Spinning Circles: Season's Change

As spectacular as fall rides can be – cool temperatures, tacky dirt, explosions of brightly colored leaves at every turn – they're always tinged by a hint of sadness brought on by the knowledge that winter is on its way. All too soon the sun goes into hiding, barely cresting the horizon even at high noon, and more often than not it's shrouded by grey storm clouds blowing in off the ocean. Of course, as ridiculously short as the days can seem in the Pacific Northwest, it could be much worse; in Hammerfest, Norway, the sun disappears completely on November 23 and doesn't re-emerge until mid-January.

Like a bear trying to consume the maximum amount of calories possible before it's time to hibernate, I go on singletrack binges whenever I can throughout the fall, riding myself stupid in an attempt to fill my brain with enough positive memories to get through the impending dreary days. Despite those efforts to fill my memory bank with images of dry trails and blue skies, when winter does truly arrives it's all too easy to turn into a pessimist as the rain sets in and doesn't show any signs of abating for weeks, especially if that same rain falls at the local ski hill instead of snow.

It's not that I'm completely opposed to riding in the cold and wet – my riding addiction is strong enough that it takes more than a torrential downpour to keep me from heading out to get my fix – it's just that if given the choice, I'd prefer to be dry and able to see rather than floundering around in the woods looking like a confused coal miner with a light strapped to my helmet. It may seem sacrilegious to say it, especially to all the night riding acolytes out there, but I'm really not all that fond of heading into the woods after sunset, and even equipped with lights bright enough to illuminate a football stadium I still find myself wishing it was daytime. Who knows, maybe I'm harboring remnants of a childhood fear of the dark, or maybe the prospect of getting jumped by a mountain lion feels a little too real once the sun goes down, but whatever the case may be, I'm not nocturnal by nature.

As the darkness encroaches even further I do my best to stay positive, but when confronted by a lack of powder on the mountain and axle deep mud puddles on the trail I tend to develop a glass-half-empty outlook on life. This year, though, no matter what Mother Nature, Ullr, and El Nino have in store, I'm going to try a different tactic, one inspired by the crew of European skiers that introduced the term 'sh*t f*ck conditions' to the world last year.

If you haven't seen the video that brought that amazing adjective to life it's well worth a view, even if snow sports aren't your thing. It's a brief primer on turning lemons into lemonade, and watching a crew of slightly-insane skiers happily hucking onto icy, hard packed landings, straightlining through narrow chutes peppered with rocks and devoid of soft snow, and in general skiing without any regard for the terrible conditions is inspiring, a reminder that life is what you make of it.

After all, why should a lack of snow stop skiers from being creative and having fun? And by the same token, why should nasty weather and limited daylight stop mountain bikers from taking to the trails? When you're 95 years old and staring out the window of a nursing home, wouldn't you rather be daydreaming about the time you ventured out into the heart of a storm to go riding rather than the time you stayed inside and binged on Netflix? I know I would, and that's why I don't plan on putting away the bike any time soon, sh*t f*ck conditions be damned. And who knows, maybe this will be the year that I learn to love night riding.