Frost covered the hills. I had a day off, and I was reluctant to leave my bundle of rags aka bed, but there was that nagging at the back of my head. I had been sick for a long time, and my bike again stood neglected in my doorway. And I thought to myself, okay, you have to ride... go out, and train, it will do you good, or it will do you no good, but you should ride no less, because life sucks anyway. Why not do something that does not suck? Then my mind went going wild with ambitious plans, doing a singletrail epic and stuff, and then closing down like "it´s too late already, pour yourself another tea and read a book, it makes no sense at all, stay inside, why bother". Maybe you know this line of argumentation. There is a crucial message in it, and I told my brain "f*** off. So no singletrail epic, but we are not in that training condition in the first, so what? So f***** what?. And before I knew it, I had made a flask of tea and packed a blanket and some food, put on some warm clothes and was off pedaling to the hills. And I was taking it real slow, feeling every week of the flu in my lungs... but the air was crisp and cold and it was like a white wine for me. I had to stop frequently, and took a small rest near a little creek, relishing in frost-flowers blossom.
It is funny, but in winter the creek sings a different song, clearer and like little bells of crystal. Silence covered the woods, and I bathed in solitude.
It was a bit as if these ice-crystal thorns kept out the feeble and meek... the few people I met were approximately decent... ;-)
It is no longer my favourite season, winter, that is, but there is no denying the fact that its alien beauty touches something inside my heart of hearts...
Few singletrails, just some plain and ordinary fireroad cruising was what I did. Now you see a lot of radical stuff going on on youtube and facebook and instagram, and you might get the impression that most riders are from a different star altogether. And you meet them in the woods, with the latest enduro bike and helmet and dressed in the latest fashion, no matter how absurd it is to take a 300€ pyjama-style shirt into the woods, with a go-pro on their helmet looking like some alien snorkel protuding from their head. They have no time for greetings, and whizz by with a stern and business-like look on their face. They have no time to listen to a creek or watch a pair of raven fly. They need to best the next guy´s STRAVA time, and they do not have time for stuff like "skids are for kids". In a real race they would not gain a flower pot, but they feel like worldcup racers... and that technical singletrail takes too long, because the lines are blocked? Just remove the rocks from the line. Sanitize the woods!
So some of the technical trails, which, to be honest, have deteriorated much by the weather and have become more difficult to ride, are sanitized in a such a way that they are little better than fireroads.
If I, personally, have my doubts about whether it´s a good day for that off-camber, do-or-die trail, I have a simple solution.
Stick to the fireroads. Do not move rocks or "invent" new shortcuts that make you seem faster-on paper or instagram. It´s the woods, and they are in a balance. Instead, go to the forest bureau and offer your help in trailcare. That´s an altogether different matter. So, rant over and out. I am a chickenshit, and I know. I don´t jump on that radical bandwagon. And I don´t want to better than anyone. I want to be better than I was last season. That´s a difference.
That all said and done, I really enjoyed my bike. No, really, I did. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to have it. I have ridden it hard for a good year now... and it comes begging for more. It takes me places, and even if it´s just some fireroad cruising, it is a vehicle for my soul. It´s not that easy to explain, but riding is some kind of meditation for me.
The sun came out of the freezing mists, gilding the hills with warming colours...
And while ice covered the puddles and ponds, riding was still easy and well enough.
To the hills of my childhood and youth I came and relished in the rays of the cold winter sun and the reminiscence that radiated from every tree and every brush and every rock and root.
Often I have sat upon that hilltop, alone and with friends. Often we had a beer after an epic ride and some cool outings, and we laughed, and we talked, and sometimes we just waited in silence until the stars came out. This time is irreversibly over now, some friends are dead, and most friends don´t care anymore... but the hills are there, as are the memories, and they are fond, and I am grateful to have them. And even if I now sit there alone, I also love that solitude.
On I rode, and chance is, you know that place all too well, and chance is, you cannot bear it anymore, but it´s a place that matters a lot to me.
And on the crags, beside the technical trail, I sat down...
To have a cuppa tea, snug as a bug in my blanket.
Despite the cold weather, there were a lot of bluetits flying about the birchwood grove.
And I took some deep breaths, and half-closed my eyes, and let my mind drift here and there.
Then something weird happened. I had drunk my tea, and mounted my bike, donned my gear and helmet, and, standing at the trailhead, I noticed something awkward: Fear. Don´t take me wrong, noone takes a trail like this lightly. And a certain amount of respect will save your life. But what happened was that this fear was of a different quality. It was sort of numbing, and it washed over me for no obvious reason. It was something dark and sublime. Now I have faced a lot of adversaries recently, and a lot of really unpleasant experiences over the years, and yup, I am no stranger to being depressed, as you might have noticed... ;-).
But then I have ridden down this trail for some 25 years now. I shredded down it, raced it with my buddies, I rode it in deep snow, in frost and blazing summer heat. And I politely asked this numbing fear to bugger off, and kicked my arse and dropped in. The fuckers that want to bring me down don´t know what it is that drives me... they cannot know me. And they would laugh their arse off if I would let some numbing fear spoil my trailriding. Not with uncle Fimbulmyrk... ;-)
This was a triumphant feeling. For the fun and the skill simply blasted that fear into oblivion.
I will remember this experience, I will cherish it, and keep it in my heart for further use.
Then I came down to the lake I grew up... and passed by the old house, where my childhood took place. It was an odd childhood, wild and adventurous and full of grave dangers and experiences. I come from an altogether different world, a worlsd where a word was a word, work was work and fun and games were fun and games, a knife was a valuable tool as well as axe and spade and shovel and gun. It was a youth of hard work and pride into being capable to do this hard work; of homegrown fruit and greens and good food and dirt and playing in the mud and building treehouses and even forts, some of which still stand to date. This house, however, will soon be gone forever. The corporation, BTW a branch of Vattenfall corporation currently ruining Swedish national resorts for to provide Germany with even more energy to put to waste, drove us out for reasons of accounting depreciation, then let it rot for twelve years. Now it will be ripe for the bulldozer, finally, and they will have their gain. But I know something they will never know. I own something they will never be able to take from me.
It is all those moments, all these times. And maybe I do not have direct access to them all anymore. But they are a part of my character, my personality. They make me blast my numbing fears away, and they will always give me strength.
Most people these days are literally weak of body and character. At this place I learned a lot that gave me strength, and I always wanted to share. But they did not want it and haunted my days and nights instead with mobbing and bashing and shaming. I did not strike back, for you do not strike at the invalid or the weak.
But I also learned to be hunter and a warrior as well as a farmer there, if this pathetical speaking be allowed for once. I just cannot find any other words.
So, farewell, my real and only home. They will destroy you, and the place will be void and empty. But they cannot take this, my true home, from my heart.
And, by taking the actual house from this place, they will just succeed to make my strength and my wildness even more unfathomable and indomitable.
