in a small patch of sand that was growing into a beach. I spun again, and again, before trying to hop the back wheel. I lost all sense of reality and with it, technique. My mountain biking instincts deserted me. Foolishly, I lifted the handle bars and somersaulted backwards, my head crashed into the ground with such force it cracked my helmet. Gravity then took over. I slid, rolled and scraped my way to the base of that hill, looking as glamorous as a moose on an ice rink. The pain was blocked by adrenalin and the sudden realization that my faithful bike was chasing me down. I dodged the frame, but the wayward wheel clobbered me in the jaw, fracturing and dislocating it.

I lay in the sand forlornly looking up at large amounts of my skin embedded in the rock. My jaw wasn't where I recalled it should be, and any touch shot an intense dose of pain to my brain. My arms and legs started stinging in unison. Blood was beginning to pour through open wounds on both elbows and knees, and my shorts were ripped revealing an unrecognizable substance oozing from my right thigh.

I spent weeks walking like a demented robot and digesting large amounts of fluid through a straw. But in 2208, when my mountain biking clone will walk the earth - he, I mean I, will conquer Slickrock and lay this memory to rest.

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