Allegedly searching the Internet means you can find anything. Restrict that search* to all things mountain biking and it won’t take long to locate the existential bullshit re: cycling is a religion and this is my church. It’s lazy, derivative and nowhere near as clever as those self ordained priests of the fat tyre believe it to be.
So obviously I’m co-oping it for this post. Lazy, derivative and pretentious are pretty much watch words for the hedgehog. Also easy to categorise my first proper MTB ride for nearly twelve long weeks as the kind of epiphany so loved by US mega churches** zeroing in on those whose donations accord them special status.
But for the overthinking cohort of the population, that epiphany doesn’t come quite so easily. Exhibit A(l) at 8am this morning was attempting to uncross the streams worrying at the thread of is this still my world? Looking for excuses to drop out, fall into society approved age rated activities, wondering if being scared of something that hasn’t happened, is somehow better than getting out there and placing agency in the driving seat.
Welcome to being 58*** accessorised with a still not healed collar bone. Sidebar: Let’s pretend this next paragraph is relevant to that discussion.
On the left is Splatterday+6 weeks, the right an update a couple of weeks ago. You don’t need to look too closely as I’ve totally been there. Summary is there’s lots of lovely new bone pulling the break together, but it’s on the light side of hard. “Can I got mountain biking?” I asked the consultant keen to fob me off by offering not much beyond the ‘don’t sue us script‘ – Pause. Push glasses up nose. Refer to notes clearly checking age. “Well I wouldn’t recommend it, but if you ride you absolutely cannot crash”
Arse. Thanks. No streams being uncrossed here. Riding worried is way more bloody dangerous than the care free delusion you’re facing down complex 3D problems with the steely gaze of that grizzled rider you vaguely remember. Whereas stiff and careful is pretty much the crapest way to navigate any trail. Hard on the brakes, soft on the flow. Bouncing off obstacles barely deserving a glance when you’re on it. Catastrophising disaster where fun used to be.
This is bloody annoying. Hold that thought as last weekend I revisited the site of the crash looking for some kind of closure.
Looks like nothing. Was still a bugger to walk down without pitching myself arse over head into the next valley. Working back from where I splattered the collarbone, the evidence suggests – for reasons not even remotely close to obvious – I decided the bigger drop on the right was an excellent option for a man whos “downhill huck” ability would be charitably marked as “almost no existent but tries hard“. Not hard enough although the sun baked ground took up the slack on that noun.
Closure? Not really. Everything feels open and if I don’t ride now when conditions are perfect then will I ever? So I buried all that pointless angst, pointed the bike at the hills and got on with it. I was never was dragged to church as a child, so not qualified to compare that to rocking up on fantastic trails and riding them at about 50% of pre splatterbone pace. One thing I wondered tho was is this safety first protocol going to plunge me back into that angst.
Because when your prime directive is “I cannot crash” it pretty much ruins riding bikes. Too stiff, too tentative, too nervous and more likely to crash. Well I’m here to tell you that is 100% better than riding on the road. Double that for the turbo. As when you’re riding any trails at any speed, complexity morphs into single threaded muscle memory.
That’s a wonderful thing but it’s a lot more than that. Friends ahead pacing you because they know for you the whole hill is a no crash zone. A quorum of your riding pals happy to dispense with their favourite trails when their needy one -winged individual is stuck in slow mode. A beer, then another one and just one more lubricating our back catalogue of brilliant days out.
And we’re not done. I’m not done. I have had dark moments these last three months contemplating a Venn of age-trails-injury, then staring hard at the intersection. Stepping back and wondering if this is where the end starts. Stripping away ego and being honest about what I want to do. And what I want to ride.
Today tho, none of that mattered. The skies were blue, the trails were dusty and all of my favourite idiots were tuned into Radio Al. If there’s a church dedicated to riding then this would be it. But there isn’t, nor should they be. This was brilliantly familiar but there is no liturgy that can come close to how that feels. You can pray to false gods, but that is nothing to the joy of sharing a post ride beer with your friends.
At 8am this morning I worried that maybe I was done with all this. At 2pm, I couldn’t wait to get out again. Because this is what coming home feels like. Or maybe keeping the faith.
*because otherwise we’ll be here all year. And that will not be time well spent.
**I assume the collective noun is “cult” or “Ponzi Scheme”
***birthday yesterday. Disappointed to find irreconcilable evidence I am not still 35.