Silence.

The woman sat on her bicycle looking down the trail. The ridgeline was to her right, a cliff-face to her left. A hundred yards or so ahead, there were two boulders a few feet apart. The trail thread its way between them, then it faded off to the left, a deep rut banking through a copse of trees. After another couple hundred yards of trees, the trail plunged off to the left, wrapping around the bases of more trees, many of them thicker in girth than her bicycle was long.

Once through the forest, then back onto a fire trail nearly five hundred feet below, ever going downhill. There were numerous small whoop-de-dos as well as a heavy rhythm section with deep ruts. It would be like riding the washboard from Hell, only there wasn't water at the bottom. It was thick gooey mud, and any loss in speed would be less-than-fun. After the rhythm section, there were two large "table-top" jumps, each one fifteen yards across the top with a steep launch and long drawn out landing.

The tabletops faded off into the distance; she could see them if she squinted, though the dust on her faceplate seemed to amplify the haze, not cut it.

"Gotta clean it..." She mumbled. She took a deep breath, then pulled the full-face helmet off, exulting in the freedom taking it off gave her face. It was one thing about down-hilling she still was adapting to. Bombing the streets of Boston was one thing. Somebody would find you, and ambulances were only fifteen minutes away at most.

Out here on the trails, cyclists were stuck until help arrived, whatever that meant. She didn't intend to find out, but still, a full-face helmet was better than a broken cranium- or worse. She shook her short-cropped black locks out, running her gloved fingers through her sweaty tresses. There was a fleeting moment of revulsion at the dirt and who-knows-what-else that she was wiping in her hair, but in the end, it all washed out. Besides, her gloves were most likely cleaner than her hair after the steep climbs and switchbacks coming up the trail.

Jane took a moment to spritz some lens cleaner on the peel-away on her visor. If it got really bad, she could pull one off in the saddle, but she prided herself in feeling the trail as much as seeing it. Why not; she had a good gravity machine with long-travel forks and a bullet-proof wheelset. Satisfied with the helmet's visor, she brushed her hair back and slipped the helmet back on, giving a tiny shake to get it in That Right Spot.

She leaned back in her seat, closed her eyes, and pondered the last two years. The thought raced away in her head as she did. A part-time job as a bike courier evolved into far more. She had a steady boyfriend; a guy who rode his own bicycle, his own way. No brakes on that thing; he was always moving, rolling... And as his bicycle rolled, he moved on it. Front pegs, back pegs, handlebars, even the frame itself. Flatland freestyle it was called... And it was breathtaking to watch him ride.

She managed a bicycle store part-time. The owner, the guy she thought was just the mechanic, entrusted her with the keys one cold winter day; a lot of the local riders would convene on the shop and hang out; there were two beat-up couches in the back of the store, and riders would go there to relax or work on their own bicycles. When Jane started getting pay-checks, he just smiled and told her she brought more business than the bicycles. Jane's free-riding videos were now something to be sought after; they often included skateboarding, freestyle, street-riding, and recently, some clips of Jane and her friends bombing the trails. She had more money now than she had ever had thanks to video sales, and now she lived with her boyfriend. Juggling classes with riding and work was a bear at times, but she still managed to find time to keep her name on the Dean's List. Jane Lane, honor student. Maybe not a summa cum laude student, but that was okay. None of them rode a bicycle like she did.

When she opened her eyes, everything was more vivid. Colors were sharper, and she could feel the trail beneath her tires.

She flicked the button on the tiny camera and said, "Now."

The first hundred yards always started slowly, but in seconds she was already closing on the boulders with too much speed. She feathered the front brake to keep from skidding. "Skidding is bad, Lane," she thought. "Skidding means you just lost traction on one of your two contact surfaces with the ground. Skidding means you no longer feel the trail."

She dipped the handlebars, her body a foot behind the seat with her chest armor even with the back edge. The boulders passed in a flash, and she let the brake off. The high-speed fade was one of her favorite sections. She swayed her body off to the left, letting her speed carry her up the embankment. By the time she was near the end, she was moving upwards of thirty miles an hour. Her shocks remained compliant, sucking up bump, root, and rock as she rolled over them. At the last second, she squeezed both brakes hard to scrub her speed, then let got of both once her speed dropped; there was no other way to make the next section without total control.

Suddenly she was at the drop-off. She centered herself for the plunge; it was a good ten-foot drop over a dry creek. The trail continued on, and she didn't even feel her legs flex with the landing. The woods were fun, weaving between the mighty boles with saplings and underbrush trying to hold her back. She reveled in the frantic dipping under tree branches, some of them whipping into her helmet, others smacking her arms and hands. It didn't matter; in less than a minute the trees opened up and suddenly she was on the fire trail.

"Speeeeeeed!" Jane let out a triumphant whoop as she barreled down the trail. The first whoop-de-dos almost snuck up on her, but she caught them in time, scrubbing just enough speed off to pump through them. She lunged her body up and through each bump, carving and thrusting her bike to accelerate, always keep her weight neutral for control. It was a finesse game, and one she excelled at. The rhythm section was next. Normally Jane carved around the deepest ruts, but this time she felt like going big.

Her boyfriend taught her the maneuver. Some cyclists called it a wheelie, but in truth, it was a manual. She lifted the front wheel up, her body and rear tire flying up and down each rut while her front tire was in the air. The mud slowed her down some, but her speed carried her through, mud spatter kicking off the front wheel into her thighs, under her body armor, and up under her helmet. She loved getting dirty this way.

She glanced further ahead, then cranked a few turns on her pedals. Not only did it give more speed, it kept her feet centered on the spiked platforms. When she reached the lip, she lifted her bicycle off the edge, tilting her handle bars to the side and simultaneously lifting one leg while extending the other. She carried the entire section and straightened out, her table-top air touching down perfectly on the gentle slope that had just been fifteen yards away.

"Go big, Jane Lane," she thought to herself.

The next jump was just a hair bigger, and Jane had more speed. This time she turned her bars the other way, throwing her body violently to one side with her legs tucked the opposite way they had in her previous jump. The bicycle spun with her, her head craning to the side until she saw the landing, then she straightened her head out. The bicycle followed her body, her handlebars once again perpendicular to the frame. Again, she landed perfectly, her bicycles shocks taking any vibration out of the landing. Jane loved the sudden silence of being thrust into the air. It was always too short-lived, but the jumps were always there, beckoning her to come play another time. The three-sixty was icing on the cake; a stunt she never attempted before on this particular trail.

The rest of the trail was mellower, so she reached down and flipped the switch on the camera. A moment later she squeezed both her brake levers and slowed down, finally reaching the base of the trail some ten minutes later. Her heart was still pounding in her ears when she pulled up to her car, a non-descript Volvo wagon with bike racks and what looked to be paint stains all over the rear bumper.

Jane rested her bicycle against the side of the car; tiny dings and scratches indicated this was not the first time this happened. She slipped her helmet off with one hand while popping the hatch open with her other, then stripped out of her body armor. She loved what it did for her, but off the saddle, it was about as uncomfortable as wearing cardboard boxes. The shin-guards were next, followed by her gloves. Everything was dropped as it came off into a couple milk-crates she kept in her car just for this purpose. Like everything else, they were covered in paint splotches.

Her bicycle was the last thing stowed. The front tire came off first; her hand deftly spinning the wrench holding the axle nuts in place. She used locking skewers on her other bicycles, but down-hilling required more robust hardware, a lesson she painfully found out several months ago. The front tire ended up in the back with her armor and helmet. When Jane lifted the frame up, she delicately centered it in the racks. First the forks were locked down, then she cinched the straps down to hold the rear tire in place.

By the time her heart-rate was normal, Jane was sitting in the driver's seat with the engine idling. While the old clunker warmed up, she pondered the ride; it wasn't a particularly long one, nor was it the fastest. It wasn't even what one would call the most extreme regarding the terrain. What made it her favorite was the way it felt under her wheels. There was a deeper connection here, probably stoked in part by the views the ride afforded over the ridgeline and across the top of the trail.

When she eased her car into gear, a smile slid across her face. She was living her artwork.