Losing on a technicality

 

The things they don't tell you when buy your first bike are many. The things they don't tell you are all of them if you buy it from certain chains, but we wont go there.Suffice to say, I was told with all seriousness when we bought my first bike that it could surive a drop off as high as the shop door. It had Suntour coil forks and I weighed the same then as I do now. It wasn't an auspicious start.

Technical features are mentioned in trail centre grade reviews. They are not mentioned on bridleways. Bridleways are enticing little buggers, marked on a map as they are with those intriguing long dash black lines, weaving their way innocently across the countryside. The thought process when attempting one 3 weeks after acquiring a new bike went something along the lines of 'it's local, horses can get up it, how hard can it be'. Oh the innocence of the inexperienced.

An exhilerating ride down the side of a steep hill peppered with tree roots later and I had a mouthful of flies and dust, had learnt that the mountain bikers kitted out head to foot in gear might not necessarily be faster than me and I'd broken my forks. I didn't realise at the time, only mentioning in passing to my other half that the suspension seemed 'stuck' but broken they were. Despite the complete blast we had that evening, we've not been back. I decided trail centres and graded trails might be a better idea until I was a little more technically proficient.

Which is where the berm comes in. A berm is a banked turn. Mostly a switchback (u-turn), sometimes slightly less tight a turn than that, they are always banked. Again, the height of the bank can vary. The point of a berm is to carry as much speed as you are comfortable with through or around a turn. It allows less turn of the handlebars, which then allows for more contact with the ground because your weight is better distributed to allow for this.Or something. Anyway, they work. You know how I know this? 

Coed Llandegla is how I know this. The otherwise genius trailbuilders, in their erstwhile wisdom put the first berm on their blue route, and thus the first berm I ever met on my bike right before a fence exit. So, after slogging up 5km of endless agonising uphill, I see this berm, and I think, wahoo! time for some fun. I've read that the whole point of a berm is to carry speed, so I don't slow down, rip around it, feel chuffed for 1/2 a second that I've got a beautiful line on my first whizzy corner and then get a short sharp lesson in braking, traction, gravity and sheer luck. It was.....unpleasant. The audience was.......mortifying. 

Having said that, as time has passed and I have come to understand a little better the psychology of trail builders (evil surprises but generally in sight line, utter genius on the downs but agonising creatures of doom on the ups) berms have become my best friend. While no 2 above has not happened to me (but to others who shall remain nameless, leading to me locking on hard on the blue at Whinlatter), there has been a definite progression, a creeping understanding born from post match analysis over a bacon butty of where our lines have actually been compared to where the actually should be. 

Through this analysis has come an appreciation of the other side of mountain biking. Hurtling down the side of a hill over compacted smooth mud, around turns and over little drop offs is the best place on earth. It just is. The feeling of utter joy it gives me is difficult to put into words, but it's a cross between how standing in front of the speakers with my hands in the air and lasers tracing over my head at old raves, crossed with hearing Epic by Faith No More performed live as the sun went down last summer, crossed with an afternoon with nothing to do but read a book and drink freshly made lemonade, crossed with those fantastic conversations you get with new people who you just click with. It is a reason, an obsession, a happiness, a freedom. But it isn't as simple as that.

Once you get off road and onto mud, into trail centres and drawn into the determination to get better and ride your first red, you start to think. To process. To see the problems coming at you as you look ahead at the trail in front, and to process and analyse where your wheels must be, the line to take, your weight distribution, how much feathering of the brakes, what position your pedals must be in. Data coming at you at high speed must be gathered, processed and interpreted and everything must change to respond to that. It's no longer a game of who is the fastest rider, but who is the fastest thinker, and the rules change again.

Thuds, and the errors of judgement which preclude them, however, come to all of us. I've still got the bruises to prove it.