In our next head to head debate, Chipps is a big fan of earning your descents – he thinks they’re all the better for having put in the effort to get there. Hannah is just in it for the kicks and thinks that ‘earning’ it can get in the sea. Let’s see who can persuade us their perspective is best.
Chipps: I ride bikes to keep fit, push my skills, enjoy and explore the countryside and spend time with my friends. I enjoy an endless, sweeping singletrack descent, but I also quite enjoy a challenging climb and the feeling of deserved all-over fatigue that comes at the end of a big day on the bike. To me, this usually means that I want to ride up, along and down in the same ride: to ‘earn my turns’, as the ski mountaineers would put it. I think that a day of uplifts and endless downhilling is missing the point, and some of the joy of mountain biking.
Hannah: You list ‘keep fit’ first in the list of reasons to mountain bike. For me, that’s a by-product. There’s plenty of challenge in nailing a descent, or even just the right line through a couple of berms, or over a jump. I’ll just as happily push up and repeat a feature as ride for miles. Both engage my brain in a way that allows me to switch off other thoughts. Mountain biking gives my brain and body a shake and puts me in the moment – for me, that’s where the joy lies.
Chipps: There’s a challenge in mastering every aspect of mountain biking. I just happen to enjoy having a go at tricky step-ups as well as tricky step-downs. I also enjoy the meditative state you can get into on a long solo fire road climb or the rambling chats you have when doing it as a group. Having hit after hit coming at me after sitting still in a damp minibus for ten minutes needs access to reactions that I just don’t have without a leg-stretching warm-up.
Hannah: I don’t mind cleaning a climb either, but I’ve zero sense of missing out on something because I didn’t sweat my way up a hill. There are so many days when going outside or finding the time for a ride is enough of a challenge that I don’t feel the need to make physical challenge an essential component of a ride. ‘Not on the sofa’ is enough to bring joy, in my opinion.
Chipps: It feels like we’re in ‘ready-meal vs home-cooked’ territory here. Is a day at the bike park the mountain bike equivalent of paying for a restaurant meal instead of making it all yourself? There’s the argument that a restaurant has access to ingredients you might not have – in the same way that a bike park has jumps and drops that you won’t find on your local trails. However, a bike park will never bring you that sense of achievement at the top of the hill and it definitely won’t bring you any solitude. If it was that quiet there, they wouldn’t have opened up.
Hannah: But that assumes you’re heading out there for solitude – and that solitude can only be found at the top of a sweaty climb. Anyone who’s ever lost their mates descending from a gondola uplift in a big foreign bike park knows that’s not the case! And to continue the food analogy, sometimes eating out gives you inspiration for what to cook at home. Putting your energy into riding obstacles on a descent without having to bite off the climb first can give you the chance to work on skills you can take home and deploy. A bike park trip or e-bike can be a great way to boost the time you spend pushing your skills.
Chipps: I knew we’d get onto e-bikes eventually. I’m definitely pro-e-bikes in general, but I feel that you have to use them to the full. If you’re just using your e-bike to ride the regular circuit you’d otherwise ride on your acoustic bike, then you’re just being a lazy toad. If, however, you’re using that extra power and e-endurance to put together several regular loops for a big day out, or to find out what’s behind the hill that’s behind that other hill, then I’m all for that.
Hannah: See… the idea of ‘earning’ descents is closely related to ideas of ‘working hard enough vs laziness’. For me, that’s in the realms of sock height restrictions, pan y agua, and other such nonsense. I like riding my bike. Up, down, along – all serve the purpose of being outside, not on the sofa, not at a screen. Sometimes I might sweat and pant, other times I might not. Sometimes I scare myself, and other times I just enjoy the scenery. I’m not grading my rides (or anyone else’s) into some sort of value judgement, whether that be calories burned, medals won, descents shredded, or caterpillars spotted. If riding your bike results in happiness, why add in any judgement about how much happiness you’ve earned or deserve?
Chipps: I went ski mountaineering for the first time this winter. Two hours of skinning up snowshoe trails for two runs down a green piste. And I loved it, probably much to the bemusement of the colourfully attired people getting off ski lifts wondering why we were appearing out of the woods out of breath and wearing Lycra. I’m a fan of cycling climbs, cycling alongs and cycling descents. I’m equally average at all three, but I do think that rides need the ups in order to appreciate the downs. Otherwise, cycling risks falling into a future of ‘Here’s where you pay to do your sport, make sure you follow the arrows’ simply because no one will know how to navigate, climb mountains or bother to turn pedals any more.
Hannah: Ah, well, ‘mountain craft’, ‘first aid’ and perhaps ‘countryside nous’ could be a whole other topic for discussion. As someone who grew up in the sticks and came to mountain biking from fell running, it’s always surprised me how little so many know about that sort of thing – even those who are very experienced at the ‘riding a bike’ bit of mountain biking. Learning about how to be safe in our wilder places can open up a world of new experiences – and perhaps a few extra far-flung descents. If there’s any gatekeeping to be done, it’s that I’d like people to have the skills and knowledge to have those adventures without putting themselves, the countryside, or potential rescuers at unnecessary risk. I hope that people will always want to go off the map and away from marked-out arrows, not necessarily through any sense of needing to earn a reward, but just because the reward is there once you’ve learnt enough to be ready for it.
