NO COUNTRY FOR CHICKENS

PEERING DOWN AT A PREPOSTEROUSLY STEEP FUNNEL FILLED WITH JAGGED ROCKS AND LOOSE GRANITE MARBLES,

I notice that all-too-familiar lump in my throat—the kind of tightness that signifies imminent danger, or at least the recognition of a formidable obstacle that must be overcome.

It’s a crisp-but-sunny winter day in Los Angeles, California, and I’m high in the San Gabriel Mountains, gazing across the sinewy ridgelines that spill into the northeastern boroughs of Pasadena and Silver Lake. From this towering perch, I can see all the way to downtown L.A. and beyond, to the shimmering blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean. The only agenda that my three riding buddies and I have is an all-day, mountain-to-urban shred of the City of Angels’ most divine trails.

But before we can reap the day’s singletrack spoils, we must first taste victory over this near-vertical sliver of treachery that empties onto the exposed sidehill stretches of the Mount Lowe East trail.

“See if you can roll this one, boys,” says photographer Brian Vernor, adjusting his focus on a massive rock knuckle that represents the de facto right-hand turn into the chute’s lower reaches.

“I got this!” yells Caché, an OG Silver Lake ripper and host of the day’s festivities, as he fishtails into the trough, banks his right-hander on the knuckle and plunges into the lower section. He promptly digs his front wheel between two baby heads and goes into