Facebook has many flaws; those keenly sticking it to the man point to its voracious appetite for personal data, harvested entirely with a shareholder’s view of maximising value. They rightly lament the depth of our digital footprint auctioned to the highest bidder.

Yep get that. Absolutely ready to go full digital hermit with tin foil hat once I’ve weaned myself off likes and vicarious living in a world separated from the tedious analogue. However, going cold turkey on social media means standing firm against the siren call of the carefully managed history presented on your timeline.

Exhibit A: images of a solstice ride some three years past shared with slightly less craggy versions of those now assembled on the hottest night of the year. But hey thanks heartless mining engine reminding me of the planetary rotations that have aged me since.

Shift into the real world and there’s just the two of us divining oxygen from superheated air whilst reacquainting ourselves with hardtails last ridden in the stygian twilight of endless winter days. Now the trails are baked rock hard from a week of 30 degree temperatures evaporating a month of low pressure rubbish.

After 1200kms’ on the Mojo3, a kilometre on the Stache feels strange and not in a good way. It’s like swapping a grand tourer for a hill racer. An Aston Martin for a Healy Sprite. Immediately visceral and not short of physical cues diagnosing me with an affliction best described of ‘laziness by super bike’

No matter, trails to be ridden before beer can be drunk. 30 degrees of rising mercury* stays any ambitions of rushing up hill, but soon we’re heading onto crushed sandstone burned red by a blazing sun and the direct drive of the a single sprung end makes chasing the summit a little more enjoyable.

But nowhere near as enjoyable as a rush through the first descent. Chubby tyres stick to summer hardened dirt like shit to a blanket, but hip swinging hooliganism will kick the back end out while the front tracks on unperturbed. Up front for thinking, out back for dancing.

First couple of jumps tho I’d renamed as ‘Get me to the Chiropractor’ as atrophied muscle memory fails to prioritise the knees as something involved in organic damping. Moving on, the gradient of our local hills tends to the flat closer to the river giving ample opportunity to test those chubby plus tyres with the full body English pushing beyond where any branch of peer assessed physics would suggest grip could possibly be found.

Bonkers. An inch of rain and any such shenanigans would drift the rider out to places where arboreal trauma and sub-soil analysis best describe the experience recently defined as ‘watch this, I’m riding it out‘. No chance of that tho withMediterranean temperatures merely releasing dust clouds whenever any kind of braking disturbed the dirt.

I’d ridden a couple of the smaller gap jumps with the commitment of a man mostly invested in the ridiculous enterprise of an aged twat pitting himself against the the local geography. Nothing further of note is worth recording here other than a well sorted hardtail with 3.0 inch tyres and a 140mm fork is hardly pushing any kind of envelope. Barely licking it in fact.

Scarier tho were the speeds generated by gyroscopic effects which felt potentially tidal. I emerged at the end of one trail carrying sufficient potential energy to brand myself with a blameless tree. Front and rear tyres are shimmying in opposite directions. It’s a right-here-right-now equation to be solved.

Wait a single second to bleed off a little more speed accepting the consequence of a far tighter turn to avoid concussion by tree. Or let it all hang out and trust the grip of those big tyres to carve you out of trouble. Synapses and Dendrites react way faster than an overloaded optical cortex, and you’re through and clear without any understanding of quite how.

Stuff of life right there.

We make the most of the dust, the heat, the elongated day of the solstice. We think nothing of what is to come; the dark, the wet, the grim. Even elder statesman such as David and I can still live a little in the moment. Others may dance naked in response to the planets’ axial tilt; we’re more of the pragmatic ride the shit out of the trails before hitting the bar.

One thing between us and that. The biggest gap jump on our local trails. It’s not that big but it’s quite clever, perfectly sculptured for a landing aligned to the trajectory of a recently jumped mountain bike. Never done it on the hardtail before but if not now then when? Mild death grip on the bars, boost the bike off the lip, dip the flight for landing and relax as we hit it perfectly.

Then deal with the workload of getting it stopped before the next jump last seen when Cez bust his shoulder after inappropriate exuberance. I’m nowhere near that fast so swapped medical difficulties for shit-eating grin.

In the pub a little later, David and I agreed these are fun bikes to ride. And pretty bloody stupid. Fun and stupid then.

I can relate to that.

*in the UK. I know. It’s like we’ve been twinned with all of Australia.