The author, seeking flow

There is a perfect line down the mountain. No really, there is. Don’t expect any techniques or component upgrade tips in what follows. You know this is in your head. And there is a lot going on in there.

Harmonise your senses. Feel the trail through every limb, listen to the tyres squirming on the edge of traction, smell the forest pumping water through nature’s aqueducts and wipe the detritus from the periphery of your optical nerves. Focus on the sinuous curves of the track, the challenge, the thing you do which nobody else understands.

Think of a line arcing down the mountain, perfectly bisecting every apex, delivering dopamine and adrenaline in perfect doses. The mountain is your dealer with free hits waiting on every corner enhanced by fleeting glimpses of the world rushing by. A trip to another world lies beyond the flow, where the rule of belief orchestrates a trail symphony when every move builds to a rapturous crescendo. Discordant harmonies are for other riders – once in the flow, the world schisms and only the blur of the trees and the hum of your tyres links you back to the place of shattered confidence and transparent excuses.

Is this real? Yes, of course it is. You can strip out the metaphors and pretentious bollocks but somewhere in there is why we do this. And isn’t it frustrating? The flow is transient – something we aspire to when the bike, the trail an. And the harder you try to find it, the more nebulous it seems. Fear, trail conditions and what’s going on in your head pose an equation that isn’t easily solved.

Indulge me for a while and let me tell you how it feels. Bloated after Christmas and drowning in a sea of well-meaning relatives, cabin-fevered kids and an approaching new year that would see me on the wrong side of 35, I headed west to a haven of mud-free trails. Our approach through bands of fierce rainstorms and a car park notable only for a raw north wind and a ‘café closed’ sign hardly fired the synapses, but as we headed up the trail a lazy wind blew away the clouds and bathed us in mid-winter sunshine, as befits the righteous.

I love mountain biking. For many reasons. Probably too many have to do with drinking beer but not today (well, it was 10am and even I have some standards). Climbing on frozen singletrack, the world becomes a better place. Gulping down icy breaths and sublimely ignoring the world turning from blue to grey, I grind up the climbs, waiting for the pain to stop and the spots in front of your eyes to fade. I’ll concede it’s not perfect but the responsibilities of a grey world fall away and the decisions become binary; left or right, spin or race, fast or slow are all I have now.

Some time later, the gradient reverses and I’m silhouetted against an angry sky yet with a load of metres deposited in the gravity bank. And here’s the rub – after all that climbing it’s not good. Downhill isn’t meant to be this hard. I’m fighting the mountain, turning in early, chopping to a new line, looking for the flow. But it’s not there, I’m clumsy and slow with the howling of my brakes acting as a siren to the world: “Watch this clown, the rocks will claim him”. I’m having the kind of ride that makes me wonder if canal towpaths wouldn’t be a good career move. My erstwhile friends run a confidence trick where shouting “You mincer!” would apparently improve my performance. It didn’t, of course, but they certainly enjoyed it.

More climbing. More cold. Suddenly the Sound Of Music ensconced in a warm sitting room was more than a little appealing. And then came Sidewinder. I should probably state my allegiance to Sidewinder here – from the first visit to every one since, it’s always assaulted my senses with the sounds and the sights and I never ever want it to stop. Today is a good day – the hesitancy of before is forgotten and we rip it up, racing down the side of the mountain, kissing the stumps on the hairpin exits with muddy tyre and flicking bikes left-right-left as the trail serves up its singletrack course.

Finally, we’re spat out of the trail grinning like escapees from the asylum and relishing the next section of trail. Except it’s Dead Sheep Gulley. And after the initial climb, I’ve never been able to nail it. Or even mildly tap it with a hammer. In a moment of extreme drunkenness, I’d abandoned all pretences of masculinity and blurted this out to a mate. To his credit, he’d failed to stand on a table, point in an accusatory fashion and shout in the manner of a town crier: “Oi! ANYONE GOT A DRESS, GIRL SAT HERE!” Well OK, he didn’t get on the table.

Follow me, he says, confident in his prowess and pivots. I examine my somewhat wimpy 80mm of travel but emboldened by arriving alive at the last section, do just that. Okay, here’s where it’s at. Brakes disengage you from the flow. Without these, the bike drives you forward and generates angles you cannot quite comprehend. And get this – it doesn’t fall over and neither do you. Connect to the flow and watch the mountain fly by as stumps become woody blurs and the unforgiving run-off is nothing more than excuses for other people. Geometry now makes sense, angles poised to deliver intense cornering experiences, wheelbases that stabilise the trail bumps, yet generate poise when the going get sideways and somehow allow the bike to be light over jumps and right over drops. Hand me the Nobel prize for engineering, I have the winner right here.

That’s my third attempt at writing that. I’m no happier with it than with the first. We always say if you could bottle the feeling at the end of a great ride and spread it thinly across your week, you’d be a better person. Feeling the flow is like that. It’s some kind of nirvana that’s more at home with Kerouac than it is with the grasping world that is our particular oyster.

I’ll try and distil it. You brake and you break the flow, yet let it run and it opens a conduit to a world oblivious to what came before, recognising only your limits. It’s out there, waiting, ready to blow you away and reduce you to dribbling, arm waving and gabbling bullshit. But it’s a harsh mistress. It’ll drop you the second you get the fear, dab the brakes, lose your belief. And every time you lose it, you’ll need to go harder and dig deeper to get it back.

There’s a perfect line down the mountain. Like the best drugs, it’s a line you can take which will transport you to somewhere else, somewhere good. But I warn you now, it’s addictive and no amount of money will score you a hit. Suspend your disbelief, the flow is out there. How badly do you want it?