For several months I have watched G’s pedal stroke carefully to ensure that her knee flexes correctly and she has optimal power transfer. All the while, I neglected the simple fact that she couldn’t get off the damn bike, and was probably smacking the ground more as a result. Great fucking job Dad!!!! So in trying to prepare her for losing the training wheels, I lowered her seat.   She hasn’t registered the change, but seems to fall less.

Meanwhile I’ve taken several rides with my flats and 5.10 shoes, where proper foot placement involves moving my feet up on the pedals.   I surprisingly found that I could grind over some things better than clipped since I have more ability to roll my feet and stand on top of the pedals while climbing.   The snap in the pedals I lose in gradual efficiency, not in applied torque.   And my knees feel just fine.   This change too defies my concept of correct bicycle fit and sound kinesthesiology.   I’m now convinced any fit that takes more than 4 minutes for a mountain bike is bullshit, unless you are a lycra-wearing XC weenie who rides buff trails very fast in circles and craps his pants at the sight of a some gravel.

G and I rode   to the park 3 times last   week, after a lengthy layoff.   Her braking, her handling keep getting better. Imitating me, she stood up on the pedals and coasted downhill. She enjoys going up and down onto the sidewalks, can spin up our driveway to the garage, and has a natural inclination for gnar.   You can’t teach the thrill of technical terrain, maybe you come to enjoy it when your skills get better, but i think you either love it or you don’t.

she wanted me to go big with her, and take my picture.   Her vid was far more exciting, but i like the team spirit.

On each of the three rides home, she cracked going up the hill to our house.   Calling it a bonk would be inaccurate, she cracked just seeing the hill looming before her.   She’s made this hill, sometimes strongly, but is now psyched out by it.   I try to tell her to relax, to not sprint as it will make her more tired, to just keep spinning.     I try to tell her to trust herself. How do you explain that, when her emotional brain half is conducting a pogrom against her rational half ?

I crashed last week at NRA, the first crash on a jump I’ve had, and as I was fighting off the fear and depression rising up in me with along with the pain in my ribs and oozing abrasions, I felt disassociative.   I spit dirt out of my mouth, cried it out of my eyes, and blew it out of my nose, and found myself oddly intrigued by my new corporeal appreciation for the term “eating shit”.   It was only by willfully maintaining a distance from my instincts that I got back on the bike, finished the run, finished another run from the F-line to the B-line even though my form had gone to hell and I hit on the nose on each gap jump, then followed Bob over a new blind gap and trannied into the Pit.   Then I drank myself retarded watching the Eagles at Indigo Joe’s trying to push back the fear and depression the kept rising up in me along with the pain in my ribs and my oozing abrasions.

I can’t explain this to a little girl, i struggle to balance it myself.   Fear is part of biking, crashing is part of biking, hurting is part of biking, climbing is part of biking.   I can only show her my wounds, tell her I too fall of my bike, and let her know she is not alone. The rest she has to accomplish herself. That too is part of biking.

coyote 2 driveways down from ours, preride at 5am. pic sux, best i could do shooting out the car window