there is a lot in here

 

There's a lot in this short film. 

A bit take away and the first overwash for me personally is the resonance of the connection you have with the land on the bicycle, and specifically the mountain bike. 

I've always ridden all the bikes, and for sure, Cyclocross, when i found it, kind of took over not just my focus and obsession but my identity too... something or someone(s) broke that mojo, almost and possibly irreparably. I still grasp at it, hold on to it, it hasn't totally left. But it also has drifted back a little.

Replaced with what? 

The Mt Bike. If you told me a handful of years ago that I'd feel torn between going for a MTB ride or racing CX I'd call you crazy, say it was impossible, there's nothing better than racing CX. Yet here I am struggling to find the desire to sign up and race at Beverly. There are only 6 spots left, and fewer than that number ranked below me in cross results points in the event. The singlespeed race is more enticing but racing with the fastest Juniors and the slower ones is something I've had enough of and am not planning participating in. It is also a long fucking drive. but I have a dear friend I haven't seen since last year who lives in Beverly so. Who knows, but honestly I kind of would rather just go mountain biking.

I've changed. That's the biggest variable. 

Maybe come full circle? 

Roll back to 1990 and finding the trails to ride, riding them, brutal and tough on the mtb. There were bikes before that but my first MY bike was a MTB. Then I got the paramount... and well it has been a back and forth since. CX taking over just before my long pause as I drove 75 miles each way every day for too many years. 

And it came back just as fast, CX that is, dumped full of stoke into the epic national championships here in PVD in 2005. Talk about a way to get absolutely reinvigorated and with a goal of racing in it the following year.

Kind of ancient history now. And 2019, fresh off of the crazy race across michigan, I bought a modern mountain bike. 

And then another one in 2021...

And now I'm about to race for 24 hours solo, again.

on a mountain bike with one gear.

I still get excited about riding in the woods. Even the same trail, isn't ever the same trail. Weather, plants, seasons, soil... things change and it changes and while nearly always the same my ecology/botany/environmentally educated self relishes the time there more than anything almost. Watching the blueberries set fruit and ripen, the canopy changes...the undergrowth and the overgrowth, the roots, the rocks.

Great Glen's 9 miles of trails (last year - 2021 edition) covers a surprising number of different micro-biomes. And that's just fucking so cool. How many times did we hit the laps and see something new each one? Or get to know an area better and better. 

So we'll see what happens. Both this coming and the following weekend. 

And we'll see how the schedule shapes up...

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