Shifting Gears

Shifting Gears
8/25/08

Without fail, when I go out to ride my bike, it is to go fast, get that heart rate up and feel the euphoric state that only hard riding can give me. It is an irresistible obsession that I’m always chasing. So when my girlfriend and I made plans to take my 8-year-old daughter out to the trail on a perfect late-August Saturday, I knew at least for one day I wouldn’t be getting my “fix”. I can deal with it though because I have learned how to shift gears. For this ride, it isn’t about me or my heart rate or my “buzz”. It’s about transferring a little of that exuberant joy I have come to know to someone I cherish. It’s slowing down and remembering why I love this experience in the first place.
So after helping her through the traumatic experience of detaching from the computer and the virtual world of the Sims, we make the hour-long drive to a great pair of trails nearby. Once there, it’s me that’s slowing everyone down. I have all of these “special” things to get ready – the socks, the shoes, the camelback, gloves and glasses. For her it’s just a matter of getting on the bike and taking off. “Daddy, let’s go! Where does the trail start? Over here? Which way do we go?”
And then we’re riding. She wants to lead and I tell her to “Be careful!” and “Look ahead!”. I will only tell her these things 25 more times the rest of the day. Soon, she’s talking a mile a minute. She’s excited and she can’t hold it in. She’s overflowing. Her words are tripping over each other when they can’t keep up with her thoughts. “Daddy, I zoomed right over those logs!” “Daddy, this is like a rollercoaster.” My favorite was, “Daddy, that one shocked my heart!” I explain to her that heart-shocking is a lot of the fun of mountain biking. My girlfriend and I exchange a knowing look. Yep, the little one is really digging this trail.
Eventually I take the lead, so I can prepare her for some of the difficult sections. I demonstrate the art of crashing by pirouetting off a wooden bridge skinny and landing back-first in a swamp. I get a few heart-shocks of my own when she decides she wants to hit the skinnies a foot or so off the ground. But she rides it out and eventually I remember to breathe. Sometimes she reminds me “Daddy, you forgot to cheer me on back there!” Now and then I tell her to wait while I ride ahead and ditch my bike on the side of the trail, run back and help her through a fun section. Steep little banked rollers, high-up skinnies and teeter-totters all get cleared, with or without help. At one point, I get off the bike to help her through a small rock garden that goes right into a short steep climb. As she nears me she says “A deer!”. A doe, not more than 10 or 12 feet away bounds down the hill and we see that her two fawns were watching and waiting for her. I have seen this kind of thing plenty of times, but my daughter is spellbound and we stand there for a few minutes. She’s watching the deer and I’m watching her, transfixed. “Dad! That was my first deer on the trail!”
That day, we ride two mountain bike trails, each with beginner and intermediate sections, and two miles of a paved trail to connect them together. 14 miles altogether. And I couldn’t be happier. This is better than my best time or my longest ride. I’ll have plenty of other days to go fast and chase my heart rate. At the end of this day, success isn’t measured in minutes and seconds. It isn’t measured in pain and sweat. It is counted in excited screams of joy and in breathless smiles when she makes it up a tough hill or through a sketchy tight section. I can hardly wait for the next time.