Biking

I go biking, across the river, in Chilguk. There are lots of mountains there and I want to ride up some. In fact, when I was leaving the house and told my family I was crossing the Gumho, they asked me why; I told them in no uncertain terms that "There are lots of mountains there and I want to ride up 'em."

But it is hard to tell hiking trails from biking trails on the map on my phone.

My phone shows a trail into the mountains on the other side of an apartment complex. I ask the building attendant, I guess that is what you call him– an old man that sits in an office and watches TV and sometimes sweeps– I ask him if the mountain trail on the other side of the building is accessible by bike. He assures me it is.

"There are mountains there, and you can ride up 'em," he says.

Seems reliable.

When I get to the trail, it, inauspiciously, begins with stairs. It seems the old man is a much more skilful biker than I am.

I go up the first stairs and the trail continues as loose uneven rock. I ask some people coming down the trail if it gets easier further up.

"No, it's steep." says the lady.

"Steep is fine," I say, "is it ... " I realise I don't know how to say 'smoother' in Korean. I was about to say 'flat', but that sounds odd: "Steep is fine, but is it flat?" I start over, "Does it continue like this? Or is it okay for a bike"

"A mountain bike?"

"This bike."

"Well.." she looks at her husband. "It's too dangerous." he offers, "Only Crazy maintenance guy Bob rides up there."

Aha. "Maintenance guy." Because they maintain the TV and the broom. Clearly, I've approximated the name he used with 'Bob'. You losers aren't going to know how to read his name anyways.

I go back down and ride further along. I have several false starts up nice mountain trails that peter off after a couple of hundred meters. On one, I again ask a guy coming up behind me if he knows if it is accessible by bike.

"It would be tricky." He says. Then almost immediately "Do you go to church?"

Oh, shit. I was just asking a simple question, not inviting this!

"Oh. Is there a church up there?"

"No. He says. I just..."

"I'm sure it would be a great place for one."

"It would."

"God loves mountains."

"Do you believe in god?"

"Do you believe in mountains?"

"Lots of foreigners go to church."

"Really?" lying seems an odd tactic, "More Koreans seem to."

"Do you know UCLA?"

This guy is tricky. Hard to put off; hard to keep ahead of.

"The university?"

"Yeah. Some people there wrote this." he says fishing some crumpled literature out of his pocket. "They have four precepts."

He starts riffling through the booklet.

"Well I don't know about precepts," I say, "I don't even know that word. But I do know the 10 rules, the ones that God gave to Crazy maintenance guy Moses, and the first one is that there is no church talk on Saturdays."

"That isn't one of the..."

"Let's talk about it tomorrow at the church."

"The church?" he asks.

I shake my thumb up the mountain.

"Up the mountain," I clarify, patting him on the ass and getting on my bike.

"Okay. Bye."

I give up on going over the mountain, and end up just biking around it, and then going home to pray for forgiveness.