Coasting

I heard this the other evening...

If you are coasting, you must be going downhill.

Interesting. It goes along with the idea that if you are not progressing and moving forward you are actually moving backwards. Life moves past you and you are left behind. It also adds the idea that you can only coast in your life when things are going downhill, that is getting worse.

It made me think about the bike trip along the Pine Creek Trail. There was never a place I could coast. While the overall slope is downward from north to south there was never a stretch that was enough of a downhill grade to allow me to truly coast. Sure I could pedal my speed up for a little then let the bike coast along for a short time but there was always something working against me and I had to go back to pedaling.

That something was the fact that the Pine Creek Rail Trail is "paved" with crushed stone. It is not paved with macadam. The Douglas and Root River Trails around Rochester here are macadam paved. You can actually coast for quite a while, even on flat or slight grades downhill. You can't do that with the extra friction of the crushed stone. The only way you can truly coast on a trail like that is on a steep downhill. And that only makes it harder to stop.

That happened once to me when I was about 12 years old. I had biked up to the top of one of the hills outside of town in one of the hollows (or gaps) in the mountain. I started downhill on a gravel road. I come around a curve since hollow roads are never straight and there's a car. I slam on the brakes and go sliding one way and the next until, as always happens, the bicycle and I go down. I slid some more and had the scraped knees and all to show for it.

The lesson is easy to see. You can coast when things are going well, but when the going gets rough and friction goes against you, you can't coast and you better hope you never can.