Flow, Failure, Redemption

Shogs-

Thanks for your kind words. I'm not a natural athlete or particularly coordinated. I was always the last person picked in school for any kind of sporting event, everyone always told me I sucked at sports, and I believed them. I sucked at riding when I started, and it's been a long process to realize that we all put our pants on one leg at a time, and if the good riders can do it, so can I.

Every bit of skill I've acquired I've had to work for, which to be honest, is what has helped with the clinics. I remember very well being a novice, and because I had to figure out what to do to overcome all those issues, I'm a lot better positioned to share than someone who's been riding forever and was a natural at it.

If I can learn to ride better, I think anyone can (although I've been lucky to be able to focus on it). It takes time and energy and a lot of tires and gas, but the beautiful thing about riding is that one way to approach it, is as a never-ending learning process. That's how I view it, and it's one of my favorite things about it- I never have to worry about arriving, about the trip being over. Every time I think I know something, I learn a new way to approach it and I'm back to being a novice again.

To steal a line from another unremembered source, we're all just varying degrees of failure, right up to the top.

Wow, That was something!
I thought I was going to read about an actual ride that someone had take to a far away place.
Instead I get a journey into the mind of a wannbe amatuer writer about the deeper meanings of life onboard an enduro motorcycle. Three pages was more than enough to realize that I was in the wrong thread at the wrong time.
Keep riding/writing neduro!
BTW, Glad to be on the forum (Hows this for a first post)

I miss that bike.

Heard someone sum it up best this way: "If you hold the throttle wide, any gear, any situation, for a 10 count, you'll count 8-9-10 faster than you did 1-2-3". Ain't that the truth.

What is it with me and unattributed quotes lately?

OK, back to enduro bikes.

Ned,

This is something that I too can relate to. In fact I couldn't believe it when a few weeks ago at the Fourmile Freakout a couple of our friends made a comment to me about how I must just be a natural athlete because I seem to be improving in my dirt riding skills fairly rapidly (it seemed that way to them anyway ). I almost fell over, "athlete" is really and truly the last word that anyone who really knows me would ever use to describe me! Riding dirt, well it just feels right! I scare the crap out of myself all the time, but always feel like I've learned a little bit more with each scare.

I have no aspirations to be a racer, but I do aspire to ride well enough to be able to get to the top of that steep loose rocky hill out in the middle of nowhere so I can see the views I couldn't otherwise see from a car or a street bike ( and do this without killing myself! ).

As Gwen said, you give us hope, and I too thank you for that!

Except, once Ned put his pants on....he makes gold rekkids!




I'm so childish, I couldn't resist!

Being a natural athlete (I cracked up to myself when Ned uttered that phrase in the same sentence as my name a few weeks ago) helps, but it can also hinder. In kinetic activities (like skiing, and motorbike riding), technique and finesse are golden. There's a hell of a lot of energy there to be harnessed and used to your advantage -- I think athletes can sometimes be blind to that; they can get the job done without it.

That's one of the big things I took away from Ned's clinic -- let the bike do most of the work for you. Think of the throttle and brake as balancing tools, positioning the bike relative to your body (instead of pulling on the bars, for example), and you start to see what forces are there for the taking...

Well said Ned. Seems each level reached, it's inevitable there's a slide back.

When it clicks though, there's nothing finer...

I lost my drive...

Only to switch directions, hit some dangerous and major difficulties, and walked away.

I don't know if it's gone for good or just simmering...

I, perhaps oddly - perhaps naturally, equate riding with skiing. For me there are many similarities - balance, weight distribution, etc.

A favorite quote from one of the greats, Jean Claude Killy:
If you don't fall at least once a day, you're not learning.

By this he meant that if you always remain within your level of ability, and never press beyond that level of ability, you cease to learn. Now I'm not suggesting that you crash your bike on a daily (per ride) basis (I've done enough crashing of Tami's bike thank you very much), but taking it out to the edge, where you "scare the crap out of myself" - that's where you're learning what your true limits are.

I think that clinics like Ned's teach you the basics, but it's "out there", scaring the crap out of yourself, putting those basics to use, and to the test, that you're truely learning what you can do and improving as a rider. And proving to yourself that you've improved as a rider.

That was a lot of drivel from a novice.

Hannda- True, but having a coach or someone give you pointers (thanks Ned!) keeps you from just scaring yourself in the same way each time and thinking you've reached your limits. I gave Tami a few pointers about turning in loose dirt the other day, and she improved exponentially in a couple hours of riding.

BTW- It's alot like skiing.

I agree! And, as much as being scared is... well, Scary, I think that if I didn't ever push my limits I'd never have gotten out of the parking lot. Of course, just getting on a motorcycle in the first place was pushing my limits , but I've been darn glad ever since that I did!

I was very fortunate to have Duke as a teacher - he seemed to know what he was talking about most of the time anyway - but I still think that I could learn a lot from Ned, and I hope to be able to take one of his classes in the near future. In the meantime, I'll be getting "out there" and continue to scare the crap out of myself .

I appreciate your novice drivel

M

More Please!

You've gotta experiment and with that comes some risk, but where I think a lot of people go wrong is trying harder, or riding harder. It's really easy to make the same mistakes more forcefully "out there", which does NOT serve you well.

For me, the learning process is all about isolating a situation in which I struggle, then trying to recreate it in a simplistic situation, where I can learn and then commit whatever action is needed to muscle memory.

But you are a hell of a singer! I hope you are preparing for Westfest!(finishing that song)

Nice writing amigo...

T

Terry, we need to start a thread "Mommy Mommy, Look What Ned Did To Me"

atgatt?

I hit him with a broom when he put his elbows down...

I don't know why they call it a funny bone, there's nothing funny about it.

10-4 on the gear r2, it was the middle of winter, Clover jacket with hard plastic CE armour

I broke my foot at the East TN Neduro clinic!



/operator error all the way
//have better boots now