By the Wayside
I’ve said it twice before, but this time I really meant it – I think. This time it wasn’t anger; no, this time it was with a heartfelt sadness that I let go of my love. Something great had uncontrollably come to an abrupt end. As my lips prepared to transfer thought to reality, there was a silence like the split-second before a brutal car crash, and I watched myself saying it via slow-motion playback from a surreal out-of-body experience. Even I was in disbelief. Could this really be the end? All the excitement, satisfaction, camaraderie, brought on by years of determination, experience, joy. All the relationships in my life, immediate family aside, abruptly halted by the disconnection of a common bond. What else do I know? What else can I do? Who am I really? My wife and I watched together as the letters I-Q-U-I-T slowly floated on a feather to the floor, then at the last split-second violently collided, shattering with enlightening impermanence. Suck it up pussy and move on.
Brett Tippie fell out of the industry for a few years but is back in a big way.
It’s been a year since my last serious injury and I’m feeling better than ever. These days I don’t even think about the ruptured discs pressing into my sciatic nerve and the pain endured from just trying to lay flat in bed. Although I endure the cold wet winters of the Pacific Northwest, I still can’t help but look forward to spring, and more importantly, summer. It’s the official beginning of the riding season for those of us above the 45th parallel and we’re anxious like hibernating bears to get out and roll around in the sun. Most of the time I can’t believe that I’ve almost decided to quit 3 times in the past 16 years of mountain biking. Debilitating-injury aside, I have no real reason to quit. Mountain biking has become my life. It’s what I do and my experiences from doing it have made me who I am. Biking has given me cherished friendships and a sense of self-confidence. Pain is but a sadistic yet very real part of the game we play, and we all know it’s not just a risk but an indefinite price we pay. We persevere with the help of each other, all interconnected through a conglomeration of metal and rubber.
“Pleasure, meet Business. Don’t worry, the Palamino deserved to die.”
Where are we going? What are we doing? Is this all a time-pass during the waiting game of life, or is there something bigger that awaits us? Throughout the course of history our predecessors have asked the same questions, founding the basis for morality, society, and religion. You and I however, have found our own version of right and wrong through our passionate commune with nature and our drive to mesh with it. On our bikes, we can do no harm. Our possibilities are limitless. Our escape boundless. Together we timelessly traverse peaks and valleys of life with the innocence of children. We visualize and conquer through feats of calculation, strength, and agility. We succeed and we progress. So how is it that we are capable of unraveling this empyreal fabric, falling meagerly to the depths of a normal reality?
5 years later, only half the riders pictured are still on a bike. Photo ~ Matt Norris
We are weathered by the elements. We are broken by our own mistakes. Financially we struggle. The winds of burden howl and there is little stoke to our inner fire. We cease to progress. We grow tired of the monotony. And yet for some of us, there is just more to life than riding a bike.
It was about year 8 in my mountain bike lifetime when the world began to change. Some of us progressed. Time-trialing the same ol’ up-and-down root-infested singletrack didn’t offer the same sense of freedom that it used to and we searched for more. As the saying goes, “the sky is the limit” and so that’s where I headed. And technology provided. Support was rapidly growing for the new “freeride” scene and my crew of about 7 guys couldn’t get enough of it. We built jumps. We built stunts. We built jumps over stunts. If it looked like it could maybe be ridden, we for damn sure tried it. We fell and we got back up. We snapped our bikes in half and bought new ones. We persevered because there was nothing in life we would rather be doing than pushing each other further and further into this false sense of reality and accomplishment. We didn’t give a shit about anything but riding our bikes on any terrain we could find. We got pretty good at it.
The author about to come up short and fall to his feet for a few ruptured discs.
Five years went by and there I was finally living minutes from the mountain bike Mecca of the entire world; British Columbia. My riding cronies followed and so began the ultimate test of men and machines as we pushed each other to the limits on the gnarliest human-altered terrain imaginable. Every weekend was spent on the attack in what seemed like an epic battle for humankind. It was heyday and without a care in the world we honed our skills, finding happiness in our time together in the great outdoors.
This guy was forced to quit due to repeated injury.
The first comrade to succumb to the struggle was DD. I can pretty much sum it all up with the events of a single day. Ten of us started at the top of the mountain in about 18” of new snow. I’ll put it this way; even I, the team leader, could not find the trail. After half an hour I was pretty convinced I was somewhat on the right course and we made our way down the sketchiest almost-trail ever. DD had just moved here and was on fire on the trail, stomping everything without even looking at it first. We got to the bottom of an epic run and I decided to take a detour to show off one of Digger’s big new moves, which I had no intentions of anyone doing anything with.
DD hitting his last big move before hanging it up.
Buddies amongst the group who didn’t know DD were concerned as he stood on top of the near 40-foot cliff and looked down to us at the landing, wearing just a half-shell skid lid and some knee pads. He methodically walked back and forth, visualizing the drop. We stood silently as he calculated the speed necessary to clear the 20-foot gap to the landing. The move was huge – twice as big as anything many of us had ever seen in real life. I steadied my camera against a tree and a second later he hit the drop, plummeting from rock to dirt in a near 3-second free fall. His bike landed hard, blowing his feet off the pedals as he clung to the handlebar and rode it out on his nut sack. Before anyone could get a word out, before his forward momentum even halted, he was turned around to try it again. DD hit the drop two more times landing both cleanly. In our eyes, he was a hero, and I was anxious to tell the tale to everyone that awaited me back home.
DD airing it on Jerry Rig.
I asked DD what the hell was wrong with him for being such a crazy man, and he subtly replied in the most southern belle of accents, “I’ean (I mean), that’s what I moved here to do, I wanna hit this big stuff with y’all.” I informed him that he had just accomplished the heartiest of tasks, and that he was probably only the third person to ever do it, and also that there was nothing bigger anywhere around. He looked at me like a dog does when it doesn’t understand, slightly tilting his head, raising his brow, looking completely and utterly confused. A week later DD came into my shop and informed me that he was leaving, moving home. I didn’t get it. He had just moved here to ride the best stuff in the world, it’s all we ever wanted, and we’re here doing it. He told me that he had some stuff to take care of back home, something vaguely mentioned about his family. I gave him a hug and he left. That was two years ago, and he hasn’t touched his bike since.
You never know when a life-changing event will strike. A year later he still sports a hockey smile and is overwhelmed by medical bills from being out of work for several months. Rider ~ Chris Curtin
I remember DD’s story as a legend in my memoirs. I mean, here is a guy who came and conquered, then disappeared. Did he get bored? Did he discover the meaning of life? I called him the day my photo of his aforementioned huge drop won week 2 of NSMB.com’s Moneyshot contest in 2008. DD is tight with his family and now rides a crotch rocket street bike. The lure of unfamiliar places quickly subsided for him once he realized it wasn’t at the top of his priority list.
Talk about depths of despair, we emerged from the woods 14 hours after this photo was taken” Riders ~ Ethan Anderson, Russ Ranney, Matt Norris, Adam Miller
Most of the rest of my crew dispersed from our original stomping grounds at the same time. And now they’re all back, ready to “grow up” just like DD. Some moved back for family. Some have started new families. Some got injured and need the security of home or are in search of financial stability. Some never left and sadly quit riding because they just couldn’t find the right group to fit into. I am ashamed to say that I’ve been responsible for two soul-crushing experiences that apparently sucked so bad for the guys involved that they quit riding just to not have to endure another of my adventures. For some reason or other, these people now share an opposing common bond: they don’t mountain bike anymore. Maybe they will again someday, who knows. Most have lost motivation due to a lack of interesting terrain now that they’ve witnessed the epitome of what can be done when a community is bursting at the seams of awesomeness. Whatever the case, progression has subsided, and as humans we must find a way to stay intrigued by our paths or else we find new ones.
Spreading on a thick layer of camaraderie.
If I haven’t yet gotten my point across, let me tell you that the guys I’m referencing in this story were all professional-level athletes. They fly under the radar and you’ve never heard of them because they were just doing it for the hell of it. None of us cared about any type of future benefit or publicity other than just riding. We were just riding, a lot. We, as people that would never know each other in the absence of riding, got to be great friends. Rides that took us to the depths of despair, literally, and showed each other our true colors and what we’re made of formed a bond of brotherhood, now broken by disassociation.
This sport dishes up some uncertainty. Photo ~ Lyndsey Needham
It’s not that I dislike anyone for not riding, that’s just silly. I simply don’t have time to do anything else, so if we’re not riding together then we don’t know each other. I went a different direction and have so deeply entrenched myself in this industry that I don’t ever want out. There’s something about working as a bike mechanic for 10 years that solidifies one’s position in life and blurs the line between business and pleasure. The integration of work and hobby brings about an acute sense of what is important to a person. What do I do for a living? There are lots of underlying specifics, but if you’re actually asking me what I do that keeps me feeling alive, that puts food on my table, clothes on my back, provides recreation, contentment with self, and overall well-being; I bike.
Down, but not out. Pain is all part of the game. Rider ~ Javi Vega.
We’re out there, more days than we’re not, living the dream, one measly bread crumb at a time. The mountain bike industry is a small world after all. I keep seeing the same faces over and over again. Some disappear, some new ones come along, but many I recognize that share my passion for the sport. We’ve all had our down times but generally things are looking up for all of us in the future of mountain biking. There are always decisions to be made, paths to follow, and general uncertainty. Even with my titanium-reinforced wrist and Kevlar-impregnated knee, I still feel the overwhelming desire to ride my bike in the woods all day, every day if I could.
The author dazed and confused after his 5th concussion. Photo ~ Kyle Young
Last year with my back injury I feel like I hit my peak. I hope to stay at the level I’m at for awhile, but I don’t see myself learning to dirt jump with the next generation of kids out there that are now doing double back flips and native-american airs. I too have a need for progression and to do this I need another path to follow. Maybe this year I’ll try a race, or maybe learn to do a no-hander, or maybe I’ll do a 100-mile ride from my house, or maybe I’ll spend more time with my camera. Regardless of your pursuit, learn something new and let your creative paths converge so you don’t get burned out.
Some of the great ones just get bored. Rider ~ Javi Vega.
There are several underlying truths that relate to our story today. You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone. The grass is always greener on the other side. Live for today for tomorrow may never come. The list goes on and on. What I’d really like to say is appreciate what you have, wherever you’re at, because as you stray you’ll find new possibilities to make the same old thing seem amazing in ways you never thought possible. As you grow older, memories from today will serve as your meaning for life. Treasure your friendships while they last, and may this new riding season bring you much happiness, accomplishment, and fond memories.
Brad Walton
Ever thought about quitting riding? Have many of your friends hung up their bikes? Do you think you’ll quit before they strap you to a wheelchair? Hook us up with your story here…
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