Some days you just need to get away from everything. Those days when the problems come rolling in like waves, breaking around your head and pushing you down beneath the currents of life. When you need a little break from the world, a bicycle is far better than any life raft, it's the perfect escape vehicle.
It doesn't matter what bike you take, which trail you ride or how fast you go. Whether it's pushing the big bike up your local trail for that short, sweet hit, cranking out the miles on your trail bike, or even pounding the tarmac on the road bike. What matters is the escape. Leaving it all behind and getting lost in the feel of the tyres on the ground. In many ways, it's the purest way of riding. Freedom to ride at whatever pace feels right. If you feel like stopping to soak in the world around you? It's fine. Fancy hammering flatout until the foam froths at your mouth and your heart pounds in your chest like an out of control jackhammer? No worries. You can let the trail ebb and flow with your moods.
When you're on the trail there's not time to think about anything else. People who spend their lives talking about things like inner peace and spiritual harmony can search for a lifetime for Zen. The idea is simple, it's one perfect moment when all that fills your mind is a single thing, you are free from the rest of the world. As mountain bikers we're lucky, we can reach that state each and every time we drop into a good trail. Everything else is long gone, all that is left is the next corner, the next braking spot, your line choice, your foot position, your gear, the grip from your tyres... What better type of escape could there be?
All of the bullshit around mountain biking is stripped away too. You don't need to worry about whether you look "enduro" enough for 2013, if you run enough spacers under your stem or that you have the correct colour frame for this season. Nobody is going to stop you at the trailside and demand you explain the relative benefits of whatever wheelsize, gear ratio or stem length you want to run. There is nothing but you, your bike and the trails you want to ride, no right way or wrong way of doing things.
Then there's the risk... If you ride with the right friends, you know they will always come back to search for you if you don't reach the end of the trail. Out on your own, there is no support. If you go down you're in trouble. Maybe big trouble. If you're being sensible that means you should ride well within your comfort zone, taking lines you know, speed you can control and skipping sketchier features on the trail. But for a certain type of person, that edge adds something to the ride. A tiny bit of the feeling you get climbing without a safety rope. It's hard to resist staying off the brakes a little longer than you know you ought to, chancing that line that calls to you each time you pass it. And when the bike slips, as it will sooner or later, there's nothing like the feeling of being so close to disaster, you'll never feel more alive.
Of course there is one, important caveat to all this: You should never go out into the mountains or backcountry if nobody knows you're going or roughly where you're going to be. Mountain biking, by its very nature, takes us out away from the world and if you don't show respect for that it can all-too-easily end badly for you. You do also need be aware of the risks you are taking. Between all of us here at PB we've got enough scar tissue and sore joints to be ineligible to preach sensibility, but you do need to think about what you're doing.
Story: Matt Wragg Photos: Luke Sergent
No point worrying too much about what could happen on a solo ride, as Matt says, maybe reign in the radness a bit. But if you let someone know where you'll be and bring a charged up phone you should be alright, most phones now have gps, you'd be an easy rescue!
buspilot: what if I look enduro in the woods alone AT NIGHT and no one is there to see me...?
gotta love bikes and the freedom you find with it as a kid cuz it definitely sticks with ya!
Here is a good example of Meeee not using commonsense.
Out on a ride... see a nice spot to have lunch. It's a ridge of an escarpment with a nice view of a lake, about 200m high. Now I see a ledge that looks like a cool place to be. I climb down and drop onto the ledge. Now here is the problem...when I dropped to the ledge I didn't realize in able to get back up I would need some footing or spots to place my hands to climb out. So there I was on a ledge 196m high with practically no way to get back up the rock face. I see a tree root protruding from the rock face just out of reach (even with jumping up). After several failed attempts I amazed myself on how dumb I was. Luckily I had my hydration pack still on and was able to toss it up and snag the protruding root. Which now gave me the length I needed to hoist my dumb ass up to some footings.
Lesson learned!!! Just because it LOOKS like a cool place to be doesn't make it a safe place to be.
Stay Safe !!
Before going out alone, think about it. Are you riding marked trails? Busy area? Will someone find you the same day? Does your phone work in all of the areas that you ride alone? Do you carry food, water, air, tubes, tools, clothes, lights, and first aid supplies? Does anyone really know where you are? If you answer "no" to any of these questions, you need to be even more careful about how you're riding if you go out alone. Waiting for Search and Rescue is gonna ruin your day.
Once, I got a paralyzing leg cramp 17 miles into a really technical 25 mile loop, about 7 miles from my campground. Being exposed to the noon sun on a 100F day and stranded with no cell phone signal or other riders is a terrible, terrible feeling. It wouldn't have been that hot, but I wasted a lot of time and energy after patching a tube and refilling it with a shock pump after my air pump failed. Do you have any idea how long that takes?
Anyway, I never felt more alone and vulnerable than when being stranded and exposed like that. It definitely changed my way of thinking and preparing for solo rides.
I ride alone all the time, but it's not as much fun.
I'm experienced (not fast, or even in awesome shape) but I can do more than those who don't ride much and I have decent bike handling skills. Those who are new or novice go too slow or choose flatter terrain than I'd like. That's one group of people I know. There other group of people I know are hammer heads that can drop a 6 - 8 hour ride and then go back for more. That's beyond my reach (schedule wise and often endurance-wise).
That's core for sure.
I go on solo rides.
But I bring my dog Instead of a photographer.
I ride the same alone or with group. It doesn't really change my pushing it. I did find, I stopped crashing so much, once I took off my amour.
I do find, I get challenged more in some groups.
Its good to have a riding buddy so you can get lost/ loose have fun carry less kit and have some backup.
Happy Trails
My last SOLO MISSION here :-) www.vimeo.com/marccerdan/transpyrenees-hardstyle-ep1
Sujeito 2: talvez pelo convívio !
"Me ride solo, no problemo."