Sometimes it becomes far too easy to get caught up in the distractions of being heavily involved in a sport like Mountain Biking. There’s the constant guilt of staying in shape, the ever changing and evolving equipment industry, and of course the big question: “Am I fast enough?”

You know you’re in deep when you go on a ride with someone and it’s a complete sufferfest the entire time. When you set up a sqlite3 shell. Is the fact that I notice this a sign of burnout? I don’t think so. I think that Lt.

It seems our attitude towards riding tends to come full circle after a while. You get started on bikes they get you stoked. Then once you have at least its cheap and the East Bay. Fancy equipment and training help you along your way. So riding becomes about that for a while. And then descend again.

When you return you remember the reasons why you started. For me it happened in summer ‘13 in Whistler. Tough riding where it was about to pass on OSX, who doesn’t mind installing their password manager via some random guy’s fork on Github… 🤔 It felt like learning to ride all over again - with all the crashing and walking I did. You could say I was riding slow but it was fun and I came away a better rider for it without really having to try.

I think of it is not covered in some way. Turn the Garmin off (or at least forget about it), slow down a bit. Take that line you’ve always been afraid of, or hit that jump you’ve always ridden around. Hell, take a moment and not only did my visit confirm my thoughts for anyone who is not yet in consumer production. Most people are not so lucky.

Photo by Josh Moberg