Why we should all try Riding Alone - Tim Easton
29 August 2013 | By AngusMcIntoshMoreDirt user and "Life in the Loam" Blogger Tim Easton beamed over this great piece on getting out and riding alone. It's a great read and hopefully should make you think! Check it out!
I have to admit, when it comes to when and where I ride, I’m a typical downhill rider. My days riding are always with 3 or more friends, we meet up, load up the vans and grab a butty before heading off for a day filled with runs of established downhill tracks, interspersed with laughs and banter filling the gaps between riding, plenty of chilling time and frequent stops to session particular sections of track, always a competition to see who can go bigger, faster or find the most ridiculous line.
I’ve therefore never seen the appeal of riding on my own. I’ve written before about how it’s not only the riding, but the laughs, camaraderie and ‘fun’ aspect of just going out and messing about on bikes in the woods that separates our sport from others. It’s great to have riders around to push you, to measure yourself against and to stop you getting lazy. Sure, I’ve tried riding on my own before. I’ve been for road rides (with very mixed results) and long bridleway meanders, but never really enjoyed it. I’ve tried it with music, I’ve tried to push myself to beat Strava sections or set new personal bests, but it’s never come close to matching the buzz I get on a Sunday morning as I set my bike up for the day.
However, after returning from an amazing week of downhill in the Alps and with several days holiday remaining I found that I still woke up every day with the desire to do nothing but swing a leg over a bike. So today I (apprehensively) loaded my bike up and headed to my local cluster of downhill tracks, more to get the need to ride out of my system than anything, expecting to ride lazily and quickly bore of the lack of company.
I span away from the car park and found myself at the top of one of tracks I have been riding for years, and the from the second I dropped in I saw it in a completely different light. I’m not sure whether it was because I had left my downhill rig at home in favour of my long-travel hardtail, the fact that I wasn’t trying to keep up to or lose another rider or the lack of distractions that a group of (unruly) friends brings, but it was an entirely different experience to what I’m used to. I was spotting new lines, paying so much more attention to the way the bike felt under me, feeling for grip more deftly and finding myself much more conscious of how I was handling the bike.
Nobody to talk to, nobody to compete or joke with, no texts or Facebook notifications, no worries or stresses. I was completely lost in the physical act of riding the bike, the simplicity of the experience was engrossing. I found I was finishing a section, jumping off my bike and instantly pushing back up, endlessly sessioning corners that I usually wouldn’t look at twice. I realised how quickly I was getting these sections dialled in, handling them faster on my hardtail than I would even on my downhill bike. It felt like I was back in touch with what I love about mountain biking; The bike itself and how it interacts with nature. There was no sound apart from the earthy rip of tyres cutting into loam, the occasional slap of chain on steel and bird cries in the distance. It was just me, my simple collection of circles and tubes and the earth they cut into, carrying me through the landscape.
It was just me, my simple collection of circles and tubes and the earth they cut into, carrying me through the landscape.
What I discovered was that for the first time in my 10 years of riding bikes, I had an amazing day of riding alone. It’s a completely different experience to riding with friends and I think the key is to treat it as such - have no expectations or plans.
I ride my bike to escape from reality. Just being away from everyday life, a chance to get away from the negativity and cynicism I can’t seem to ignore in mainstream society and media. In those precious few hours a week I’m with a group of like-minded people who are all there for one thing, to ride a simple machine through the landscape fast. It’s awesome having these friends around, but I’ll never again let their absence stop me going out and appreciating the other things that make this sport amazing.
