did epic rides killed my love of bike parks?

lift access is fun, but i'm now addicted to adventures out back

Only Thirty?

I was perplexed. Why were my arms and shoulders so tired? What turned my legs into led?

Zeke and I were riding at the Railyard - a local park featuring over 40k of trails. The town puts a lot of effort into maintaining the mountain bike park. The trails are really fun.

Here’s a video of Zeke chasing me down one of their more machine made trails.

What you don’t see is me almost throwing up at the end.

What gives? I’ve been increasing my endurance. I’ve been going on longer rides and …

Zeke interrupted me quickly: Mountain biking uses energy differently. On a long ride you save it. When you ride over 100k, you can’t go pulling up and go bouncing and jumping around everywhere. This it’s a different beast.

Having fun, getting rowdy and launching into the air at every chance uses a lot of energy.

Riding 100k over trails more rough than those in the bike park takes a lot of energy too.

This is why the first adventure that I’m leading around Lake Charlotte is only going to be 55k then a boat ride home.

The length is revealing in terms of the nature of the ride.

55k is long enough to create tension.

55k is further than most ever typically ride during a weekly bike park session.

But, 55k is short enough that people will be able to play and have fun along the way.

‘What’s fun’ if a funny thing.

I used to believe that riding 55 - 150 +++ off road and in the wilderness was nutty. Merely happy to roll around developed bike areas, I was looking for more comfort and more ease in riding.

Laps of a park with a chairlift had become more and more appealing.

Until recently.

After going out on multiple and regular longer rides, exploring a bike park has lost its tension. Exploring a bike park isn’t quite as fun.

We only did thirty? This was a lot of fun, but WAY less satisfying than our big rides.

Zeke was feeling it too.

There’s a special kind of thrill that comes from knowing that if you wipe out in some of the places we go, you’re fucked. It would be hours before anyone got to you. It would take hours to pull you out. Then start thinking about all of the the coyotes and bears out there and the adrenaline is never far away. We only ride these routes every few years. The surfaces are always changing. It’s like a new trail each time we hit it.

In a bike park, the car and medical assistance is never really that far away, the animals are wearing leashes and the terrain is predictable.

Most of all though, we finish with a feeling like we went somewhere, like we did something. Pain from exhaustion and the feeling of pride that comes from I couldn’t before, I never thought THIS to be possible but, I just did it.

And the doing so should be proof enough to the part of you that imagines you can’t .

Go ride your bike.

And?

If you have the time, come ride with Jed and Zeke and me when we do the Lake Charlotte Mini Epic - 55k to the head of Lake Charlotte Nova Scotia. There, we’ll camp on a white sandy beach on Nova Scotia’s most beautiful lake. Without cell reception, you’ll be cut off from civilization.

After the ride, we’ll swim, eat and have a big bonfire together before wobbling off to our own tents.

The next day we’ll eat breakfast, break camp then take all of our stuff down the lake in boats.

In the end, you’ll disconnect from the world and go deeper into your sense of power and possibility as well as the kind of incredible mountain bike terrain in the Lake Charlotte area.

Oh, and it’s a ‘fun length ride’, not a grind.

Sponsored by Cycling Nova Scotia, you can find out more here

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