Peter Frick-Wright
Jury selection restarts today and I am still en route back down to Oakland. So rather than a recap of what is likely a carbon-copy process of the last round of jury selection and voir dire, here are some thoughts that stayed with me in the two weeks since the mistrial.
During the last round of testimony, whenever a new witness took the stand, one of the first questions asked by the prosecution was, “Why do you like mountain biking?”
It doesn’t seem like a tough question, but the answers seem to end up so broad or cliche they border on meaningless.
Why do you like mountain biking?
It’s fun.
It’s challenging.
It’s exciting.
It’s a great workout.
Mountain biking is all of these things, but so is fire dancing. (I would think.) These answers aren’t specific enough to communicate to someone who doesn’t ride, or only rides on the road, exactly what the big deal is. Especially when it comes to single track.
There are, of course, many kinds of mountain biking and there’s a chance I don’t speak for you here. I base this only on many years sampling different kinds of mountain biking and doing my best to think honestly about the sport.
My favorite incomplete, cliche answer for why I mountain bike is that on the trail, everything extraneous disappears. Focused on navigating a rock section or leaning into a tight switchback, there isn’t any room for other problems, little or big. I wrote about this in an article on the McKenzie River Trail, I also found the complete mental blankness I experienced mid-skydive to be similar.
The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has spent his career writing about a related sensation, calling the sweet spot of complete absorption “flow.” Flow occurs when a task requires above-average skills but is neither too challenging nor too easy, with clear goals and immediate feedback that the participant is making progress.
Csikszentmihalyi once spoke of how a few hours of flow each week could compensate for other life problems and theorized that consistently finding flow in some form was possibly nothing less than the key to overall happiness.
Athletes (and artists) of all kinds speak of being in the “zone” or the “groove,” but I think flow is especially relevant to mountain biking. Generally, the only positive feedback that mountain bikers get is finding their bike skills able to navigate difficult terrain and overcome obstacles.
Excepting races, there’s no one to beat down the mountain. Without an energy drink sponsor, there probably isn’t a crew of judges ranking tricks. For most, the joy comes from measuring skills previous with skills current, multiplied by the difficulty of the trail.
At first, riding off-road and over small bumps is challenge enough, but for most riders, confidence soon catches up with the terrain and we’re no longer in that sweet spot, exceeding our comfort zone but not yet holding on for dear life.
You find “ooh” and “aah” somewhere between “uggh” and “aagh!”
We look for narrower, twisting trails because they seem faster, and search out slightly steeper, descents because they push us just beyond our comfort zone. This is, why night riding (and unicycling, for that matter) is getting so popular, you’re pushed to the edge of your skills at 7 mph.
There’s a cardiovascular challenge as well, with endorphin rushes and the like, but when it comes to the part of mountain biking that the riders I know honestly salivate over, flow is essentially the entire sport.
(To my knowledge, the term “flow trail” has no connection to the psychological term, but it’s not tough to tease out the parallels.)
And after a certain point, double track just doesn’t deliver the same kind of stimulus; the brain makes room for the day’s problems and you don’t get total absorption in the task of navigating the trail.
I’m not saying that this line of thinking has direct bearing on the trial, just that mountain biking is much more complicated and important than the cheap thrill it looks like. And that, on most trails, illegal or not, riders looking for a momentary escape from workaday stress far outnumber those riding for the joy of holding their middle finger aloft.
–
Chime in on the comments but please keep it civil. Caught a mistake? No doubt, this is going up fast and loose. Please let me know about it.
Have insight, wisdom or specific knowledge to contribute to the coverage? Let’s talk.
Interesting! “There’s a cardiovascular challenge as well, with endorphin rushes and the like, but when it comes to the part of mountain biking that the riders I know honestly salivate over, flow is essentially the entire sport.”
“Extreme Mountain Biking is a sport where bikers ride their beasts in extreme situations enjoying every bit of adrenalin rush”
http://tinyurl.com/4a8lprl This adrenaline rush can become very addictive. There is a lot of similarity between mountain biking and snowboarding with similar terminology, ie. “Flow” The extreme adrenaline rush can lead to a metaphysical religious experience, ie “Soulriding”: http://tinyurl.com/4c2pdaz — “feeling fairly itchy to get out” to the mountains, etc.
Adrenaline addicts, like snowboarders & mountain bikers, crave more and more of that “rush” to the point of an “out of body” experience of a car crash! Addicts will do anything to keep the status quo, even to the point of attacking someone who may not support enabling the mountain bikers’ habit. Even lie, if it will help their “cause”!
Mountain biking is sound more like a religious cult, every day. People have fought wars over religious beliefs, you know…
I agree – flow is what it’s all about. The combination of trail, bike/human interface, and experiencing nature is enough to refresh me. There’s a whole new area of research in experimental psychology investigating the restorative effects of being in nature for just a few hours a week. Some researchers call it Attention Restoration Theory.
When people ask why I love mountain bikes, I show them the film “Lifecycles”, if they can’t relate after that, there is no hope for them!
Your biases are showing Peter. My last comment is still “awaiting moderation”
Also, I note that you have been spreading your biased reporting elsewhere on the web…
http://www.wendmag.com/blog/2011/03/08/trail-use-on-trial/
“Trails on Trial”…? Give it a break, already. It is ALL about “your” mountain bike trails, isn’t it?
Tsk! Shame on you, Peter.
Thank you, Peter, for publishing my first comment on this post.
Just for clarification, I was agreeing with Peter, not the guy who seems to be fixated on the adrenalin rush. My flow comes from the cardiovascular workout and the sensory aspects of being in nature.
Oh, and notice how Great Gazoo conflates mountain bikers with “adrenaline addicts”. Then he throws in terms like car crashes, attacking, lying, and religious cult. Not a reasoned argument.
Gonzo uses a fallacious argument called spurious similarity which is a relative of bad analogies. It is suggested that some resemblance is proof of a relationship. Once that statement is made it is taken as a fact, then employee as a widely held truth and metaphor then taken to the next step.
This is all so common from this faction and Mike V has made his mark by con founding logic with fallacy.
This is why their thinking seems so wobbly and irate and even bizarre. It has the verisimilitude of a logical argument but in the end it’s weird. It is also very transparently desperate.
The next tactic is to hook people into argument with this method. It is a fool’s errand and serves no one’s purpose except for those who lay these kinds of traps. The best thing to do, despite the baiting which Gonzo also does, is to ignore it. A bully is powerless if you ignore what he believes to be his power And do not allow yourself to be buffaloed by the false effect.
Who is bullying WHO?
@ Great Gazoo – YOU are the bully. Do you drive a car, like the Mike “Hypocrite” Vandeman?
Gazoo, at the top of this very thread, calls Peter out and attempts to actually bully him into approving her previous post by criticizing Peter and saying he is biased. Finally, when Berk Mike tells us to ignore the bully, Gazoo points her fingers at everyone else and proffers up the classic “I know you are but what am I?” schoolyard defense. Well played Gazoo, my 8 year old is impressed, although he hasn’t yet learned that whom is the objective case of the word who.
I realized that exact same reason for why I like mtn biking over road riding (I only road ride for commuting). You can zone out on the road, well the paved trail at least, I can’t zone out riding with cars; but when you can zone out, the days problems and tomorrows can seep in. Not with mtn biking, other than as you say on double track. You better pay attention or your gonna impale a tree. Flow is possible when we become one with the bike and trail.