I am in no way a psychology expert, not even remotely close. Disclaimer is complete. Now I will espouse , anyway, upon two things I have learned over the years, having looked into both a little bit with regard to research. Those details are not necessary here, however.
One: every generation has a tendency to look upon future generations as not likely to have as good a life as the current generation. This does not have to do with health or financial perspectives, necessarily, but has more to do with the notion of “the good old days” as perhaps being a way to sum up a viewpoint on quality of life. Distorted? Probably so. Nostalgia part of it? Indeed.
Two: as human creatures, we tend to look back on our life events (memories) with a particular optimistic lens, blurring the reality of what really happened in the moment.
There are terms for these understandings, but I am too lazy at this point to dig on the web and find them. Let’s simply move on and place them into our mountain biking world.
Hop on the seat.
Wait, I forgot (insert … water bottle, energy bar, lucky trail charm…we forget things) … to add this:
I have to back up and say that the 2 theories/research above are likely quite biased related to class, race, ethnicity, gender, etc. Essentially, there are people living among us who don’t subscribe to such understandings. They remember reality.
We all ready, now?
Think back on those “perfect” rides, the ones that stick in your memory like taffy in your teeth. It is kind of nice, that sweetness, until it’s kind of not, right? Maybe it has something to do with the scenery, the people you were with, how the trail bended and descended, the smell of damp earth, pedaling along a fast-flowing mountain stream lined with rhododendron. What a great ride, wasn’t it?
Were you riding a bike as “good” as the one you ride now? If today’s bike is “better,” what if the one you ride now was the one you rode then?
On that “perfect” ride, was there a climb you did not enjoy? A mechanical you forgot about, or was it a flat? Wait -- did someone arrive late to the trailhead?
The point here is not to go down the rabbit hole to nowhere. More so, the looking back and remembering is that: remembering. In remembering, we are going somewhere. With careful thought, the memories can guide us to where we want to go, who we want to be.
As we all know, there are the unanswered questions of … (until we ask them, and then we’re still not sure if they’re telling us the entire truth) :
What does a fisher think while waiting for a bite?
What does the farmer think while sowing the fields?
What does the mountain biker think while pedaling a bike?
What you read above is what I was thinking about the other morning while riding San Diego’s Laguna Mountains. Damned if I didn’t lose my train of thought, though, in that little rocky stretch there below the Wooded Hill group camp. I dabbed out after cleaning the first part going up from the forest road, cutting in on the trail that goes away from the short climb up to Los Gatos.
Had I not botched the rock garden, it would have been a perfect morning ride on my newer-fangled-and-jangled squishy bike. Speaking of which, I’ve yet to clean that section on that bike, having cleaned it several times on my “old” bike. Had I not goofed it the other day, that perfect ride would have been etched into my memory, sitting there until ten years from now when I am riding another new bike and I’d mess it up again, causing me to harken back to the halcyon days of mountain biking.
No Dabs is a monthly column by James Murren that celebrates the mountain biking community and lifestyle.