Today I decided to head out and explore the trails on wheels, after exploring some on foot yesterday. I wish I had my camera on me yesterday, but running is tough enough without having to figure out where to stuff a camera and run with it. Redding has a pretty amazing trail system, I guess it's pretty new. Yesterday I ran up Chamise Peak (5 miles roundtrip) and got a 360 degree view of the Sacramento River, Shasta Dam, Shasta Lake, and Redding. It was gorgeous! And the rain decided to hold up for awhile while I was out there!
Today I pumped up the tires in my neglected mountain bike, put on my helmet and set out to explore. That's when it hit me: I suck. Why do I suck? Not for lack of technical knowledge on how to ride a bike. No. I believe it is caused by a strong fear of eating shit. I gave this some thought throughout my extremely slow (I run faster than I bike) ride. I went faster uphill than down. My heart was pumping so hard downhill that my arms were shaking. At about 1 mile per hour. Seriously. I was afraid some one might see me. And I had no idea what I would say to them.
So I started asking myself why it was I was afraid of biffing. I'm also afraid of biffing when I surf. Waves bigger than 3ft high scare the crap out of me. No, not when I'm standing beside it, I'm not that pathetic. I mean when I'm paddling headfirst down the face of a three foot wave and it picks me up and hurtles me toward shore at neck breaking speed, and I'm supposed to continue on and stand up.
.
I'm also afraid of heights. And getting in car accidents. I'm a wuss when I rollerblade. Downhills are extremely scary on rollerblades. All this was going through my head as I enjoyed the flat parts of the trail today.
That's when I noticed a pattern. Whenever my body is moving at a speed faster than what I could normally make it do, I get fearful. Fearful of biting the dust (or rocks or surfboard, whichever the case may be). Thus when I'm on a bike, surfboard, rollerblades, or in a car- it's scary because of the thought of what could happen should I suddenly come to a complete stop on not so soft ground. And heights, well that's just obvious. Who wants to plummet to their death with plenty of time to consider the consequences on the way down?
So I pondered this today on my slow Sunday ride. It proved it's point as I stupidly layed my bike down at about 0.5 mph on a tight turn down hill. See, I believe that speed going into a turn is important in order to just bank off the turn. Well if you're at a snail's pace like I was, you lick the dirt on the embankment because you were going too slow to retain control of the bike. Embarrassing. But nobody saw. It's one thing to crash while doing something cool, it's a totally different story when you end up on the ground because you were going too slow.
So I've got to come up with some courage somewhere if I ever plan to surf pipeline or do jumps off cliffs on my mountain bike. Ok, not really. I'll probably never surf pipeline or come remotely close to any cliffs while cycling. But it would be nice to not have to get off my bike in order to make a turn. Or go down a hill.
Anyway, here's some pics of my bike ride.
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