When you live in the middle of DC, work irregular hours and don’t have a car, it’s really difficult to go on a casual off-road ride. And yet I love riding off the road because it takes away the one thing I hate about bicycling—cars! I have a beautiful cyclocross bike that doubles as a road bike, but redlining through laps for 40 minutes and getting ensnared in barriers isn’t, I found out, my idea of fun. So I decided to sign up for Monster Cross.

In which we ride mountain bike trails on cross bikes after cross racing and beer drinking. Hijinks ensue!

Let's overlook the negative connotations of loneliness but not traipse so as far as to go whole hog (the Hilly Billy Roubaix starts with a squealing pig, who I was saddened to hear has passed recently) into the glory of solitude. The hills and woods of rural West Virginia have plenty of both.