Learn It, Then Burn It™

 The most simple way to improve one's skills on a mountain bike is to take your time and learn. This is also very low impact on the body, bicycle, and trails, with the latter being the focus here since that can and does impact everyone who may use them. Learning a singletrack with patience teaches how a trail responds to your input at varying levels and conditions, making for a much less impactful experience, especially if you're not very interested in impacting the ground with your body. Patience is not referred to as virtuous just so some old dude on a bicycle can preach, it's fact.

 Being fortunate and patient has helped me avoid the trials and tribulations many incur while mountain biking. Besides being costly in regards to medical bills and bicycle upkeep or replacement, the extended toll on the body adds up rapidly for those less patient and/or fortunate. The careers of the "go big or go home" sect are most often very abbreviated for the abuse they put their bodies through. I asked a friend in SWUT once what happened to Josh Bender after he vanished from that scene and the response was, "He's learning how to ride a bike nowadays." I hope he still can, after all of the huge missed drops he undertook.

 Trails that are new to a Rider are most often handled with the proverbial kid gloves. While they have the skillsets to go faster than they initially choose to, they know that learning the trail at a respectable speed with patience will allow safer higher speeds for themselves, their bicycle, other trail users and the trail itself. The only times I have burned down a trail before learning it, has been while following a trusted local Rider on trails they are familiar with. Honestly, that's really the only legitimate shortcut and it's based solely on the competence of whom one follows. Following someone less than competent at speed can and will cause one or more of the impacts mentioned.

 If this seems like a foreign concept, try it the next time you ride a trail new (or unlearned) to you that you'll likely be returning to. If you are on a road trip and know it's probably the only time you'll ride a route, consider checking yourself before wrecking yourself, your bike, other trail users, or the trail itself. One of the main reasons I avoid marquee trails is the wrecks they have become due to the lack of diligence, etiquette, and patience of those who claim the title of Mountain Biker. Be a Rider and Learn It before you Burn It.

Riders Come and Go, Kooks Accumulate

Blockheads

C.R.S. § 18-9-107 (Obstructing a Highway or Other Passageway): Makes it an offense to intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly block a place used for the passage of persons, vehicles, or conveyances, rendering passage unreasonably inconvenient or hazardous.

 Yesterday I encountered an elderly male hiker on the trail while ascending. He was surprised that I had yielded the trail to him and stated that it was the first time this Summer that anyone astride a cycle had yielded the trail to him, including the one person on a bicycle and another riding illegally upon the trail today with their ecycle (Poachers, a subject for another day) who I saw toodling down the trail before stopping for the hiker. While chatting with the hiker, I noticed a fresh scrape on his noggin and asked if he was alright or needed any assistance. He said he was okay and would be good in getting back to the trailhead. Then I asked how that had happened.

 Apparently the person on the bicycle was experiencing a  mechanical issue, effectively blocking the trail while attending to it. They had noticed the hiker approaching, yet failed to render the trail to the hiker. As the hiker left the trail bed to go around, he stumbled on the terrain and fell, injuring himself. He picked himself and his hiking staff back up and continued on, without any words or actions from the errant bicyclist. I'm not sure what kind of home training the bicyclist had as a child, but it was either severely lacking or they are a perennial dim-bulb. In the civilized world, one offers and/or renders assistance to injured parties. The lack of social ethics displayed by that cretinous individual should be astounding to me, but it's not.

 Before parting ways, I asked the hiker once again if they would like any help. They politely declined and added, "Well it was my fault that I stumbled and fell." to which I replied that it was not their fault and in fact the person blocking the trail was doing so contrary to state law. This incident is *why* there is a law against blocking a public passageway. To think that common sense and courtesy in an instance such as this must be made law makes the whole occurrence unsurprising.

Riders Come and Go, Kooks Accumulate

Before, During, After

1996 Dyno Nitro 24 BMX Restoration

Before:

During:

After: 

 This rusty and crusty 'ol girl was dropped off a little while back and has been the "get at it here and there" kind of project. The frame was first in line because of the dents and further inspection items I like to begin with. Totally worth the time and effort, she's a roller now!

The only sad bikes are the ones that don't get ridden.

Fifteen Minutes

 In the modern quest for "fame", those seeking their Warholian fifteen minutes astride a mountain bike are a strange lot to me. The air of desperation emanates from many who seem to be seeking this kind of attention, whether they are wedging their way into obtaining status as the big fish in a little pond, or simply sandbagging amateur races. The reek is real and painfully obvious to anyone even remotely paying attention. Yeah, that shit stinks, even if it is sadly amusing. 

 To me, fifteen minutes is how long a normally twenty minute descent went this morning, as indicated by my analog timepiece. Warhol may have gotten it right for those who earn their way or stumble into fame, however Bowie got it right for the desperate with, "Fame (fame) puts you there where things are hollow." Hollow is no way to go through life, kiddies.

Riders Come and Go, Kooks Accumulate

PS I rode the aforementioned trail section in ten minutes flat yesterday evening. No hikers to yield to and perfect conditions. Could I ride it faster? Most likely yes, but not being able to stop in time for a hiker around a blind turn is not cool, or even fast for that matter.

Revolutionary

 Ever since I read "1984" for a book report at the continuation school I was sent to for truancy in my senior year of high school, Orwell's words have been Gold to me. I needed to make up two semesters of English credits to obtain my diploma and when offered the option of book reports on how to do so, I chose his prophetic dystopian novel to begin the process. When submitted at the beginning of a class a day after finishing the book, the teacher read the report and called me to their desk to discuss what I had written. "What are you doing here, writing something like this?" I told them that when the standard curriculum in the first semester dictated I read Shakespeare, I told that teacher I would not read that shit and was advised I'd not pass the class. I stopped going, hence the truancy issue. After being told that I would be done with obtaining credit to graduate by writing a number of similar reports, I scratched them out rapidly from books I'd already digested. I was done with high school a couple of months before my peers, thanks to Orwell, Stephen King, Joseph Wambaugh, Ken Kesey, Ken Follett, and a few others.

 When I first spotted the above meme a few years ago, it was saved for a few reasons beyond being more Orwell Gold. While it's seemingly more germaine today than it was when Orwell was still attached to his mortal coil, the truth of those words have rung throughout the (de)evolution of humankind. The acceleration of misinformation and other truth-dodging matter in this day and age of accessible information is undoubtedly increasing. If the truth is not spoken, the future seems rather bleak and I don't do bleak very well.

 The association with cycling in this light contains many facets. Though some of my posts based on simple etiquette subjects are most definitely of a ranty nature, the unfiltered observations are truthful. Ignorance in this age of information is self-imposed, especially when so many have a virtual Encyclopedia in their hand. How do mountain biking people not know how to yield the trail properly on a singletrack when searching "The Fruita Lean" online takes less than a second? When AI knows something like this and a trail user doesn't, it speaks volumes about that user's contribution to the Idiocracy, most likely omnipresent in all aspects of their puny lives that further contribute to the degradation of civilized society. Yeah, turn on your apphole craphole, but don't bother with how to recreate without destroying the environment you choose to degrade with self-imposed ignorance. The Idiocracy is real and furthered by the self-indulgent.

 Do I consider myself a revolutionary? No, and as far as I'm concerned the truth should not be considered as such. Orwell's words seem to me as an observation about mainstream public perception. The "mainstream" has been buried under a quagmire of bullshit for centuries, heaping up at an accelerated pace. My own experiences of living outside the proverbial box lessens that quagmire in my life and as such, is where I reside comfortably as just some dude on a bike.

Riders Come and Go, Kooks Accumulate 

Reppin'

 The branding bombardment created by corporate hype has become immense beyond imagination to this child of the 1960's. Not having a television as a youngster during that period of America must amplify this within me in comparison to most others who misspent their youth in the same time period. Instead of launching into a diatribe, I'll just go ahead and say it. Unless you are family, a friend, or something that aligns with my personal moral compass, fuck your branding and logos. That said, if we happen to cross paths on two wheels, you'll not see any logos of shitty corporate cookie-cutterdom or branding of any bicycle fuckery on my bikes or person.

"Names is for tombstones, baby..." - Mr. Big to James Bond

The Barge

 Bargers Gonna Barge, as the above deviant did off-road in Death Valley National Park. It seems fitting that they have a tailgate pad for shuttling bicycles, which does not leave me wondering how they most likely conduct themselves whilst astride their mountain bikes. There are many forms of the barge in the mountain bike realm and all of them have one thing in common, they are perpetrated by uncaring egotists.

 The Trailhead Barges also take on many forms, the most common being the overbearingly loud music barge. Irregardless of what the barger is listening to, who gives a flying fuck what music pumps you up for a ride? Headphones were made for a reason, to prevent others from having to listen to your Kenny G at the trailhead. A more peculiar trailhead barge is the dipshit who parks right up on your vehicle in an otherwise empty parking lot. I've had to move my vehicle to be able to load bikes on several occasions such as this. We could also add the trailhead lot speeders and Mickey Thompson wannabes, raising dust clouds for everyone to choke on as their clapped-out Subaru coughs and sputters through it all. Sad

 On the trail, the most egregious barge to Riders IMO is the "taking a break and as others approach going the same direction, jumping back on the bike and taking off" syndrome. This is most often accomplished by subpar mountain bikers who believe their own bullshit. They also tend to not yield to Riders that they have jumped out on who wish to pass, unless vociferously commanded to do so. The most obvious barge is those who don't comprehend and/or just ignore the basics of yielding the trail properly. These booger-eaters barge on everyone and anyone, most often habitually. Though there are several other on-trail barges, such as cutting corners and other craptastic trail-widening kook maneuvers, one other is worth special mention. It's akin to the yielding issues, however is largely based on misogyny. Many littledick male mountain bikers will not allow their fragile egos be "bested" by female Riders. I've witnessed this many times over the years and have had to call perpetrators out for it several times. Of course this is a case where someone who believes their own bullshit, basing their misdeed solely on the gender of the Rider who wishes to pass. Again, Sad

 The Localism Barge is the most odd to me. It reeks of ineptitude in most cases I've witnessed, whereas those who commit these acts of idiocy seemingly wish to convey some demented version of "I'll show them!" In one place I previously frequented, the "locals" committed barges almost every time I was there. The most amusing to me was when they tried to jump on my wheel and were left choking on dust. It became so bad, I joined an app just to let them know how truly lame they are. The practitioners of this particular barge rarely stray from the comfort of their realm and in the quest to rule their pissant domain, shall forever be condemned to mediocrity at best. Yeah, Sad

Riders Come and Go, Kooks Accumulate