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Finding salvation and clarity on two wheels |
Words by Richard Belson
Photos by Cam McRae
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Every so often, a person has to go through some life changes and it's not always the easiest thing to deal with. I'm not just talking about the stress of choosing new disc brakes here, either. What I'm talking about is something so huge and beyond your control that you feel like someone has reached down your throat, clutched your beating heart, and ripped it right out of your chest while you're just standing there. Ok, maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but sometimes when life blows up you have no choice but go through stuff that just lays you down for the count. The key to surviving these implosions is in how you confront them. Some go to church, some to synagogue, some even light candles in the forest at night and sacrifice a canned ham. For every person in the world, there is a different way of wrestling with life's big decisions. I myself have never really been a big church goer, and have never burned a single pork product in effigy. Instead, I have my own temple - the trail. The great part about my Dirt Church is that it's completely portable and its services are scheduled whenever I head out the door with my riding gear. I have attended mass at NORBA National and Canada Cup XC races, seen the light at trials comps, and have even found salvation half-way down Lower Ladies. |
 Salvation half-way down Lower Ladies |
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Whenever I get aboard a bike, whether I'm stubbornly grunting up to the head of GMG or trying to side-hop a little higher than the previous day, it can be a wholly religious experience. If there are pedals beneath my feet, brake levers at my fingertips, and demons on my back, I am fully equipped to deal with them. With each pedal stroke, back wheel move, or stomach-churning drop, I get that much closer to resolution. Riding clears my head so that all I'm dealing with is what can I see beyond the handlebars. For those moments, the ride is all there is. And more often than not, my demons are struck down by the end of the ride. A few years back at a trials comp in Rivière du Loup, Quebec, I actually experienced one of my first key moments as a disciple of the Church of Dirt. The sections were burly, and I had just been dumped on my ass the night before after five years of what I thought was life's key relationship. My friend Eric (also a fellow dumpee) and I loaded our gear into the rental Buick in earnest, heading out at 7 a.m. in hopes of making the noon start time. |
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Arriving and registering late, we headed off to the start right away. Eric was riding Novice Mod, I was pro/expert (by Quebec standards at the time, anyway) and I was feeling a little bullet-proof to say the least. I was riding all the burly lines without hesitation and, more often than not, cleanly. I may not have cleaned everything that day but I guess the judges thought I rode cleaner than my competitors. But in the end, the results didn't matter. The most important part of that ride was that when I drove home, I had a complete understanding of why she felt the way she did and why things didn't work out. Had I just sat idle and stewed, I probably would have called her, torturing her to explain it to me one more time, making her more angry and both of us more hurt. Instead, I pulled off some of the best lines I'd ever attempted and drove home sporting a grin a mile wide. |
 Outrunning demons, high above the Dirt Church |
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Sure, the pain set in again after the adrenaline wore off, but I was able to hold onto every bit of the clarity I'd attained perched precariously on my back wheel atop a jagged seven-foot rock drop to a five-foot gap across a riverbed. If I think back now, considering the skills I had at the time, there was no way I should have been able to ride like that that day. But somehow I did. From that day on, though the break-up still hurt, I knew what I had to do to get through it. No clergy, no therapy, no medication - just me, a Heavy Tools mod trials bike, and several life-threatening situations. So, should you be out riding the Shore over the next couple of weeks and happen upon any well-used demons scattered trailside, it's probably just me trying to find clarity once again. Either that, or I'm just out for a ride. It's the same thing, really. |
