Is time a healer when it comes to tricky trails?
Words by Hannah
What does it take for a trail to become your nemesis? I suspect we all have one: a trail we avoid because it invariably ends with injury to body or ego. Does it happen gradually, starting with a pedal pin to the shin before escalating one wet and slippery day to a full OTB disaster? Or is it a constant low-level slip and slide that eventually has you seeking out something that’s just more consistently rollable?
For me, there’s a trail which started out as a favourite. Chattery, with line choices, boulders to avoid, rocks to roll and drops to judge. Enough by way of options and changing terrain to keep things interesting, over and over. And then things started to go wrong.
Washed out by repeated rains, it took on a new character. Where once there was line choice, now there was a maze. Pick the wrong line and you’d end up stranded in a dead-end rut or perched on an island high above the rideable routes. Roots stuck out fingers at the edges, pushing you down and into these traps, sideways, with no notice. Shins and elbows shocked at the sudden shift.
A few more failed runs down the trail and I started to anticipate the injuries. I’d approach a certain rock and root combination knowing that the line between safe passage and a slam would be a fine one – and one I’d failed to tread before. And then I’d be off, pushing my bike to the other side of the feature. This is probably the death knell for fun. Once you’re off, the flow is gone, the next feature becomes less manageable, ‘that tricky feature’ becomes ‘those tricky features’. Now both the terrain and your brain are against you.
At some point, I’d had enough of hurting myself, and I just stopped riding the trail. I’d avoid it, even though the alternatives were less fun than this one had ever been. Over time I forgot how much fun it had been, only remembering the bad times.
And then last week, one nice dry day when I was feeling good on the bike, I found myself with a choice of routes home. I was enjoying myself, and I wasn’t ready for it to end with a roll along the canal or a bomb down a farm track. I wanted more wriggly, rocky, choose your lines tech. That trail lay between me and home.
For a moment, it looked like I might be about to revisit the bad times, slipping a pedal just before the drop in. But I went back, started again with a fresh go and… it was flippin’ brilliant. I don’t know if my time away had changed the trail into something more manageable, or it’s just I’d forgotten the detail enough not to be anticipating the bits where things could go wrong. A generous explanation would be that my skills have improved. Whatever, it’s back on my map, in all its rocky, rooty goodness. At least until then next off, or maybe the one after that…
Perhaps it’s time for you to revisit an old frenemy?
