This is my friend Ali. She, like me, has been in MTB rehab for the last couple of months. Yesterday we swapped considered medical advice and playing the long game for playing outside.

This should not be confused for proper mountain biking – whatever that is. It isn’t this, a yomp of our local woods shunning entries of proper trails and staring jealously at their exits.  Strictly green lanes interspersed with ribbons of sun dried dirt featuring no features at all.

And that’s just fine. After 11 weeks sweating on the thin edge of riding bikes, today I broke free from the stifling statelessness of cartoon graphics and static trainers to ride in some real landscape. Pedalling up a familiar hill*,  it was obvious this was the right thing to do.  After nearly three months of trusting the sage advice of confident medical professionals, it was time stop dithering and place my own agency firmly in the driving seat.

Zoom out from individual appointments at busy fracture clinics and performative consultants wearily spelling out advice that’s most Google Evo. And what you get is a multi sphered Venn diagram with lots of forthright opinions and not much shared best practice.  It’s really not their fault, it’s mine for failing to remember I know my body best and what it can and can’t do.

What it couldn’t do for a couple of weeks was pretty much anything involving my left AC shoulder joint. No idea why but Gods it was painful. I imbibed a maximum dose of anti-inflammatories and backed off the Physio. As this coincided with an x-ray showing bone growing progress but no join, that driving seat was occupied by Mr Grumpy and his extensive selection of liquid self medication.

Original break on the left, 7 week x-ray on the right. What’s hard to see is the shadow between the break showing a healthy growth of new bone. Just not quick enough for Mr Impatient here. Not even close.

Riding was still verboten with a side order of finger wagging re: heavy lifting, shoulder loading and anything interesting you might want to be doing requiring mobility greater than picking up a book. This was somewhat at odds with a previous appointment which fully triggered my “fuck this” gland. Time to forge my own path.

Not some steep path dropping into a world of Gnar. I need this bone to heal because the alternative is metal and another 12 weeks. But it was time to tear up those scripts carefully narrated to tell you not very much at all, and move beyond nuanced advice frustratingly based on age not ability.

So riding then. The second outing of the “Beige Adventurer” after a loop of the FoD family trail. Which was both fine and deeply unsatisfying. Great to be out on a bike, but not riding stuff that makes riding bikes so bloody brilliant. Roll on a week and a Friday night meeting of the Bikeaholics had us plotting a loop heavy on bimble but  light on fire roads.

Which is where we came in. Less than two hours later we were out- me with a slightly achy shoulder, Ali with a sore hand but both of us grinning like the idiots we are. I didn’t feel we’d been released from boring indoor rehab, more escaped into a world we’d previously taken entirely for granted.

Not today – I was 100% aware this was  a stunning day to ride a bike.  Trees heavy in summer leaf, vegetation bulked by endless sunshine**, seasonal smells reeking of desperate pollination. Solar burnished dirt stretching out endlessly between deep green boundaries. This is my world, and it’s best experienced on a mountain bike.

Even when the rider of that bike is biblically nervous. No knee pads, no attempts to be fast***, the whole hill is a no crash zone. My collarbone might be healed, it might not, but blunt force trauma at the site of the original injury will end in an outcome all those professionals can agree on and summarise with a patronising  “I told you so“.

So go steady, lean on the brakes, lean into the turns, un-stiffen nervous limbs, look around, look up, put muscle memory in that driving seat, feel the tyres load up just a little bit and bloody well rejoice in how that feels. It isn’t much but it’s more than enough.

It’s only a short ride but my legs are wobbling when we’re done.  It feels a long way from those 6okm/1200m+ days of May. I know some muscle strength has gone and hooked my cardio fitness on the way out. Thats okay – I can get those back, even if those three months of brilliant riding have gone for ever.  Got to make my peace with that. And then there is something else.

I shared my dirty secret with Ali and Dave. I’ve not missed riding as much as I thought I would. Right up to the point when a flow-y trail pointed downhill and I found what I’d been missing. I don’t know exactly what that is. I wish I could bottle it, but right now I’ll settle for riding it instead.

We’re not out of the woods yet, but it was bloody great to be back in them. I’m still a recovering Bikeaholic. And that feels bloody fantastic.

Not sure I earned this beer, but I very much enjoyed it anyway 🙂

*but not on a familiar bike. That’s a whole post waiting to be written.

**I just need put on record the God level trolling this summer has been. It feels personal 😉

***no change there then. Well I have attempted it, but it’s rarely happened.