the earth hates you (especially on a bike)

a cyclists unhelpful guide to the jank of daily living

Riding season has returned!

It’s finally that time of year when the days are longer and warmer.

Life is bursting from every corner and the earth is verdantly ready to mock and humiliate me on a bicycle.

It’s time to venture out onto life's single tracks, eh?

And doing hit here in Nova Scotia? There’s none of those white velvet gloved manicured trails with their delicate clay caps and precious smooth jumps and botox berms.

The trails here are old school - like the kind of crap your cranky great uncle told you about walking to school on - uphill into the wind in both directions.

They’re barely passable paths hacked through the woods just wide enough for a dirty old troll like me to wobble over.

The trails here make one question their life choices.

Dear reader, I typically finish a ride with an arse more welted than a gum chewer in Singapore.

The technical term, for those soft bottomed readers who haven’t embraced this glorious suck?

Janky

Janky, my dear reader, is the universe actively trying to stop you. It's a relentless barrage of pointy rocks eager to shred your tires, shins and spirit.

Janky are roots that have decided to rise up from the ground like countless gropers on a Japanese subway. They not only want to feel you up, they want to smash you into the ground at the same time.

Janky means riding trails that are interrupted by freshly fallen trees lying across the path as though the forest decided to not only flip you the bird but encourage you to impale yourself on it.

When it comes to mountain biking in Nova Scotia, forward progress is highly overrated.

Ah, but such is life eh?

Now, the safety fascists will tell you to carefully pick your way through this delightful mess, like defusing a bomb made of disappointment. Take your time, find the "clean line." Be careful. Be safe.

These people?

They deserve a giant turd sandwich served up on a hot plate of hate.

Go die peacefully in your easy chair y’a ninnies.

Others, the slightly more idiotic, will advocate for simply "blasting through." You know, the full-speed-ahead approach where you absorb punishing bump like a human shock absorber destined for early retirement - or one of those who shop at those ‘special stores’ filled with leather, paddles, gag balls and nipple clamps.

Enjoy the pain; it builds character and keeps your massage therapist in lavender candles.

Me? I prefer to treat this natural garbage as a launch opportunity. See that jagged rock at a vaguely upward angle like that of a sharks tooth? Does it look like it may remove toes or teeth depending what hits the ground first?

Excellent! Hit it with enough speed and maybe, just maybe, you'll achieve brief, glorious airtime over the underlying hellscape. The landing? Well, if you’re lucky, there’s something a little more mild on the other side.

You feeling lucky, punk?

But that’s life eh?

Frosty Robert mused about two roads within a fetid wood.

The one more traveled was janky. The less traveled one was janky as well. No point finding a smoother path. Just go for it.

Full send.

And the so called ‘obsticles’ to your so called ‘forward progress’? They’re just as much an illusion as the idea of forward progress.

You’re on a bike dipsit.

It’s all circles - even if you’re not riding.

The damn earth is spinning circles within circles as we go along.

The biggest obstacle though is just fear, that delightful cocktail of inadequacy and impending doom.

What’s worse?

Your fear is fucking boring.

Wahhhhhhh! I feel anxiety!

Waaaaahhhh!

I ear of failing at that brilliant idea that was definitely better in my head.

I fear of rejection, as if anyone's opinion actually matters.

But the worst and least acknowledged fear that so many of us have? The fear of succeeding, because then you might have to, you know, do something, then do something else.

Because who of you wants to be a one hit wonder?

They call this fear "anxiety." I call it your body's early warning system screaming, "Abort! Abort!" But hey, some guru probably told you it's just "excitement with nowhere to go." Sure, just like that dumpster fire is just "a controlled burn."

So, you're contemplating some monumental life change, are you? You want to transmute your terror into giddy anticipation? You want to turn that mountain of "no" into a goddamn launch ramp to "soar"?

Good luck with that, buttercup. The jank is real, and gravity always wins. But hey, at least you might get a funny story out of the resulting crash.

The only thing you have to fear is the freedom that comes from running out of things to be afraid of.

You're welcome.

Stay afraid you fiends.