Look, it doesn’t matter, and I like it that way. You try something. You fail. You try again. At my age, they’re not handing out a lot of trophies, and even if they were, where am I going to put a bunch of gold plasticated athletes on fake marble plinths? On the shelf next to all my not-Pulitzers?
Yesterday I rode with some friends at our local spot. It’s a four-and-a-half-mile strip of dirt that worms its way between wetlands and apartment complexes, crosses half-a-dozen roads, and in my mind is one of the world’s great trails despite its humble setting. At one of those road crossings, there is a set of three wooden stairs that lead to the top of a wide stone wall, with three wooden steps down the other side. I’ve looked at those stairs for years without riding them, without even trying to.
On Sunday, finally, I did it.
Now I could explain that the steps are somewhat tall and far apart, steep too, that the exit is into a snarl of roots, but now, having ridden up and over, I can tell you it’s not really hard at all. Pretty easy. A little speed, a little technique, a little timing, the bike does the rest.
These are the things you learn by practice.
Sports, in their traditional, organized form, are divided into practice and games. In this paradigm, practice is meant to prepare the athlete for the game, when the consequences of their actions have real import. Outside observers passionately observe games, while only the mildly psychotic want to watch practice. But, I always liked practice more than games. In fact, I seldom enjoyed the game. I played soccer. Ran cross-country. I liked doing those things. I didn’t need to compete at them. Or maybe it’s that goofy thing where I preferred to compete with myself, which sounds vaguely but appropriately masturbatory, I think.
I was trying to figure out why it took me so long to even try to ride those stairs, and what I came up with is that I’ve been stuck in the organized sports paradigm, that on game day you don’t try new things. How is a mountain bike ride with friends like game day? Simple. Egos are involved.
If I’m going to do more of the things I want to do on the bike, I need to commit to practice more and compete less, because honest-to-gosh it’s all practice. It’s only ever really been practice. Even the events I’ve done have just been glorified practice, with souvenir t-shirts or pint glasses, sometimes both.
What I always enjoyed about practice when I was a kid, was that you could try all your most audacious ideas there, and sometimes they’d come off and what a thrill that was. What a laugh you’d have with your friends about it. Or you failed, and it didn’t matter.