Summer is Overrated - Opinion

Everyone loves summer. It’s hard to argue with blue skies full of cotton-candy clouds, butterflies floating on the wind and nary a gangrenous, frostbitten limb in sight. I guess I can see the attraction. There’s a lot to be said for stepping out your door without having to weigh your risk of succumbing to hypothermia. But sitting here in bed, listening to the rain making angry sounds against my window, I’ve got to tell you, I’m not shedding a single tear over summer’s demise.



Right now, it’s cold, it’s wet, my shoes haven’t dried out in weeks and my gloves harbor a putridness that smacks of some entirely new and fierce kind of death… and I couldn’t be happier. If I could somehow spend every day of my life like this—immersed in a perpetual state of October and November—I’d sign up for it in a heartbeat. Why is that true? The answer is complicated. It’s not as if the riding is actually better now that the trails have turned bitter and sloppy cruel. Hell no. I’m a fan of keeping my blood inside my body and that’s been a real challenge of late. My already-questionable bike handling skills are all over the map, my sphincter in a perpetual state of pucker.


But there’s also a beauty to this moment in time. The mornings start out fierce and damp and cold, but at some point, the fog that hangs in the trees lures me outside. There’s a saying that comes to mind, “Bad weather always looks worse through a window.” Nothing has ever been more true. Even when it looks horrible out, strapping on my wet helmet and squeezing my feet into my soggy shoes are actually the worst part of the whole process. Within a few pedal strokes, I’ve stopped noticing the jungle rot that’s setting up camp between my toes. I even stop feeling the cold. As cozy as a warm house can be, a couple days spent inside one still wind ups feeling like days spent behind bars.

Out in the woods, under the canopy, I hardly even notice the wind or rain. It’s quiet here, save for the squelch of muddy tires and the rattle of chain on chainstay. Summer’s fair weather friends are gone. Everyone who thinks the great outdoors are only great when the weather is balmy and the trails are dry? Those people are sitting indoors, miserably cursing the “shitty” fall weather. Just waiting for the storm to clear and the sky to go all bluebird. In this corner of the globe, they'll be waiting till June. Good luck with that. I’m out here now, alone and happy. The cold air burns in my lungs as I churn sloppy circles and remember that even a cold, wet day on the bike is better than any day spent hunched at a desk or inside a climate-controlled cubicle.


I am slower, more sloth-like in winter. But that’s all right—fall is an understanding season that way because everything slows down in fall. Photosynthesis fell asleep at the wheel sometime back in September and the leaves are dropping. The salmon are sluggishly working their way up the creek, digging their spawning beds before taking their permanent nap. I stop and watch them run out the clock on the last bit of their lives. Because, why the hell not?

This is the cycle, this is fall. Things are no longer racing along, true, but they also don’t stop. And neither should you. If your riding has come to an end because summer has come and gone, you miss out on all this. The trails are still here. The woods are still here. They’re calling your name. And, you know what, they’re still damn fun to ride in.

Summer lulls you into thinking that every day is going to be sunshine and high fives and cold beers on the tailgate. Summer rolls into town every year promising you one long holiday of awesomeness and it swears the good times will never end. Summer, of course, is full of shit because every year there comes a day when you walk out your door and find that summer has skipped town when you weren't looking.

It's tempting to miss summer and pine for its return. It's the season when life is easy and the cotton is high, and all that jazz. Getting out there and riding through fall and winter? This requires something more from you, true, but doing so also rewards you in a way that summer never will. It’s all here right now: the mist in the trees, the rain dripping off the branches, a lazy shower of gold, red and orange leaves drifting down. You can have summer. I can take or leave that particular season. But fall? I’m a sucker for fall.

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MENTIONS: @vernonfelton / @Laurence-CE / @Dermott

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