Biking in Lock Haven

Over the winter my wife went out to get her hair cut. Ann mentioned to her hairdresser that I was looking for a truck so that i could easily just throw my bikes in the back and get to some cool trails. Her hair dresser said "my brother just got a truck and he just throws his bikes in it and is really beating it up". Well like the good wife she is she gave my number to the hair dresser and the hair dresser did the same with her brothers number. Well Ann came back and told me the whole story and I was skeptical to say the least. I thought to myself, girls don't know the difference between types of biking, this guy is probably a roadie or something... Well a couple weeks later I get a call from this guy, Duffy is his name, and it turned out our interests were pretty much perfectly aligned. He lives in a town about 45 minutes away so I try to get out there and bike like once a week. They have a pretty good scene. A couple screamin fast and bumpy trails (my personal favorite) and they have some cool freeride (jumps, raised ladder work) stuff too, they even have some cool looking (i haven't hit them yet) dirt jumps. Well I have never been much of a jumper, there isn't anything around here that really qualifies as a real jump. So today Duffy took me to his jumps. I was pretty sketched out... the one tabletop has a 23' distance between the lip (take off) and tranny (landing). I watched him do it a couple times and then decided that I wasn't getting any younger and I should try it. All I have to say is props to Duffy (and all the guys who built back there) they make some smooth trails. The first jump I did I landed a bit short (but that is the nice thing about a table top (if you land short you just land on flat and then ride it out)). By the 4th or 5th jump I was getting better, going the whole way between lip and tranny.
Then for some reason, I guess I was getting tired, I started sucking. I hit the lip once and my rear end got jacked up in the air and I kinda nose dived into the tranny, I was able to land on the bike (always good because it has 7" of give) but then I launched over the bars and did a pretty good dive straight in to the ground. Thank god for helmets. On a side note, I don't skimp on the helmet... I always wear one and it is pretty diesel. It is actually DOT approved for highway use and it is comfortable (although hot as heck sometimes). Well I did basically the same thing 2 more times, for some reason I just couldn't get level in the air. So we left the table and went and did some drops and a couple berms ( a banked corner). As we were getting ready to go I decided I needed to try the tabletop again. I didn't want to leave defeated. So I dropped in for one last time and did better. I didn't gap the whole thing but I also aired it out, landed and rode it out correctly so that was good. Anyways, it was a good weekend trip. Biking is a blast because it is so versatile, you can bike to just get places, you can bike to get a rush going down a hill, you can bike to do tricks that impress all your friends, you can bike to get in shape, but any biking you do is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face (and if it doesn't... then get off the bike :)