And by an industry that “sells” the sport largely by glorifying the above abusers. Our trails are being systematically shredded-yes, by skidding endurbros, straightlining shuttle monkeys, and shortsighted stravassholes.
I can’t say that I discovered any answers-I don’t even think I’m yet asking the right questions-but I did, in that one silent moment spent catching my breath while overlooking the Gunnison River, draw one solid conclusion:įailing to educate new riders on etiquette.įailing to criticize the actions of fellow riders.įailing to listen when they criticize us. These were the questions swimming through my head as I did, eventually, find a sliver of silence and solace on last night’s ride. When did we become this crowd? How are these actions in any way morally defensible? Has our demographic gone completely batshit in the past few years, selling our soul in exchange for a map that no longer shows us the way? Thus their existence remains hypothetical and seems less likely by the day, as each successive ride shows more evidence of shredding endurbros skidding into corners and cheater-line creating (and maintaining) dolts veering off the trail and through sensitive soils - all in the name of shaving a few seconds so that their name climbs higher on an online list populated by similar miscreants. I know that they must exist, I just don’t ever seem to cross paths with them no matter how far out I go. My hope is that there still exist people who use bicycles to get out, get away, to find silence and solace in the mountains and the woods. But something about this day really made it obvious that the demographic that is “mountain bike users” has changed, shifted. People-you, me, us -have been blowing off steam after work since forever.
on a weekday I had no good reason to expect any of this to be different. Shards of music pierced the air as each motored past, puffs of cigarette and dope smoke escaped the windows, there was even a (potentially unrelated?) stereotypical Red Bull can in the gutter adjacent to the steepest bit. As I labored up the grade, breath ragged and sweat stinging my eyes, I was passed by a virtually endless stream of diesel dualies, #vanlifers, and mini motorhomes, seemingly all with a pile of bikes hanging off their back ends.
It used to be my preferred training ground, then when racing ended it became the quickest way of getting to some of the lesser used trails. I’ve climbed it literally hundreds of times in the 20 years I’ve lived nearby. LPR is fairly steep as roads go in these parts. So as the bike path ran out I found myself merging onto Little Park Road. I aborted that plan and stuck to the bike path awhile longer, thinking I could head up Miramonte-a less used entrance only a little further away-but heavy traffic deflected me away from there, too. But as I approached Highway 340 I could see a line of cars stretching all the way back to Riverside Parkway, all lined up to turn left, all heading more or less for that same trailhead. The closest trailhead is less than a mile away and my most frequent objective: Getting onto dirt ASAP tops all else, usually. All in the name of recharging the spirit within. I didn’t have a set target in mind, just knew that I needed some downtime to decompress, sort out the chaos in my head, incinerate a few endorphins, hopefully even take a break at a silent overlook. Earlier this week, at the end of a particularly exhausting workday, I wheeled my bike out the back door of the shop, turned out the lights, closed the door, and pedaled in the general direction of dirt.
0 kommentar(er)
