Dirt Jumping

Is awesome.  Kissing lips and caressing trannies on sweet sculpted dirt mounds is almost as sexual as it sounds.  It's an experience, like flying, but with an intimate connection to the air that planes don't allow.  First, there's anticipation.  What's my line going to look like?   Is there a cross-wind?  Will I make it this time? What will I do if I mess up?  Then... beauty.  Speed is gotten, berms are pumped, rollers scrubbed, drops floated down.  The first lip arrives:  WHOOSH!  Heaven has never been so close, the skies swallow both bike and soul, time drips through your mind like molasses, and you are in no way no how in control of where you will land, just trust your instincts and hang, suspended, floating, as gravity robs all your upward momentum and you fall, adjust, align, and spot your landing to gently transition that great potential energy into terrific speed, as clocks run faster wheels spin tires buzz down flat up push into the lip and WOOHOO! you cry as once again, you are thrust into the air into hangtime... and so on.
More after the break...

Support the whip

Psychologically, jumping is both torture and nirvana.  Fear is a cruel master.  It teases, it pleases.  One bad experience can scare even the smoothest jumper away from dropping in, as terror takes hold.  Once away from the jumps, your mental image of the jumps haunts and taunts you, saying "What, too scared of me?  Pussy."  You want it.  Bad.  So, you return and get pumped up with your friends, trash-talking each other to gain confidence and forget the fear you feel in your sweaty fists.  You can do it, you say to yourself.  Don't overthink it, just commit.  Don't touch the brakes don't stiffen up relax calm don't overthink it OH SHIT that's scary brakes Brakes BRAKES. fuck...

Photo Credit: Gordo (Vital MTB)

You'll do it.  Eventually, you will.  You have to.  And when you drop in and hold on for the ride, allowing thoughts to slip away and hang out with your fear in the emotional waiting room, it will be incredible.  Speed, flow, tricks, big boosts:  These are yours to command.  Because progression, just like evolution of a species, is a natural process.  Progression is what keeps you coming back.  Learning tricks, hitting bigger jumps, they're all part of the addiction.  It's a high that can last for days.  So, support your local dirt jumps by picking up a shovel.  You'll know when you see it:  it's the place with all the sweaty bikers wearing giant grins taking turns at playing chicken with gravity. Most of all: Get Stoked, Not Dead.

Photo Credit: David Waugh