Maybe I Judged It Too Soon
Recently I found myself thinking about how quickly we form opinions and how rarely we go back to see if those opinions are still an accurate representation of the thing we have formed an opinion on.
Over the last few years, Boise has added several new trails to the network, and if you've spent much time riding newly built trails, you have probably formed an opinion about them. My guess is that opinion is less than favorable. Even though we all know the first season is often rough. The dirt hasn't had much traffic on it, the corners feel loose, and the trail rides more like an outline of an idea than a finished product. You can see what the builders were aiming for, but there is a difference between a trail being completed and a trail being established.
And that reality is what I'd like to explore today.
When Hawkins Loop opened in 2023, I rode it with a lot of excitement. The area seemed full of potential, and I wanted to like it. Yet when I finished the first ride, I remember feeling very underwhelmed by the loop. My biggest criticism was that it lacked flow. The concept was there, but the loop felt lifeless to me. Corners that looked promising didn't carry speed the way I expected them to and the sections of trail that should have been fun felt clunky. Nothing felt particularly wrong with the design of the route, but nothing felt memorable either.
I rode Hawkins again not long after that first ride and left the parking lot pretty much with the same impression. It wasn't a bad trail loop, but it wasn't one that pulled me back either. With so many other options available, Hawkins quietly slipped down my list of places to ride and I didn't really want to go back.
At the start of the 2026 riding season, I went back out to Hawkins for the first time in quite a while, and immediately I realized something had changed about the loop. I was having fun and it was flowing like it didn't before.
What surprised me most was that I could still remember specific sections that I disliked during those first couple of rides. As I approached them, I was already preparing myself for the same experience I had before. There was one corner in particular where I distinctly remember thinking, "This is where this that corner that sucks..."
Except it didn't.
The corner held my speed, there was flow, the small bumps and rough parts of the trail that once felt awkward now worked together in a way that made the trail feel playful. Section after section, I found myself looking for the disappointment I remembered with this trail, only to discover that it wasn't there. By the end of the ride, I was having far more fun than I expected when I arrived.
The obvious explanation is that three seasons of riders have changed the trail. Thousands of tires have packed dirt into the corners, worn in better lines, and shaped features in ways that no machine ever could. The trail that exists today is not the same trail that opened in 2023, even if it follows the same route across the hillside. The trail has changed, it has become established, and it's fun.
What struck me afterward was not that the trail had improved. In hindsight, that should have been expected. Trails mature the same way many things do. They need time, use, and repetition before they become what they are capable of being.
What struck me was how fast I had completely written it off as a place to ride.
Somewhere along the way, my first impression became the final judgment. I had experienced Hawkins when it was still young and assumed that what I felt then was what I would always feel. Because of that, I never gave it much opportunity to prove me wrong.
I don't think this is unique experience to mountain biking trails. We do it with projects, businesses, neighborhoods, hobbies, and even people. We encounter something before it has had enough time to settle into itself, decide we know what it is completely, and move on.
To be clear, I don't think every criticism disappears with enough time. Some trails never become great trails. Some ideas never fulfill their promise. Time alone doesn't solve every problem. But I do think there is value in allowing room for things to mature before deciding what they are worth.
Hawkins Loop reminded me of this. The trail I rode this spring was not the trail I remembered, and the difference wasn't because the trail had changed overnight. It had simply been given time to evolve and mature.
Sometimes the things we are quickest to judge are still in the process of becoming what they will eventually be and it is okay to be wrong with our first opinions. Hopefully we can approach each season with a new set of eyes and allow ourselves to experience the trails as they are now and not how we expect them to be from years past.
Forever Two Wheels!
-Myles
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