Mind The Gap

It’s not a very big gap. But then again I’m not very brave

We are are all scared of something. Or many things. Or fear itself. It’s part of that human self awareness conundrum. Cards on the table, for me it’s impostor syndrome, mortality fear and gap jumps. Obviously for a man who collects neurosis’s as a hobby, there are many more, but at no point did I say ALL cards on the table πŸ˜‰

So let’s summarise the driving forces here; deep concerns about being found out, being found lacking, being diagnosed mostly dead, and being in possession of a mountain bike approaching an obstacle where some bastard has hollowed out the middle of it. The epicentre of this personal blast radius is neatly metamorphosised through a rain soaked tractionless trail neon pointing at a bunch of slick logs, barely cresting a gravity sucking hole clearly ending in Australia.

I exaggerate. Generally, but specifically in this case as it’s not even a proper gap jump. The entry isn’t even higher the exit. No that particular pleasure was saved for the next scythe-waving grim reaper located a little further down the trail. First tho, we’d best deal with gettingover eight feet of A&E potential. Until this weekend, my entire gap jumping back catalogue represented a single unitary entry. Yes, exactly one. I know this is right as I’ve counted it a number of times. It’s neither big nor clever, but it claimed a riding buddy who spent significant drinking time supine on a spinal board awaiting a diagnosis offering him a vertical future.

Tonight it’s four. An emergency addition came via a desperate ‘make the bike longer’ thrust on Saturday, after being assured an unridden trail had neither gaps nor doubles. Except, as was explained during my tourettes tirade come unlikely survival, ‘that one’. Two more managedtoday,inspite ofdisplacement activity mostly coalescing around mental images of crisp sheets and cool nurses. The problem I have with gaps are – somewhat unremarkably – the bloody big gap masquerading as a gaping maw to chew up uncommitted mountain bikers.

Table tops are by their very definition entirely devoid of gaps. You might look rubbish failing to hit the downslope but that’ll be looking rubbish without troubling the emergency services. Jumps defined by trail wedges pointing vaguely into space are right in the slot for my meagre skills – pick a point onthe far horizon, compress the suspension somewhere close to the lip, deep breath, close eyes, stick Newton in the driving seat and wait for the firma to become a little less terra.

Big, scary jumps aren’t a problem either. Just ride round them and present your ‘whist drive’ card to the youngsters laughing at your brittle bones. Gaps tho – entirely doable in terms of bike, muscles, skills and vague aptitude. The issue is the counterbalancing vegetable up top – kaleidoscope heavywith broken images and crammed full of endless doubt. Most of mountain biking at the level I do is about managing your head. Everything is a battle, a fight against intuitiveness, a war with the inner coward against a creeping barrage of unmitigated fear.

This is not some testosterone fuelledmasochism- because chucking yourself off stuff ignitesthe adrenalin compressor and fires raw dopamine into waiting veins. Chasing the Dragon without dealers and needles. Dropping the bike and high five-ing a mate before some very British embarrassment around being forty six years old and not really comfortable with that level of emotional vulgarity. Firm handshake next time okay?

And that bloody bike is going to either going to buttress my fragile bravery gland or send me to an early grave. Or possibly both. And maybe at the same time. But it’s still not enough to bridging the gap between ‘that’s doable‘ and ‘I’m doing that’. No for that I need Matt to lead me in at a speed entirely missing from my own jumping repertoire. And for all the elevated heart rate, wobbly armsand screaming head-thoughts, the actual event is blanked bymuscle memory and mental censorship. In the same way I envy those who dream in colour, I’d love to describe how getting it done actually feels. But I’ve no idea, it fades rapidly to black before the impact of tortured suspension bleeds colour back into my world.

The next gap was bigger. Sliding straight into it was an exercisein quelling the cacophony in my head. The bike saved my arse and other bits as we landed a bit short, and my brain saved me trying the next one on the not unreasonable grounds that a working flange of limbs at this point was a bonus not to be risked.

So now I’m ‘Four Gaps Al’ which is an excellent moniker for a red-neck band, but a rather paltry return for a man who has been riding mountain bikes for more than a decade. The counterpoint of that rather sorry statistic is the immutabletruth that bravery is not merely a lack of imagination and excellent medical insurance. Rather It is feeling the fear and doing it anyway. There’s something about standing on the edge of things and wondering if you can fly. Almost every instinct and experience would suggest not.

Bravery is launching yourself into the gap. There is much to recommend it. And not much point dying wondering.

I really must write up that visit to the Penis Museum. It’ll be slightly less self-referential and have far more knob gags in it. And I think we can all agree, that represents a massive improvement in the content of this blog.

17 thoughts on “Mind The Gap

  1. Simon James maybe but I hate gaps. Really have a think about ‘jumps with holes’. I’m sort of torn between wanting to ride bigger stuff and knowing I’m a bit nesh really πŸ˜‰ John Hamilton nah it’s imported from my blog. It tends to randomly publish stuff. I’ve no idea how to turn it on or off so I just leave it. Rob Hamblen thanks mate…it’s not setting the bar very high!

  2. Ok well the crouching badger body position will not you very far- as above. You should be poised at speed, slight compression to off set suspension, wait for front wheel pop you off the lip, then a healthy wrench at the bars then let the rear float up, click a style for the girls, then adjust for a smooth landing. However there is sometimes a bit that goes… Oh dear the forks just out foxed me and sprung me off out of balance… Then it alltends to go a bit black after that.

  3. I’m with Andy Hooper I really don’t know much about this stuff. Any jump where you land without using your face as a brake is a result. However, my mate Dan DOES know about this kind of stuff and he appears to be a) having it moderately large and b) hanging off the back https://flic.kr/p/mmpktZ – last time I tried any kind of other technique at chicky years ago I binned it off the big log drop. Never really felt the urge to experiment again πŸ˜‰

  4. Brad Stroud

    Mr Leigh sir, pushing the boundaries once again. You gonna come show off your bike skills stateside anytime soon?

  5. Alex

    Yeah in 2016 for sure. We’re going back to Utah. 2015 depends on how much I can get away with πŸ˜‰

  6. Brad

    Brian is moving to Boston later this year, so hopefully he will head to the west coast for some Coffee, beer and Trails. You guys are welcome here anytime. Bring your Best Excuse trousers :p

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