It's that time of year again for the all year round freeride mountain biker to don his thermals, breathable tops & try & fit something warm under their full face helmets only to be drenched in cold sweat after the first downhill run of the day. Hopefully your full facer will have been cleaned after the last huck otherwise you've got that smell to contend with aswell.
Get out of the van with mountain bike, usually in the middle of nowhere in a forest car park, check out the brakes & set the suspension up & get kitted up for the first big push of the day. Wondering why you bothered getting out of bed this morning to drag your lazy ass past everything that you are going to come down or past, picking the best lines & hoping you can remember it all before you nail it at warp factor 10. Eventually you get to the top & rest & contemplate what lies ahead. The chat has stopped realising you've got to carry out what you were bragging about on the way up here.
Making sure everyone is ready, the first pedal turns as rider number one sets off. All follow closely behind watching as much as they can those in front for any doubles or pitfalls or stacks.
The adrenaline has already kicked in after the first few turns & jumps. Flying past trees, getting the flow of the smooth steep forest tracks winding around the mountain with doubles, table tops, berms, hip jumps & switch backs. A smooth kicker fires you out of the forest & into daylight, your eyes adjusting to the bright sunlight in the nick of time before the next jump is there in front of you. Now you're into a swooping fast track with big berms to bank as high as you dare with each table top in between giving you that weightless feeling as you launch with the sound of knobbly tyres riding over the hard pack & then it goes silent until the sound returns on the down slope. Jump, berm, jump, berm, launch over a set of doubles. The roller coaster ride keeps your arms & legs pumped but you know you need to keep hold of those bars - but not too tight, they're the only thing that's keeping you from eating the dirt big style. You don't want it to end but you know you can't hold on for much longer. You spot the fire road ahead, a chance to breath again. Cruising the fire road, arms dangling getting blood back to your fingers. Until, you shoot back inside the tree line for some single track, over rocks & roots set off camber trying to catch you out. Padding bouncing off the odd tree. The trees space out more for some big roller coaster ups & downs with kickers built in to shoot you into oblivion floating you well over the top & nearly to the bottom of the down slope, keeping your speed for the next one sending you up again, your stomach goes into your throat like a hump back bridge. Over a rock garden & over a series of drops, knowing that the 'speed is your friend' speech is only a short step away if you lose your bottle & brake. The bottom section flows with high walled berms to keep the speed up for the final big floater, tyre noise again followed by what seems like an eternity of silence before tyres touch down again. Whooping & hollering your way into the car park you take your helmet off with a Joker style grin stretching from ear to ear. Sweat & adrenaline drip from every pore. What a rush! Time for a break until the next time.......................in 10 minutes.
The push up never really seemed that long did it? A one hour push rewarded by a 10 minute gravity fuelled blast doesn't sound worth it but believe me you'll remember almost all of it in every detail!
When you finish you remember why it is you start at the bottom, so you can finish there too! Mountain biking rules!!
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