Pedalling A Myth

Competitive mountain biking is not everyone’s cup of tea, I’m prepared to admit. It would not have been mine a few years ago, when I was of the opinion that if something was worth doing, it would be easy to do – that’s how you would know that it was worth doing. As I have got older, though, I have seen the benefit of having to work for something – and mountain biking makes you work, no doubt about that. These days, there is simply no way that I would ever let anyone try to tell me that mountain biking isn’t worth doing. I have a collection of trophies that remind me that it is. I also have a semi-permanent bruise collection to remind me what I went through to get them.

The thing that really gets to me, however, is that the trophy collection could be bigger, if I had learned a few lessons a little bit earlier. The first and most valuable of those, I think, would be to remember that it’s not always the guy in front who is going to win the race. I used to set off at such a pace that I would be ahead and stretching my lead within a kilometer of the start. When I got that close to the end, however, I would either be watching a small procession passing me or pedalling like my life depended on it to keep the lead from someone with bags more energy in reserve. Those first few kilometers I wouldn’t even see the branches and roots nor the uneven terrain, I’d be so focused. Come the end of the race, I would see everything but a flat road as an obstacle that could lose me the race.

This continued for months. My pace was my strong point, and no-one was going to tell me that it was actually slowing me down. It took a few repeat lessons to bang that message home – but once it was in, it was never going away. The last race I took part in is a case in point. I was taking part in a hybrid race – half rough terrain, half road race – and I got off to my usual quick start, but without the bat out of hell approach that had cost me in the past. I got a sight of the leader – the guy who was taking my old approach – about three kilometers from the end. He was flagging badly.

I knew that he was hitting the wall. I had time to reach down and grab the hydration pack I had brought with me and take a long, welcome drink of cool water. Then I lowered my head and went for it. A couple of years ago there would have been no "it" there to go for, but this time my legs did exactly what I wanted from them, and I was well ahead of him at the end. It’s a sweet feeling knowing that you’ve applied a lesson that was so hard-learned, and seeing it come off.