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Beggars Would Ride

Nowhere In Mind

Photos Mike Ferrentino
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The trail dropped away in front of me and petered out into the wash; a jumble of rocks that had dislodged from the canyon wall studding the hoof-pocked sand, the arroyo ahead a flesh tearing maze of Palo Verde, Catclaw Acacia and Creosote bush. To the left, goats had left a barely discernible bench cut along the flank of the arroyo, angling upward in the usual impossibly steep way that goats tend to travel. To the right, one human’s worth of faint wind-smudged footprints meandered among the cactus in roughly the direction I was hoping to go. I reached down for my water bottle, took a swig, maybe six ounces left. Two hours in. I turned around and began pushing my bike back up the hill I had just surfed down.

In spite of getting skunked, this felt like a victory.

For reasons that I am still trying to untangle, I have never done well with uncertainty when it comes to bike rides. I’d love to blame it all on the years I spent racing, but there’s something else going on with my wiring. Lacking a decent OBD port to conduct diagnostics, I am instead feeling my way through this process one ride at a time.

Rides always had to be defined in advance, for most of my life. There had to be a destination, and idea of route, a map or a wheel to follow. I needed to know the distance and the climbing involved in advance. Loops were fine, as were point to point routes, so long as I knew what I was in for. Not knowing was terrifying. How much water should I bring? What about food? How far? How long? What time were we starting? How many riders? What if everyone has mechanicals and we end up taking hours longer than we intended? What if it got dark? Did I have the right tools? Could I pull this off with a couple of bottles or did I need a pack? What would I put in the pack?

Taking naps? Faffing around? Sessioning? Fuck that.

The bike racer part of me wanted to go fast, and wanted to use rides as a way to learn how to get faster. But I’ve already outed myself as having never been particularly good at paying attention to the details of that way of life. So, it’s not like I was concerned about rides being sub-optimal from a training perspective. No. It was the uncertainty of not knowing exactly what I was in for that was doing my head in.

I think, at some primal level, I have a fear of getting lost. I remember being at a summer camp back when I was maybe nine years old, and we went on this hike that in my memory stands out as absolutely massive. Probably only a couple hours in reality. But, this was New Zealand, so it was in the bush. As in; thick, lush sub-tropical rainforest carpeting a hilly landscape crisscrossed by streams. Incredibly dense canopy, dark mulchy ground, ferns lining the slippery trails. The camp was in Ngaruwahia (oops. That should be spelled "Ngāruawāhia", and pronounced differently. Apologies for inadvertently embedded colonialism), about a two hour drive from where I was from in Waihi. It might as well have been on the other side of the planet for all I was concerned. At some point on the hike, as part of what I can only now assume was either an attempt at character building or a bizarre psychological experiment, our adult supervisors (who were our teachers during the regular school year) decided to hit the afterburners and ditch us, leaving three dozen nine-year olds in an unfamiliar forest. Predictably, most of us lost our shit in short order. The only kid who didn’t seem fazed about our fate was Allan Clinton, who was also far and away the fastest runner of Waihi South School. The rest of us were either crying, arguing about which trees to climb in order to get view of the landscape, arguing about which plants were edible, arguing about which way to go, or some combination of all the above.

Apparently the adults hadn’t really ditched us, because after letting us lose our collective shit for about a half hour, they doubled back, led us about a mile out of the woods, and after a few marmite sandwiches and some turns of the zip line across the pond back at camp most of us had glazed over whatever mild trauma had been inflicted.

Not me. Mister Bertelsen is on my shit list until the end of time for that jape. If it hadn’t been for Allan Clinton’s unsinkable cheerfulness my mind might have stayed in a very very dark place. Suffice to say, I am not really stoked on getting lost. Especially when I don’t have a flashlight. But I’m working on it.

Which, indirectly, leads me to an unfamiliar arroyo in an unfamiliar canyon in a sort of familiar part of Baja. This year, instead of making resolutions about race pace or weight loss or fitness goals, I decided that what I want to do is spend more time on a bike. There are no expectations of pace, or distance, or direction, or point A to point B prioritization; the only thing I am holding myself to is banking those hours in the saddle. I was not sure how this would work when I committed to it.

I turned around when the trail ran out. Thought about following those footprints, about staying lost a little longer, but the sun was muscling its way higher in the sky and I could already feel the dust in my throat. Instead I pushed my bike up a long dusty hill, stopped at the top and took my shoes off, shook the sand out, spent a while studying a cow skeleton, watched a couple vultures languidly circle an updraft, then followed my tire tracks back the way I had come.

A different version of me, sometime in the past, burdened by those other expectations, haunted by a 9 year old kid afraid of getting lost, would have called this ride a failure. I hadn’t found a new trail to somewhere. I hadn’t persevered. I hadn’t managed to push through some invisible barrier in my brain, push through that forest of thorns. I hadn’t accomplished something bold and daring.

gettinglost

Somewhere between when I was 9 and now, Marla Streb was telling me how much she enjoyed heading out for a ride and getting lost. I just could not get my head around that. At all. Like the sign says, "it's not for everyone." I'm beginning to understand now, baby step style, one coin toss turn at a time. Thanks for the inspiration, Marla.

But, by the time I rolled back into town, I had spent three hours out riding around. I had found a beauty of a ridgeline. I had figured out a sweet spot in the setup on my bike. I had watched a roadrunner blaze down the trail ahead of me. My legs were crusted with dust and felt just heavy enough to tell me that I was going to sleep really well that night.

This is new for me. Riding without destination, without purpose, without (with an odd shock of realization) some relentless negative voice in my head shit-talking everything from my line choice to my heart rate.

I kinda like this. I kinda wish I had started doing this a very long time ago. I kinda think maybe I wasn’t as lost as I thought I was back in the bush outside of Ngaruwahia. I still kinda think Mister Bertelsen was a dick for ditching us like that, but I’m also kinda finally beginning to understand a little of Allan Clinton’s happiness. Here’s to getting kinda lost.

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jt
+8 Andy Eunson Velocipedestrian Pete Roggeman Mike Ferrentino xtcphil Curveball Skooks Jeremy Hiebert

Group of us got lost near 3 decades ago, before bike camping as a term existed. Guy who volunteered navigational duties had an outdated map, some of the logging roads chosen had ceased to exist and the new ones were unknown. After 3 pokes out of the woods to the same county highway near the same county bar, we sent him and a cohort to the nearest gas station to get an updated map. While the cold drizzle fell, it dawned on the remainder of us that we were sitting outside in the damp cold in front of a warm and open bar. We adjourned to the confines and a made with appropriate cocktail consumption. Navigator was none-too-pleased to return with us inside ("You guys said you'd wait outside" resulted in laughs and ordering another round, double for him). Attention turned to the outline of a new foundation being dug out, but in particular to the tree stump in the middle of it. The stump had a gutted and staked raccoon on it, so it was definitely creepy to say the least. When asked about it, the bartender replied, "Oh yeah. We used to have a real problem with the raccoons coming round and knocking over the garbage cans, getting trash all over the lawn and into the lake. One night the fellas live trapped one and took care of em right there." "So, have you had any raccoon issues since?" "Not a one." 

We knew we were in a different place than the one we came from and only had an inkling of where the hell that was. 

Thankful for the new map, we charted our new route to get to the old growth pine stand we were looking for and headed back into the mist. We managed to get lost one more time and as the drizzle turned to actual rain decided to stop and set up camp. A string of tarps made a roof over the tents, providing a communal space, and we managed to get a fire going through sheer youthful stubbornness. Well, that and a wee bit of white gas. Flasks and cans came out and were soon emptied after navigational responsibilities were transferred and a new route planned. Life was pretty good for not really knowing our exact location and only having a moderate idea of how to get to our destination. I didn't know how often the feelings and thinkings trapped in the last sentence would reverberate through the rest of my life.

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pete@nsmb.com
+2 Curveball JT

That made me want to have that exact same adventure - this weekend.

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jt
+1 Curveball

It was a weird time. The weather was uncooperative 80% of the week we were out (grey or drizzle/rain), getting lost was de rigueur (a logging road turned to double then single track then game trail at one point), every piece of waterproof clothing gave up, and we never got to the heart of the stand of trees. We cut the trip 2 days short, but the pal who drove up with me and I stayed an extra night, and of course the next morning was blue bird and warmer. I wouldn't trade that trip's memory for anything. Somehow we managed to take what shoulda been a miserable trek and found enjoyment. 

That's all to say, "Do it!"

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syncro
+7 Mike Ferrentino tmoore Cr4w Abies Andy Eunson Jeremy Hiebert ultimatist

I think the ability to meander is innate for some and needs to be a learned skill for others. It's reflective of someone's general psyche. The idea of going without a specific plan and only having just a general idea can be daunting, but the ability to do that can definitely help reset expectations in all parts of life. I do this sometimes with trail building. I'll go out and just figure it out as I go along. Sometimes it includes a chunk of time just wandering around pondering possibilities of what could be done. If there's no rush to get a certain amount of work done then I find I tend to enjoy the experience more. Same for on a bike - no set route, no time crunch and the ability to just wander. It's very freeing to run on your own timeframe, not beholden to anything or anyone else.

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mikeferrentino
+8 jhtopilko Mike Riemer Mark tmoore Andy Eunson Curveball Jeremy Hiebert ultimatist

The irony for me is that most of the rest of my life is and has historically been one massive prolonged meander. It's like a trust fall with the cosmos. I am comfortable with no planning in almost all the other areas of my life. So I have always been a bit confused as to why I needed to put some sort of meter - be it speed, route, duration, distance - on my riding. And I think that a lot of that need was based in some sort of fear. Fear of being the slow guy, fear of being weaker than I was the week before, fear of failure, fear of getting lost...

Last year, during the experimentation with Zone 2, I began to unfocus those aspects of riding and as a result found a whole new (and unexpected) way of enjoying my time on the bike. This feels like an extension of that de-focusing. The main thing I am finding is that I am generally more excited about getting out on the bike now, when I don't have to specifically prepare for every ride - physically or mentally.

And yes, absolutely in step with how I felt about trail building.

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syncro
+4 Andy Eunson Karl Fitzpatrick xtcphil Jeremy Hiebert

Fear is often a powerful motivator, not necessarily a good one, but a powerful one. Have you ever spent any time with a counselor or therapist? I think we really tend to underestimate how social/societal expectations shape our lives and that the "fear" of failure and ridicule can keep us from discovering our true selves. A good counselor could help us figure out what's driving that fear, whether it's societal expectations or Mister Bertelsen. 

When we let go of expectations we can experience something for what it really is, not what we think it's supposed to be.

Edit: Maybe cause most other parts of your life are ambling and you love cycling so much that you see it as that one thing you can/should excel at so you put all sorts of pressure on yourself to excel at this one thing and try to make it perfect. It like the antithesis of everything else you do.

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mikesee
+6 Mark Pete Roggeman Mike Ferrentino xtcphil Curveball Spencer Nelson

The problems began, festered, and ended (well, not really...) with Marmite.

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syncro
+2 Mike Ferrentino Curveball

@ Mike and mike

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Joe_Dick
+5 Andy Eunson Pete Roggeman Mike Ferrentino Curveball Skooks

Exploring is what got me hooked on bikes in the first place. My brain is constantly figuring out how things link together. Even when I ride the local postage stamp, I’ll start out with a route in mind, but the whole ride I am adding to or changing the route in my mind as I go, methadone for exploring. It’s kind of why I ride alone most of the time.

I can’t say I have ever been lost, but I have definitely ended up places I did not expect. I always adhered to the old adage, “You are not lost until you run out of gas, you’re just exploring”

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craw
+4 Mike Ferrentino Andy Eunson Karl Fitzpatrick Pete Roggeman

Rambling is why I got a gravel bike. Riding the shore is a pretty prescribed thing and most of the rides are straight-up-straight-down and don't vary too much from that besides adding an extra half or full lap. I needed something more and the gravel bike brought that: just go out and cruise. Within the 5km radius around my house are tons of gravel and spots to explore. Sometimes I just pick a spot on Google maps I've never been and just go there to see what's there and inevitably have to explore because Google didn't show some path or ravine and off I go.

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andy-eunson
+4 Velocipedestrian Pete Roggeman Curveball Skooks

I have found a number of "secret trails" by simply walking off trail. But I was a geologist way back and field work involved nothing but wandering through the bush following a compass heading. I have a good sense of where I am relative to the terrain and where civilization is. 

There was this one time in Moab though where my wife and I ended up climbing through the wrong canyon ending up way out in the wrong spot with hardly any water. We got water from some quad riders though who gave us good directions. 

I found a magical grove of old growth above my home in Whistler by following an abandoned trail down to an existing trail. The abandoned trail only lasted about 30 seconds.  The walk through the woods was maybe 20 minutes to this grove which is just beyond an existing secret trail (that everyone knows of). 

Around here though I’m never lost because mentally I have a map in my head and know where stuff is. I’m always amazed by people who get lost in winter off the top of Whistler and end up in the Cheakamus valley and don’t realize that the river flows down to the civilized part of the valley. Now it may be dark by the time the lost people reach the valley, but still. 

I think it was the early 80s when I went ski touring with a buddy. On the way out after two nights in a remote cabin we got disoriented on the ski out and ended up way down below the trail out in the river valley. We spent an extra night out under a deadfall with a tarp and ski poles for a roof using our empty packs as short bivouac bags. Once out we had the best beer and pizza ever. 

I thrive on poking around into the unknown. I have little interest in travelling to far away places to look at buildings though. Being dropped off by a float plane or helicopter into wilderness and finding my way around? All over it like a fat kid on a cookie. See flagging tape in the woods? Let’s see where that goes. See some terrain that would be a good place for a trail? Lo and behold, there’s a trail there.

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jt
+3 Joseph Crabtree Pete Roggeman Curveball

Also, Marla is a bad ass. Talked to her a couple times on the circuit and another at a book reading she put on. Lights are on, everyone is home, and the chats they're having are astute, learned, and humorous.

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jhtopilko
+1 Mike Ferrentino

Just going is how I start and I change along the way. For all sorts of reasons. I'm a long way from any racing and the only racing I've enjoyed the last 10 years has been ultrarunning and CX. Knowing I usually can't get lost makes things easier as well.

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velocipedestrian
+1 Mike Ferrentino

You missed an 'a' and a couple of macrons in Ngāruawāhia, but yes, NZ bush is both great for getting lost - no dangerous critters, and terrible - super wrinkly landscape and death by exposure. I'm in the process of scheming some link-up rides by inspecting boundary and contour lines. Looking forward to the random camp spot and exploration.

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mikeferrentino
+2 Curveball Velocipedestrian

Mea culpa on the misspelling. I was using the "olde enzed" of the 1970s, pre enlightenment. I left the country in 1984, still more or less before te reo was being implemented in a more conscientious manner. As a result, I have had to undergo a similarly conscientious re-education every time I have visited since; the spellings and pronunciations of so many places have been updated since then. I can only imagine that the pronunciations that I learned as a child sound grating and racist to the modern kiwi ear. I will endeavour (see what I did there?) to do better.

There is no small irony that I now live in a town in Colorado called Buena Vista. I speak passable enough Spanish to know that this would be pronounced "bway-nah veestah" in most of the world, but the white folk who decided to name this town what they did have been purposefully mispronouncing it as "byew-nuh vistuh" since probably the 1880s, and take great pains to "correct" outsiders from pronouncing it "wrong." I try to counteract this effect by referring to Leadville just up the road as "Leed-Vile".

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velocipedestrian
+2 Andy Eunson Mike Ferrentino

Points for Endeavour. 

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mikeferrentino
+1 Curveball

Some people celebrate that hallmark stuff on February 14th. I celebrate it as the date that James Cook got deservedly stabbed in the neck.

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skooks
+1 Curveball

I absolutely love exploring trails/places I haven't been before. It's not a true adventure if you don't get at least partially lost. And the best part of getting lost is getting un-lost.

One of my riding buddies can't stand trails that he isn't familiar with.  He is perfectly happy to do laps on the same trails he has ridden hundreds of times. Not me.

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Curveball
+1 Velocipedestrian

Riding new to me trails is one my life's greatest enjoyments.

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Roxtar
0

While, in theory, I love the idea of seeking out and finding new awesome trails, the reality was usually far less awesome.

Most of the "lost gems" I've found were lost (actually, more like discarded) for a reason. They mostly kinda sucked.

While I do often go out sans actual ride plan, it's limited to trail systems I know and can make up the route as I go.

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Curveball
0

I vaguely recall getting somewhat "lost" on a very familiar trail system. I was hauling ass down a well-known trail and then I was lying on the ground with blood in my face and a destroyed helmet. I thought that just maybe I knew a good route back to the truck. Or maybe not. I couldn't sort it out and didn't really recognize any of the trails that I had probably ridden hundreds of times. Oh well. I followed my tire tracks back to the truck and drove home. Maybe I should have gone to a doctor instead, but that didn't occur to me.

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sbh071
+1 Curveball

I went OTB a few years ago and clearly landed on my chin (it was sore!), then called my wife to say I'd crashed but was OK. When I did exactly the same 5 more times ("Hi, think I crashed but I'm OK now") she got worried. Luckily a friend of a friend came to find me as I couldn't find my way out of the woods - this in Surrey, England, so hardly the wilderness. I still can't remember what happened for about 6 hours that day. At A&E afterwards simple questions like "what day is it?" gave me a real headache...

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Curveball
0

Ouch! That sounds much worse than my mild concussion. It's definitely not a good way to get lost.

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fartymarty
0

The great thing about Surrey riding is you're never more than a mile from a pub.

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sbh071
+1 Curveball

If you can find it... :-)

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Curveball
0

Standing there puzzling over familiar trails is not a very good experience.

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BC_Nuggets
0

Just be glad you weren't in Surrey, BC, Canada.

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