No More ‘Maybe Next Time’

It’s taken the shock of coming to terms with the fact we are going to lose a Singletrack family member sooner rather than later to make me realise I’m not living my life the way I should be.

The awful news that our Deputy Editor Jenn has just months to live has been a huge shock to us all. Cancer is shit. There’s no other way to put it. Yes, there are things we can do with our lives to mitigate the chances of getting it but that doesn’t stop it just being so shitty and randomly selecting someone who has to all intents and purposes looked after themselves so much better than I have looked after myself. For me it’s made me face up to some realities about my own life and lifestyle that I need to address. But not for the reasons you might think.

Yes, I need more vegetables in my life and I need to lose the habitual late night sojourns to the fridge, but it’s actually the way that Jenn has decided that she’s going to deal with her remaining time that has really had a profound impact on me. She’s going to have adventures and she’s going to enjoy hearing about the adventures that the rest of us have. That is what she told us all here at Singletrack when she discovered that her fight against lung cancer was only months away from coming to an end. And it made me think. A lot.

My priorities have been all wrong. I drive a desk every day although I helped found a magazine about having adventures on bikes because I liked riding bikes so much. That’s broken that is. Life is so very precious and every breath not spent trying to make the most of it is a waste of oxygen and I’m not doing enough with my life away from this desk.

So I’m having an adventure on my bike next week.

I’m going to Verbier in Switzerland because it’s my favourite place to ride bikes. I’ve been there on and off for over a decade and each time I’ve looked up at the climb from the bottom of the valley to the summit of Mont Fort and thought about how it would be really great to actually ride from the bottom to the top and back down again without using the lifts. And every time I’ve thought that I’ve pulled out the ‘maybe next time’ card and laid it out on the table, before packing up and going home. I’m 44 years old now and I am starting to wonder how many ‘next times’ I’ve got left. That’s not out of a fear of dying so much a fear of passing by the point where I can actually realistically do this thing and ending up looking back and feeling regret that I didn’t do it when I could. There is no greater waste of emotion than that of regret.

In truth I’ve been ‘planning’ this adventure for 6 months, if you can call talking about how it would be a nice thing to do, ‘planning’. It’s been on the calendar one week, then off it it the next because things looked too busy, a new staff member was starting or any number of endless excuses that would normally, inevitably, lead to the ‘maybe next time’ card coming out again. But last week I decided this thing was actually going to happen.

The valley floor is at 800m and there is a glacier at the top of the mountain with one of the highest restaurants in Europe next to it at 3000m. Right now the lifts are shut, but the season is changing from summer to autumn and is dropping colour bombs all over the valley. According to Lucy at Bike Verbier, who is my host and adventure advisor, it’s the most spectacular time of year that few mountain bikers ever see as the lifts are closed so they stay away. So I’ve done no training, I’m weekend ride fit at best and the bike I’m going to ride is the one I have to hand. I’m going to ride from the bottom to the top and then back down again in one go. 50km in all, topping out at 10,000 feet (Looks better in feet than metres right?). How ‘epic’ it is depends on your frame of reference but it most certainly is by mine. It will be the biggest thing I’ve done on a bike pretty much ever. 7500 feet up in one long 25km go followed by a rather gnarly descent back down. Seeing as I work at Singletrack we are going to make sure it’s photographed and I’ll write it up when I get back, which ads an extra layer of incentive to get it done. We’ll call it the ‘Ultimate Enduro Stage’ or something, because adventures always need a good title.

For Jenn

A user on the forum contacted me earlier this week to ask if it would be ok to start a forum thread encouraging people to have more adventures on their bikes in honour of Jenn. He suggested that people stop on their rides and mark it with a photo that features the hashtag #forjenn. Just a simple way of encouraging some self-reflection while at the same time letting Jenn know that we are thinking about her in the time she has left. I’m not the arbiter of what anyone can or can’t do as a result of the situation Jenn is in – We will all have our own way of dealing with news like this and our reaction to it is a personal affair. I said what I think many are already saying, that I think it’s a great idea. He’s started that thread on the forum here and next week, when I get to that glacier, I’ll be taking my picture with the hashtag #forjenn and I’ll be posting it on my Twitter feed and on that thread along with any others.

I hope Jenn takes comfort from all our adventures over the coming months – it’s something I’ll be doing for myself as much as for Jenn. And for that and for the change in my personal outlook on life I will always be indebted to her.

Now, what will your next adventure be?

Mark Alker

Singletrack Owner/Publisher

What Mark doesn’t know about social media isn’t worth knowing and his ability to balance “The Stack” is bested only by his agility on a snowboard. Graphs are what gets his engine revving, at least they would if his car wasn’t electric, and data is what you’ll find him poring over in the office. Mark enjoys good whisky, sci-fi and the latest Apple gadget, he is also the best boss in the world (Yes, he is paying me to write this).

More posts from Mark