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Victory belongs now to this small tree.

There is a small tree 
in the middle of trail
on a very steep slope 
high on the bank above a creek.
It's not a big tree,
maybe eight inches in diameter or less,
but the trail ends there.
Period. 
And starts again beyond
on the other side.
These eight inches
separate two worlds.
You can ride to the tree
touch it and stop.
You can ride on the high side,
touch it and stop.
But that's all you can do.
And then you must stop
to find a way forth.

I can't ride below it.
There is no trail at all.
The cant is far too great
It's much too steep a bank.
Of course you have to try it.
Of course I've tried myself.
I'm launched 30 feet down the slope.
Every time.
Unless I grab a sapling, 
or one catches me,
to break the fall.
I tumble, tumble, tumble.
Sometimes it hurts.
Sometimes a lot.
I'm not 18 anymore. 
(I'm not even 40.)
So I have given up...
... on that route.

I can't ride above it
because the root system 
is just too dense, 
and too jagged 
and too unevenly spaced.
The slope is quite steep,
and terribly uneven.
Large rocks border the trail
6 feet from the tree.
There are two routes above the tree,
one high and one close.
I have tried them each
a hundred times or more.
I have made each...
just once.

One route is to stay close to the tree;
get back on the trail immediately.
It doesn't still count 
if you never let go of the tree.
That's too easy.
But to ride.
To Ride. Yes.
Touching nothing.
The random variables,
the incalculables, 
varied distances between
multiple unevenly spaced drops
across the mangled network of roots
reaching up the side of the hill
and across in every direction, 
capricous pitches and odd angles of the bank,
and my greatest enemy of all,
Speed,
combine and conspire 
to send me sprawling,
scrambling and grabbing at anything
to limit my fall 
to only 20 feet.

Failure on the closer route.
I search where I love to be,
where I want anyway to be,
where I ought always to go,
high onto the side of the bank.
The top side of the trail
with barely space to crank
laying in to the side of the hill
and gently plowing the dirt
with my right pedal.
Recovery from a pedal digging into the dirt,
yes, I do that often.
The roots sometimes pretend to let me pass
up here above the trail,
just grazing my SNAFU
only to give me over to great stones
that tear my momentum
from that direction which is my goal,
and give me over
to gravity.
Predictable,
calculable,
dangerous gravity.
And I have fallen again.

It is possible
that it is not possible.
Or not possible for one 
of my skills. 
That my paltry record is but
the exception, proving the rule.
It is true, it is true
that this tree has caused me
more blood loss
more falls
more bruises
more ego damage
than all of other places combined.
I am not swayed.
For what would motivate me to do those things I can do,
were it not for those things I can't.
There will be more challenges to conquer,
after I vanquish,
if ever,
this small tree
in the middle of the trail
on a very steep slope 
high on the bank above a creek.