Should ‘ready to ride’ mean more than just having a charged phone?
I read the ‘Digital Detox’ article in the previous issue with some interest. I dodged being a participant in the experiment since I don’t really do anything digital on my bike rides. Detoxing seemed pointless.
Yes, I take my phone with me on rides, but that’s mostly because I want my kids to be able to get hold of me – not because I plan on calling anyone for a rescue. I mean, if circumstances were to demand it, I would call for help – I’m not going to be hacking off body parts with a penknife in the name of self-sufficiency – but calling for assistance is not the primary function of my phone.
Sometimes I take photos – but usually only to tell my (overseas) husband what my day looks like, or to remind me of some test product thing, or as a souvenir for whoever I’m riding with. Mostly, I can’t really be bothered to stop, get my phone out and take my gloves off for the sake of another few megabytes of phone storage. And it would never ever occur to me to ride with headphones in – how would you hear the skylarks?
I suspect that part of my disconnect with digital comes from the fact that I came to mountain biking via fell running. Never fast, I had no need of times and distance and, in any case, I didn’t have a smartphone in my running days. The rules may have changed with the times, but back then GPS watches were only just coming into use and were very frowned upon – if not banned – in events. The idea being along the lines of if you followed a GPS into the wild and the battery conked out, you might not know how to read a map to get back home. Or, if you had a problem, a GPS doesn’t help you plan an alternative route out of your pickle. When we took to the hills, we did so with the gear and skills to keep us safe while we were out there and get us home again.
Mountain biking has always seemed to me strangely lacking in mountain craft. The shift from backpacks to hip packs to on-bike storage, pockets and a handlebar full of micro tools only serves to decrease our readiness for the unexpected. And yes, we can ride within our means and reduce the risk of the unexpected happening to us – but sometimes the unexpected happens to other people, and you unexpectedly need to give them a hand.
For this reason, headphones were also banned in my fell running days – because you needed to be able to hear if someone else was calling for help (or blowing their emergency whistle). Headphone-free, we could hear them and with the gear we were carrying we ought to be able to help them and not become another body for rescue. Often, the places we were running didn’t have a signal and usually didn’t have vehicle access. Calling for help was very much a last resort, for the immovable casualty. We certainly did not expect any incident to be swiftly resolved by a phone call.
I’m not advocating a phone ban – it can be a very handy thing to have with you on a ride if things go wrong. But, generally speaking, I think it should be the last thing you reach for. Hat, jacket, space blanket, tools that work, a wound dressing – these are the things we should expect to deploy before we summon help in all but the most serious of cases. A digital detox should not just be about leaving at home the things that bleep in order to benefit our mental state – healthy as that may be. It should also be about being a bit more prepared for the benefit of our would-be rescuers, or those we might find along the way.
So – perhaps as your batteries are charging – have a check of your kit. Maybe more important than the digital detox would be a nice backpack and a map?
