Look, I'm no Steve Peat. Though I did meet him Sunday last, and he's at least as funny as me. Probably. He's definitely less uptight than I am, and he's way taller, so he has that going for him. I've got better teeth, but he's British so it was never a fair fight to begin with. He also happens to be a World Champion downhill mountain bike racer, and that's where peer-to-peer comparison pretty much ends. For all you non gear-heads out there- and I won't hold it against you, nobody's perfect- getting to talk with Steve Peat, and ride the same trails as him, would be like a guy who plays touch football with his beer buddies on Sunday mornings exchanging pleasantries with Peyton Manning, right before they both went out on the same football field and played catch. In other words, and in a nod to Steve's decidedly English penchant for understatement, it's a bit of an event.
The event's location was Winter Park, Colorado and the occasion for my trip was simple; I had a day off during what normal 9-to-5ers call a weekend, and my friends and I decided to head to the hill for some lift-access mountain bike riding. I had been up only one time that summer about a month before this trip, and I had had a good time. Ski resort riding (as an aside, Mountain Bike Action used to call it velo-schussing, no idea why THAT didn't stick) forces the average bike hobbyist to reset their definition of speed, ground-to-air proportionality, and comfort envelope. Things happen faster on a ski hill, and from Run One, there's no time to come to grips with it. You either give in to it and flow with the trail, or you get wide-eyed, stiff-armed, and brake-happy. On Winter Park Trip Number One, care to guess which one I was? We hadn't even gotten on the actual trail yet, just a little piece of access-singletrack and already I was tense. I tightened up on the first rock step-down ledge I came upon and consequently damn-near started my day off with a pile-driver into a rock garden. A last-second, desperate repositioning of my body kept the skin covering my body intact, and I bounced down to where everyone else was waiting. Isaac glanced in my direction, and even though he was wearing tinted goggles, face completely obscured by his moto-inspired helmet, I could feel the bemused/worried eyebrow raise. I shook my head, but wasn't sure if the shake meant "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine," or "Oh crap-oh crap-oh crap!" Not much of a complainer, at least not while I'm in the moment, I took a breath, sucked down some water, and soldiered on.
The day got better. Oh yes it did. I relaxed my grip on the handlebars, remembered that riding a bike was something I had actually done before, on dirt even, and settled in. I was still loath to allow my tires to leave the ground, only doing so when the alternative was becoming a semi-permanent stain on the surrounding flora. I stayed away from the wooden bridges, drops, and jumps for the most part, and took the huge, g-force inducing berms with my brakes feathered, checking my speed at all points. But I had fun watching the other guys hit jumps and rail turns, and I enjoyed clearing the obstacles I decided to tackle. A mid-afternoon thunderstorm added to the epic nature of the day while we were on the chairlift, and after waiting out the storm in the lodge once we were free of the primarily metal, and slow-moving contraption (Scared? ME???), the moisture-infused dirt gave increased pleasure to our pursuits. Wet dirt- not mud- boosts the grip of that surface, allowing for bigger lean angles, stronger braking, and a more predictable medium for taking off and landing. What that meant for me, and to a greater extent my comrades, was that I was more confident, and on the last run of the day, pushed myself a little outside my comfort zone and was thrilled with the resultant adrenaline hit that caused my hands to shake and raised my spirits considerably. Day on the hill done, we retired to the local pizza joint for some real scarfage and I found myself thinking that perhaps I liked downhill riding more than I had let on.
Before I get to Winter Park Trip Number Two, I have another story to relate. Yes, it's relevant. No, it's not boring. Well, if you'd stop asking questions, I'd get to it already. Okay, here I go. I was putting laps in at the Air Force Academy's Falcon Trail, trying to approach something I remember as bike fitness on a trail that is decidedly cross-country. Ups and downs, some serious versions of both, and a thirteen mile loop mean plenty of opportunity to discover likes and dislikes whilst on two wheels. I had been riding The Ninja (which reminds me, I owe you guys an update on that bike, but it'll have to wait) and loving the way the 29er wheels plowed straight through chunder, seemingly at whim and gaining speed throughout each section. All was well until the time I forgot to check the pivot bolts, which is all bollocks really- that's for you, Steve- as I had never checked the specific bolt that popped out as I was JRA (Just Riding Along, the excuse used since time immemorial by riders who break stuff and swear they weren't doing anything but...), and then all of a sudden the grinding noise emanating from the back of The Ninja meant I was no longer JRA. Luckily, I had a backup bike, and a pretty fair one at that. It was a conventional-wheeled Rocky Mountain ETS-X Team, a bike of similar capability to The Ninja, but with a 26" wheel size. On my next two days at Falcon, I rode that bike as I waited for the right part to come in for the 29er. In spite of their similarities, immediate contrasts were evident. The rock gardens I was sailing through on The Ninja were grabbing and clutching my 26ers tires. I wasn't cornering as fast, didn't feel as stable on the descents, had troubles on sections of the trail I normally don't reckon as difficult. This wasn't imagined, my friends, it was real. And even if I had thought it was all in my head, the stopwatch told the tail. On back-to-back rides, under similar weather and trail conditions, my best time around the lap on my 26er was three minutes slower than my last recorded time on my 29er. And before some wag suggests that my last recorded time on the 29er was months ago when I was training for races, let me shoot him (it's most likely a him) down by saying that it was in fact earlier that week. Three minutes. That's almost half a mile at my pace. That's significant, and impossible to explain away as just something in my head.
So, to Winter Park Trip Number Two, also to be known as The Day I Met Steve Peat and Got the Idea for This Blog Post. I decided not to bring the bike I used on the first trip, renting a Specialized SX Trail II from the resort bike rental shop instead. A Specialized SX Whatever He Said is a bike that is made specifically for the purpose of having fun while going downhill. It is heavy. It is not meant for pedaling uphill. Picture a dirt bike without an engine and you'll have the general idea. This was a first for me, because in all my years of riding, and even riding at ski resorts, I had never ridden a purpose-built "gravity" bike. I was nervous of the added heft, wondering if it would be like trying to stop an 80mph freight train the first time I came to a corner. The guys had assured me I'd be fine, but it was still the fear of the unknown. And then I threw a leg over it, rolled down the stairs and pedaled slowly over to the line for the ski lift. A grin spread over my face as I decided I was going to be just fine. Pat, Jeremy, and Isaac were with me, waiting in line, and each asked me what I thought. I said, "I think this is gonna work." And how.
The first run, I was already faster than I was by my last run on the first trip. By the second, I was getting air off the jumps at the top of the mountain. By the third, I had cleared my first tabletop jump ever- a jump that has a takeoff, a flat middle- the "tabletop" and a sloped landing on the other side. You go up the takeoff, over the tabletop, and down the landing, but you can't see the landing until you clear the table. It's a leap of faith. For you gamers out there, when I nailed my first table I felt like Al Tair. The fourth run had me nailing every single tabletop in sequence, a succession of five ever-larger jumps one after the other, and going big on the jumps at the beginning of the track. By the fifth run I was tweaking my air to get a little sideways, railing berms with the brakes off, and committing to and successfully conquering the wooden wall-ride that links a set of tabletops with another, bigger set. I was so comfortable on the bike that even when my takeoff didn't go as planned, I stayed calm and trusted the suspension of the bike and my body positioning to bail me out. This was never more evident when I messed up the takeoff on a tabletop and instead of panicking, nose-wheelied my front end across the top of the jump, the rear of the bike not touching until I rolled down the landing. Completely by accident, but man it felt cool. If I wasn't worried about splattering myself, I'd try to do it on purpose. It all came together on the sixth and final run that day, as I hit every jump as big as I could go, tried to catch air off every wooden feature, rode the wall, and came to a screeching halt at the end with a smile so wide that it didn't fade until we were home again, four hours later.
I'm going to skip the rhetorical question, because I let the cat out of the bag with the title, the only difference is by now you know exactly where I was going with it. The bike was the difference. I wasn't all of a sudden blessed with a big dose of courage (I only have a brain), the bike gave me a level of confidence with its purpose-oriented design to try new things and not just go outside my comfort zone but completely re-write it. Nothing feels like hitting a jump and landing it where you're supposed to land it, and on purpose to boot. Nothing feels like screaming around a deeply bermed turn, feeling the suspension compress into the dirt, keeping your eyes constantly seeking the exit, going faster and faster, and then completing the slingshot maneuver down the straightaway, longing for the next corner. The bike got me there, and the fun I was having as a result took me the rest of the way.
That shouldn't come as a big shock really, but I think it did for me because suddenly, between Falcon and Winter, everything about riding a bike and being a rider made sense. You ride the bike that gives you the necessary mental and physical (and perhaps even spiritual, though some would argue spiritual doesn't need to be in parentheses) ability to enjoy yourself. Nothing more, nothing less. And it's different for everyone but generally it means something with enough margin of error to get you through the ride, bumps and all, with a big, dopey grin plastered in and around your dirty, sweaty mug.
There's a school of thought I've come across that says "Well, -clearing throat self-importantly-, you don't need a bike with more X, Y, and Z, you just need to ride what you have and get better on it before you get something else. I know, because that's how I did it and it worked for me, and it'll work for you, too. I'm also incontinent and disdain the use of hygiene products." And it's in the face of such heavy-handed blanket statements that Steve Peat makes his triumphant return to this tale. Steve's the man, he's proven it time and again with multiple world-class victories and championships. "YouTube" the guy. He's bloody fast on a bike, doesn't make mistakes, and has the drive to seek improvement no matter how good he gets. That's awesome. He could ride faster than me, all 6'and A Lot of him, on a kid's bike. But what does he ride at Winter Park? A 34lb, 8" travel front and rear, full carbon fiber, factory-prepped and supported downhill bike. No, he wasn't racing, just riding with friends and people in the industry. He could have any bike up there he wanted from his bike sponsor, Santa Cruz, but he chose the maximum-attack, downhill-specific machine. Though the gulf between him and me as riders is Mexican in width, we choose the bikes we do for the exact same reason.
We ride the bikes that give us the best opportunity to have the most fun wherever we're at.
~Scotty Mac
"Ours not to reason why, ours but to whine and cry." Ben Krisler, Once an Eagle
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