Mountain Biking - That moment of surrealness.

You know you're riding an aggressive line when...

You're hauling and lightly scrape against a tree when cornering; railing any corner that has a berm to it. With the added bonus of rain and fog, it can make downhilling very surreal like and knowing that you have the trail to yourself. Bike is functioning perfectly, and is silent except for the sound of the tires on the dirt, it makes for such a perfect situation. It's rides like this that just keep me psyched.

If you ever had any rides like this, please share, if not, I hope you will have one soon.

I always have that brief moment of feeling surreal when I've hit something on the trail, it has stopped my bike instantly, but yet I'm still moving.

The whole thing happens in super slow motion. You can hear ever little sound, you can focus on every twig on the trail, your sense of smell is heightened......











and then BAM!!!!


You're in pain!

i was kind-of having this in big bear yesterday. i was goin down this sick trail, flyin thru a loooooooooooong steep rock garden (and holding on for dear life) and it was great. ive never ridden thru fog on a mountainbike, but on a road bike.

That's the whole reason I ride.

moment of surrealness yesterday...

riding great all day. railing the corners, floating over rocks, and roots coming within inches of trees. get down to the pit drop in hit a jump im comfortable doing. go back up screw up hit the bigger one next to it. so i decide to do it again. i hit the jump see the ground get further away then realize im coming down and facing the ground... realize omg this is gonna hurt. hit head then chest then arm and then everything else. but it was fun. oh and i noticed that oakley sunglasses are really strong cause they hit and they are still here

OMG. You have no idea...............well, actually YOU do. :)

the surreal pain of flying into a tree, being knocked out for an hour as your friend is scared out of his mind becuase you hit the tree, went down a 6 foot drop unconsious rolling down of a 3 foot rock drop. That is my feeling or surrealness.

I am not very good at Downhill yet so pushing myself behond my limits.

I tend to get those sorts of moments during the transitive stages, biking to and from any sort of "serious" training ride or race and my house. Those moments where everything I've learned from N years of cycling in X different conditions combine to lead me to a less apparent line through traffic/the woods/competitors/wherever.
Todays moment? I just converted my old double-butted steel Cinder Cone to a "commuterspeed" type of bike: fairly wide gearing, 1x7, ritchey moby 2.1's (big slick), and big wide drops, bar end shifter. Today I really got to put it through the paces, and what do you know? End of rush week, and *******s in SUV's and bad drivers abound. No collisions, and a nice tail-tap on the side of a white SUV limo that will probably easily come out.
And the flow. It's the first bike I've really cobbled together from frame to completion, and being able to transition from different types of terrain on something that you're solely responsible for (minus framebuilding, I suppose), that feeling of a higher independence really makes me grin in the face of idiots who honk/cut me off/etc.

Of the thousands of rides I have done, there are those rides that stand out from the rest. What made them special a mixture of reasons. The wheather, the trail conditions, my frame of mind, or spotting something rare or inconsistent with a normal day in the woods.

The rides I remember the best are those few where I felt a part of the terrain and just flowed over it like water finding it's way downhill. Every stroke driving me forward. Every twitch and counter the correct move to maintain momentum and skate through the dicey stuff. I may not be fast, but I feel fast. A trail obstacle or section is beaten and I leave wondering why I did not see that line before. My bike will feel like it has wings and lifting it almost magical as I sail over things I used to catch hard. Catching the top edge of a berm and holding it clean through the turn. In other words I have known "the perfect ride". Not often, but enough to know they are out there to be had.

When your just flowing and not thinking, even the rooty sections seem smooth. I had a ride like that with Gastro on Black mtn in pisgah one time. He was just pinnin' it, one of his buds,girlscout and me were all railing at warp speed behind him. Its funnyn girlscout crashed on the same trail yesterday and he was not going nearly as hard.

About 12 years ago a friend and I smoked a whole bunch of hash and went riding for about 2 hours.. that was pretty surreal.

Ok my surreal moment was...

...Driving a couple of hours out to the middle of nowhere because I heard some rumors of an amazing trail. We arrive at Baseline Mountain. We park at the bottom and start walking up...3 hours later we are at the top and have to most stunning view of mountain after mountain after mountain...not a single sign of mankind, not a single person on the mountain except me and my dad. I just start ripping down the trail. Flying over rocks, roots, jumps. Railing every berm like never before. I don't hear or see anything except the trail. I get to the bottom, come to a stop...then the pain in my muscles finaly sets in.

I have never had a better ride...beautiful old forest...crisp mountain air...not a worry in the world!

When its loud and rough, then you hit something that gives you a few short moments of airtime...............nothing, silent.............. then you land and keep going, loud and rough.

Kinda like a silent pause in the middle of a rock song.

For me, I get that moment when I get self-gratification, when I hit a new drop, or hit a new jump. As soon as I'm truly airborne and doing something a little progressive, I get that feeling. It's why I ride the street more than the trails, I just don't enjoy flat singletrack that much.