In an attempt to tease me into speaking, they prodded and pried and asked me to speak. At this point I was feeling belligerent and getting anything out of me would have taken a herculean effort, but they prevailed and I simply said, “I prefer to listen.”

Why I said this, I cannot say but it triggered a thought process in my 7 year old brain that lead me to the realization that there is something about not speaking, but listening and learning from those around you. And mostly the fact that I am not smart enough to articulate my thoughts when asked, but would rather listen and when I have something to say I will speak.

Kahlil Gibran in his book The Prophet wrote,

And then a scholar said, Speak of Talking. And he answered, saying: You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

As a society we get excited when our children learn to speak. They begin with their babbling and move onto more articulate babbling. We applaud them when they say mama and dada, but do we ever teach them to listen or do we applaud them when they do? More importantly do we make an effort to teach them to distinguish between the time to listen and the time to speak?

Ideas are like opinions, everyone has them. Sometimes it’s best to let those ideas ferment within the cage of your mind, influenced by what you listen to before letting them out. A well hatched idea is worth a million tons of brain vomit. Let it incubate and find the right time and place for it to come to life. Don’t force it into the cage of words before it knows how to take flight.

Sometimes I wish you would all just shut up for a minute…

P. L. and R.

Everyone meet Will. Will’s the dude that you all just watched careen off the Steps on Prospector. Will’s a bad ass. This video was his make up class for Beginning Mountain Biking this past semester. When we rode this as a class he gave the same obstacle a go with similar results. Dude just keeps trying. It was also the second time he has taken this class from me.

(Un)Fortunately for him, depending on your perspective, it will be the last time he takes the class from me. The Mooseknuckler Cycling Alliance Youth Outreach program has been discontinued.

As a final raised glass to what was a good time, let me share with you what I learned as an instructor for Beginning Mountain Biking.

1. Girls do not like to stand up. Of course, they are exceptions to this rule but I have found that most of my female students would rather bounce down the trail with their butt on the saddle than stand up. I don’t get it. I tried often to teach the skill of “standing up” but some would just have nothing to do with it. Go figure.

Lesson to be gleaned – Stand up! It gives you the ability to control your center of gravity. If you are bouncing around, the bike is in control not you.

2. Boys will be boys, and boys aren’t very smart. As this class was taught to mostly teenage and early 20s kids, the boys would unsuccessfully try to impress the girls. Hilarious to watch, but out of the gate the boys would be competitive with each other to get the female’s attention. Through eight semesters, I only had one student that instead of taking off with the guys, rode with the girls. Not because he couldn’t keep up but rather that he wanted to ride with the girls. Pure genius.

Lesson to be learned – if you want to hook up with girls, don’t ride away from them.

3. College kids will do just about anything for extra credit. I learned this quickly and used it for my amusement. Extra credit was giving for cleaning sections of trail. I hand picked sections that had potential for failure. Climbing up the Acid Drops without stopping, for example. Or cleaning the entire tech section at the top of the Barrel Roll. The latter of course was so I could watch students wreck and/or Flintstone down moves.

Lesson here – not sure that there is one other than if you teach, extra credit should be used for amusement.

4. Watching college kids wreck is hilarious. One of my favorite wrecks of all times was coming back down Anasazi. The rocky section has some moves that have the potential for flight to be inflicted. I was leading the class and bombed this section so I could watch. There were about four students that were just behind me. I stopped and turned around just in time to watch a girl begin the launch over the bars. Her eyes were looking for anything that would help her and you could see the fear in her face as she went right over the bars. It’s of course funny because as college-aged kids, they bounce and get back up. Unless of course their name is PJ.

Lesson – ride with college kids and watch…

5. Flintstoning is a bad idea. You’ve all seen riders do this and many of you have probably done it too. College kids love the Flintstone. It’s their second favorite move. Second only to the “not standing up” trick. This move is done when a rider does not feel comfortable riding down something, but instead of dismounting they get in front of their saddle and try to walk down. Inevitably they catch a pedal or the bike takes off and they fall down. I’m not sure where this comes from, but it’s pretty awesome to watch.

Lesson – If you’re gonna walk, walk. If you’re gonna ride, ride. Don’t try and mix the two.

6. College kids are anything but self-reliant adults. Tell them to bring helmets, bike and water. They will show up with the bike. Send them an email with exact directions on how to get to a trailhead, they will not read it and assume they know where they are going and then take half the class with them to the wrong place. They have no idea how to use a computer or even their phone, which is surprising because they are always on it. I don’t use Apple products but based on my students emails, there is absolutely no way to attach multiple photos to one email from an iPhone or iPad. Try to explain to them that they can have their school email forwarded to their personal email. Then try to explain how to do it and watch their faces melt.

Lesson – make them learn to change a flat, if anything else they learned how to change a flat.

7. People are scared to be outside. Every semester, without exception, I had multiple students concerned about doing make up classes because they were scared to go biking alone. I had long, in-depth conversations about this with several of them and it’s just a fear of the outdoors. I didn’t even know that existed.

Lesson – this is kind of like dub step, I didn’t know it existed and now I do, but I still don’t understand it.

Anyway, I’m bummed that I will not be teaching mountain biking any more because I enjoyed doing it. I’m also stoked because I will now have two full days off work instead of one day off and one day teaching. I doubt that any one learned anything from me, but I learned a lot from trying to teach.

P. L. and R.

Yes, I know this picture is dark. I took it that way on purpose. It would have been a better silhouette but I was using a phone as a camera.

Yesterday was my day off.

And for the first time in a very long time, it was truly a day off. I spent the majority of the day around the house doing menial tasks that I never have time for. I answered a few texts and emails but otherwise left the shop to itself. Most importantly I did not ride a bike, except to run to the gas station to get me some of that there stuff that’s made of sugar and taste good to us ‘mericans.

I was tired. I passed out around 9:30 Sunday night and didn’t get out of bed till past 9 on Monday morning. I needed a day off.

In other totally breaking news that everyone is dying to know about, Sunday the Alliance held a No Dabs Contest. We expanded the course to include the Barrel Ride, Upper and Lower Zen. It was a long ride in the wind. Shelby brought his game face and score a perfect run. Impressive by anyone’s standards…

I on the other hand was, as I mentioned, tired and came in with something like 432.76 dabs per mile. It was a tough afternoon. Hell, I even dabbed on the race course on the way up to the Barrel Ride. I can’t remember the last time I did that. I blame it on Orange Seal. Apparently their sealant makes my tires not work right, or something.

Photo Evidence;

The climb up the Zen. Here I am waiting…

My shadow was here

Shelby, the wiener.

John dropping off the rocks.

Yup, good times were had by all. And all kidding aside, props to Shelby as a perfect ride on the Zen is something that doesn’t happen very often. And something that most of us have never done.

Continuing on with the news that you can only get here because were exclusive like that, I would like to share a secret trail with everyone. You probably have never heard of it, but it goes by the name of City Creek and connects with another little gem called Owen’s Loop. Those of you who have the misfortune of following me on any social media website, already know that I have been digging the shit out of this trail.

Access is found right off of the Red Hills Parkway (Turtle Road for you yocals) bike path and the area that is accessed is so damn close to town but I am still yet to see anyone else up there or run into tracks that weren’t mine. It is a dandy after-work ride and most importantly there are plenty of moves I haven’t figured out yet. The inability to ride a trail is usually the biggest reason I keep going back.

Did I mention the area is absolutely blowing up with blooming cactus and wildflowers? I didn’t, well, it is.

Mediocre photo of an amazing view of my mountain.

Them be cactus blooms.

This is known as the hydrotube and has not been cleaned yet.

I hear my mountain calling.

In other completely unrelated news, part of my day off was working on de-hoarding my gear room. This is a project I have been working on for a couple of weeks now and I am still not done. But I have eliminated an entire section of bags from my collection. The pile of backpacks spans years of my life and a few hundred dollars worth of my money, but I haven’t used them in years and would like to unload. If you are in need of a camel back, fanny pack, child’s pack, backpack, packrat, book bag or any other type of bag, hit me up. I would much rather these go to someone I know and that will use them than to some second hand store.

P. L. and R.

]]> http://mooseknuckleralliance.org/2013/04/mooseknuckler-news/feed/ 1 http://mooseknuckleralliance.org/2013/04/screaming-helps/ http://mooseknuckleralliance.org/2013/04/screaming-helps/#comments Sat, 13 Apr 2013 00:50:28 +0000 Knuckler http://mooseknuckleralliance.org/?p=2989 Continue reading →]]> I’m standing at the base of a cliff. There is a rope attached to me via harness and ATC. Said rope goes up the cliff from where I am to the person climbing above me. I’m trying not to look up for two reasons. 1. My neck hurts from looking up and 2. Mooseknuckle. Suddenly a shriek pierces the air and brings my attention up as my body reflexes to brace a fall. Fortunately the scream was all that was needed and the climber continued upward.

Billy Goat Hill is a bitch of a climb on the backside of the Zen. To get to the bottom of BGH you have to climb the Zen which is a challenge in and of itself. Once at the top of the Zen you get to descend for a few moments only to have to climb Billy Goat Fucking Hill. The approach to the hill is steep and then levels out just enough for you to think that you can get some speed for the finish. But the Goat doesn’t give up that easy. To clean this section of unexplainably stupid trail, you have to make a nearly 90 degree turn at the exact moment when your legs are maxed out from the climb. And you have to make that turn in loose, rocky conditions.

Screaming increases your chances of coming through dab-free.

One of my elementary school teachers, I don’t recall which one, tried to teach us that screaming was ok. She explained the release of pent up energy, the stress level drop and she explained it through stories that we could understand. And then she would have us scream. But not an extended “I’m screaming to scream” scream, no a short yelp of a shriek. Energy needed to start at our toes and move through our bodies up and out of our mouths. Once we were done with this exercise, we were all pretty quiet for a while. I think she was on to something.

Grunts, groans, shrieks, screams, crying, audible noises that mean nothing but tend to be our most innate form of communication. Think about making love, our most intimate reaction with other human beings and mostly we just groan and moan, and it is enough. It is pure expression. It’s instinctual. It’s just something that happens.

Through exhaustive research I have found that all you need to get an elementary school teacher to curse like a sailor, is to put said teacher on the end of a rope up a cliff. Once fear is introduced and things feel out of their control, their inner sailor will curse their way up the cliff. Try it, you will not be disappointed.  And once you belay them back down the cliff, they will have no memory of the words that streamed so effortlessly from their mouths.

Screaming helps. Any one who has experienced that moment when you either did or did not and it wasn’t a silly literary question, knows that at that point sounds exude from your body and you have no control over them. They usually are yelps or shrieks and often accompanied by curse words. But they are necessary and they always help.

The Barrel Roll Rule

This rule states that any rider that can crash whilst keeping both hands on the bars until they come to a complete stop, will have all previous dabs forgiven and start over with a clean slate.

The Singlespeed Rule

Riders who show up on singlespeed bicycles will be given -2 dabs to start the contest. We all know riding a singlespeed is harder, so we get an advantage.

The Sacrament Rule

A rider who chooses to carry the sacrament on a contest, can erase dabs by sharing said substance with the group. The caveat is that the rider erasing dabs must also take a shot, no exceptions.

Onsight Rule

Any rider who has never ridden the trail before the contest and has a perfect ride will be showered with gifts, specifically a six pack of their favorite beer.

Kathleen and I are on our way to Benja’s for some delicious food. Up to this point in the day, I’ve been going full speed. I hit the shop a little after 7 am, worked until 5 and then busted ass to get my riding gear together to be able to do a quick ride before the sun went down. When I got home from the ride, all I could think about was the hole in my stomach and filling it with some Pad Thai. But then, like that inevitable rock drop into the perfectly still pond, the day’s fatigue hit me. I almost fell asleep on the drive to the restaurant.

Have you ever been too tired to fall asleep? All you can think about is hitting the mattress with a nuclear force, but once you lay your weary head down on that sack of feathers, your mind fades out and away but you cannot sleep. Your body flickers. The pain of your muscles trying to relax keeps you moving. You are past sleep and when you wake up the next morning, you will not be refreshed, recovered or recuperated.

It’s a point that I cannot draw on a map, or describe how long the physical activity must be to get me there, but I always know when I have passed it. There is a point where the uncomfortable becomes ordinary. At first you will think this is a bad idea. And then you will keep moving right past where the “average” human being would have stopped. You begin to revel in the distress you are feeling. The fiber of your being is stressed and it fills you with bipolar sensations you thought you could do without.

A couple of weeks ago, for one reason or another, Shelby and I were in my car headed to the Gap for what most would call scrambling, but we refer to as climbing. And for some other reason, I felt the need to jawbone about the ideas rocking around in my head. You see when I ride my bike, I think a lot. Thinking causes me to think more and eventually when I feel the thought is sufficiently ripe, it has to be hatched from my head or I explode.

So I was jawboning about being comfortable. The very idea is the mission statement of our culture. Everything we have, everything we do and everything we have created is for the sole purpose of making sure that we are comfortable. Never mind the rest of the world, but me, I have to be comfortable. The concept of being comfortable is so entrenched in our collective psyche that those who choose to do things that are outside of that zone are considered crazy, weird, Type A personalities, etc. Even to the extreme that being uncomfortable is the only sin you can commit.

I’m telling you that being uncomfortable is ok. Hell, it’s something that you should seek for, even if that means swimming directly upstream  against everyone that is around you.

Being comfortable makes us weak. We can only stand temperature variations of about 3 degrees and walking more than a block leaves you breathless. Leaving that zone of comfort, that haven of inactivity, is where we grow. There is an entire spectrum of sensations outside of those we consider “good.” It is important for us hominids to experience those sensations or we become more or less soft, round impersonations of ourselves.

“It feels like burning!” – Super D.

When we ride, we should go uphill. It should be hard and it should make your legs feel like they are about to be ripped off. The day after a good ride, your legs should be described as lead and climbing stairs should bring a deep rooted burn that will make you smile because you know you earned it. And most importantly you will understand that being comfortable is ok, as long as you are tired from being uncomfortable.

An asymptote is a line or point that another line/graph approaches but will never meet. This approached line becomes its own imaginary line of demarcation that will never be crossed, never touched, but will be infinitely moved towards.

It’s no secret that I like to drink. As I was hitting the wall of reaching past that point where being tired turns into exhaustion, I realized that the feeling is similar. I’m a nightcap kind of a guy. I enjoy a shot of whiskey or a beer before bed. It helps keep the thoughts in my head from banging around all night.  I enjoy drinking because it makes me relax and I can fall asleep easily. It makes me tired. It’s a synthetic substitute for actually becoming so uncomfortable that I am completely spent. When you fall asleep from exhaustion there is a feeling of euphoria. It’s the Zen of overexertion.

Much in vane with drinking, finding that Zen and then not going past that point is a difficult line to balance. It’s easy to be on the “not enough” side of the line and it’s seldom that we go way too far with it, but to find that perfect spot where you are just euphoric and then fall asleep. That is a line of perfection that is often approached but rarely found.

My fingers feel like they have been scraped across a cheese grater. My left foot is still broken, my shoulder makes me cry when I sneeze and my legs have a deep fatigue I have learned to ignore. But I will find that point where I can collapse and pass out.

I’m looking forward to the euphoric state of comfort…

I procured a new bicycle a while back and then promptly loaned it to a friend who needed one to get him by till he could purchase his own. Well, he purchased his own and suddenly all that new bike excitement that we all get came flooding into my psyche. Said bicycle was promptly returned to me and my grin got big and my pants go small. The stoke was on.

And there is no bigger motivation to ride than getting a new bike.

For the sake of full disclosure, I had nearly forgotten about said bike. I had no anxious feelings of waiting for the bike. I just didn’t think about it. And when I did, I had nearly decided that when Joey was done with it, I would unload it for a different bike. I was thinking about getting a custom road frame from Circle A.

And then I rode the stupid thing, big mistake. For a relatively cheap carbon hardtail, this thing rails. It so stiff that it almost jumps out from under me when I stomp on the pedals. Not only that but the front end is so stiff that you just kind of point and shoot for steering. I felt like I could lean into every corner and hold the line without fear. It was scary fast. The only down side, the freehub body has about a 50 degree actuation, but that can be remedied.

So I rode over some rocks, turned left, turned right and almost fell down but didn’t.

Now I’m gonna go do something else, because I’m sick of typing.

I spent a day in Joshua Tree.

I strongly believe that we find things “beautiful” mostly because we are told to do so. I for one, prefer contrast. Green trees and lakes are awesome but they get boring when they are surrounded by constant green trees and lakes. Same goes for Joshua Trees and rocks. Super cool for a few minutes but when that is all that there is to see, well, it’s all there is to see.

Joshua Tree is a national park that looks pretty much the same as the back side of Utah Hill. There are big Joshua Trees and some rocks. I took a bunch of pictures in color but I’m pretty sure they look like they are in black and white.

If there is one thing that KB and I know how to do well, it’s to play hard. We hit the ground running. My amazing wife had her list of things to see and do, and we did them. We hiked, biked and climbed Mount Ryan. And as the sun was setting we were feeling pretty euphoric. We were hoping to get some climbing in the next day and were heading into town to get some ice, hit the local watering hole for some food and beers and then head back to watching the stars around a camp fire.

We hit that dreaded border of where cell coverage becomes available and, of course, our phones blew up. Kathleen had a few voicemail messages and dialed up to listen.

I’ve never seen someone cry for hours, convulsing out of emotional pain to the point that they are physically shaking. I quickly learned how difficult it is to watch my spouse sob in anguish and know that there was nothing I could do but hold her. And me holding her was not doing anything to console her. Here we were in the midst of the desert, my wife on her knees holding her head and sobbing on the side of the road. My look of shock and awe at her emotional outpouring probably appeared to those driving by, that I had done something horribly wrong and was now trying to make it right.

My brother-in-law Gary died.

I have little experience with death. The only person that I was close to that has passed away was my grandfather. I spent my childhood listening to him and my father banter on around the bed of a truck. He was always there. His death wasn’t sudden and it wasn’t sad to me. Maybe I just blocked that time out of my brain, but the only thing I can remember is figuring out the angle that my dad and uncle Monte needed to cut the boards to make the ramp so he could walk out of his house.

I didn’t spend much time around the house. I couldn’t stand to see him that way. I remember being asked to take photos of him a few days before he died. I’ve never been good at still lifes and that’s how I felt. He was just laying there.

Kathleen on the other hand has had too much death in her life. In the past decade her father has passed away, her boyfriend and now her brother. I have nothing that I can say that has any meaning when confronted with that juxtaposition. It’s too much contrast.

We drove the road from town to camp three times yesterday night. We never got any ice, but we did eat at the watering hole and I did have a beer. Sitting alone at the table, while KB was outside on the phone, wondering how, what and why, the only thing I could fixate on was the sign that was directly in front of me. It said, “Live in Peace.” I thought it was ironic that we always hope that people rest in peace once they are gone, but we never think to hope they can live in peace while they are here. And how few of us do.

Monday night we sat around the fire and looked at the stars. KB educated me on the names of the constellations. I never knew the names but the ones she pointed out were stars that I had always noticed and knew they were there. Now I know that the three stars in a row are called Orion’s Belt and the cluster that looks oddly like the big dipper but you can hardly see is known as the Seven Sisters. For thousands of years we have been looking at those stars. And by we, I mean the human race. Someone gave them names that I didn’t know, but I was looking at them too.

Tuesday night we sat around the fire and looked at the stars. I knew the names of the constellations but the only thing I could think about is how everything is constantly changing, except for the things that are so far away that we can’t really tell they are changing. The only constant for us homo sapiens is so far away.

And Gary was solid. Gary was Gary. He lived the lifestyle that he wanted and you pretty much knew what you were going to get, Gary. I only knew him for the past six years, but I’ve broken down in tears multiple times while trying to express what I’ve been holding back for the past 24 hours. Death is final and we move on, but the pain that is left behind is a sharp contradiction to the experiences we enjoy before the final adventure.

I’m not sure that there is any after life in the sense that religion tries to instill in us. I prefer to think that we die. And in the same vane as a 5 minute dream that lasts for hours, our final moments are our heaven. More importantly, we all live on in the communal subconscious that is the human race. We live on in memories.

RIP Gary. Trust me man if you could come back and haunt a few people, they would be stoked at the prospect. You are missed.

I should be kitting up, as it were, for my 30 minute race to work that I always win, but instead I am sitting in front of my computer with my coffee cup wishing that I was going to ride my bike to work today.

I have a pretty good excuse with the weather being what it is, but that only works if you haven’t heard me rant and rave about how much I love riding in the rain/snow.

No, I’m not riding to work today because I have been putting off some errands, namely making a visit to the bank. Apparently, when you get the paper thing you have to go visit the square computerized teller and give it the paper or the plastic thing starts to run out of money.

And running out of money is not something that is smiled upon in our current societal landscape.

So I will not be riding my bike at all today, but I did ride it to work yesterday.

And that is what I saw. It was a bit earlier than usual as things have gotten to be a bit nutsy around the shop. Apparently I’m not the only one who wants to ride their bike. And for some odd reason, no one seems to want to help us out by having gainful employment doing so. Due to the pile of things on my to do list, I rode into work just as the sun was rising and was treated to the above sunrise. It made me smile and stop long enough for a photo. It was about the only break I got all day.

I also stopped long enough to snag a photo of a shopping cart in the Smith’s parking lot, because it snagged my attention.

This is only significant because I went to school with this kid and I did that thing that has become an overused acronym when I saw it. There’s nothing like seeing an elementary school friend’s face on a shopping cart to brighten your morning. The only thing better is getting to ride to work.

Ride more. Drive less.

This is a joy that has resounded throughout the centuries that I have spent toiling in the dark recesses of bike shops.

Lately, I have had the privilege to bring on some new faces and a couple of them are more or less green. They are stoked on riding, bikes, the “lifestyle” and now get to work in a shop. It’s done my stoke level a lot of good to have these new faces around. Especially considering that most service departments in bike shops are populated with old, bearded grumpy ass holes who can fix the shit out of your bike, but really don’t want to talk to you.

It’s nice to have a little green grass to water.

One of these folks is my nephew. And in all reality he has been cleaning our toilets for a while, but recently he has taken on some stoke. The shop gave him an abandoned old GT and he has begun the never ending process of upgrading, fixing and riding the thing. It’s been fun to ride with him and introduce him to trails, tools, bikes and other things that probably shouldn’t be on his radar.

But hey, he’s riding a bike and we all know that pedaling bikes makes the world a better place. Puppies bark in joy and cats die everywhere (Editor’s note: Cats are the only animal that I actually fear. They are the devil incarnate.) and people rejoice because the sky is blue.

The other person we need to welcome to the Alliance is Joey. He is the new Service Writer at the shop. In a very strange twist of things, he once lived with Gary Rock and also went to Sacramento with me when we were 14 where we played soccer in the California Cup and lost every game. The closest we came to winning was 5-0. Go Figure. And he met a majority of the crazies his first day on the job.

I must admit, he even has the pizza delivery lady calling me Grumpy and for some reason I am yet to find a nickname for him. All in good time, all in good time.

Anyways, there are two upcoming events that everyone should put on their calendars. First, we will be riding Suicidal Tendencies tomorrow morning at 7:30. Meet at the trail head. Second, as this weekend is the Desert Rampage, the Alliance Lounge will be open for after ride confessions. Come one, come all.

P. L. and R.