I’ve always loved autumn. It’s bright, colourful and usually pretty dry for mountain biking. Oh yeah, and of course it marks the anniversary of my wedding. Ahem. But this year my enthusiasm for Autumn is fading as quickly as the bleached out leaves on the trees. It has left a somewhat sour taste in my mouth and a blanket of slippery, sludgy brown leaves all over the grounds my bike and I usually frequent. A slip here and a wheel spin there and I’m ready to throw my bike off the nearest hill I attempt to climb. Every trail adventure makes me feel less and less technically apt, doubting my ability to tackle even the least aggressive corners and roots.
Despite this seemingly dark outlook, my mood is lifted today, as today revealed its first glimmer of winter. ‘What now?!’ I hear you cry, ‘How can this be uplifting?’ you ask. Well, don’t get me wrong, Autumn is a lovely time despite my first paragraph, but as it drags on with its ever-changing moods and unpredictable weather I can’t help but cling to the Summer’s riding and picture the previous season’s racing melt away with the fading daylight. The once warm and fresh woodland that I had trained for ‘that race’ in is now dark and dingy with an incomprehensible habit of holding vast quantities of surface water. Those bright green leaves that watched me completed my first (and last) smooth bunny hop are now lying face down in the mud. Waking up today revealed commuters scraping ice off their windscreens as I drag the road bike out the front door. A mist hung in the air to give everything a monochrome look. The scenery I passed on my bike journey through country roads revealed sparkling picture postcard images, and the fog allowed each scene to be revealed only when it was ready, giving me something to look forward to at each mile.
So what’s my point? Well, you see, Winter is a new beginning. We move on from the year’s racing and the Summer’s riding adventures. We talk about things like ‘base training’ and spending time with the family instead of the bike. We’ve stopped fantasising about that freak hot sunny Autumn day that would allow for dry trail blazing in a thin jersey and instead we look forward to the year of riding ahead and our dreams for the impending season of race to come. After all, there’s plenty of time to make a vast improvement on our previous results. So I guess what I’m saying is it’s time to let go of the past and start working towards the future. Get on your bike and dance over frosted mud patterns that suddenly seem the gripiest thing since you dropped your Marmite on toast upside down on the floor. Let the crunch underneath your tyres simulate a round of applause as you day dream about winning your next race. Slalom through the nearest dewy grass field and let your bike carve their signature for ramblers to marvel at like adoring fans. Commute to work on your mountain bike; you don’t want to drop down in an aggressive nose-to-tarmac position when there’s such beauty in the scenery around you. Sit up and admire the scenes you usually miss as the fog keeps its distance revealing wintery scenes one at a time and smile to yourself knowing that Spring is around the corner, but far enough away that you’ll be ready it.
Raise your mulled wine and flasks of black coffee to winter base training and the Summer joys it will bring you next year. Merry Christmas.
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