Before: more suspension travel, more peace
I am a lateral entrant. I started mountain biking at the end of the eighties - because it was new, because it was cool, because it was the zeitgeist. There was a simple rule back then: The thicker the tyre, the better. And the more suspension travel, the more comfortable.
First came the wide tyres. Then the suspension forks. Later, full suspension. And at some point the freeride movement, whose philosophy was something like this: more suspension travel is always the solution.
You could say that we have systematically disempowered the underground.
Stones, roots, edges - everything was swallowed up by air chambers and shock absorbers. The trail was no longer an opponent, but a backdrop.
So far, so convenient.
Then came the gravel bike
I recently took up gravel biking. Again for the usual reasons: new, cool, zeitgeist.
And suddenly it was there again, this long-forgotten experience: direct contact with the ground.
Full suspension gone. No more fat tyres. Comfort gone.
Instead, I felt the ground in my body as if I were rumbling over cobblestones on a soapbox. The blows travelled through me like a salsa wave: first hands, then arms, then spine.
Sometimes the teeth chattered.
Sometimes the head nodded.
Sometimes the whole body vibrated.
Sometimes all at the same time.
The chin hooks of the forest floor
The worst are the surprises.
You're still just rolling along a soft forest path, the handlebars purring in your hands like our cat Paulina on my lap.
Then suddenly: Bam!
A blow to the front wheel.
A blow to the arms.
A message to the spine.
The floor distributes chin hooks.
Often it is a hidden gully in the forest track. Or a caterpillar track from the horror of the forest, the harvester. Sometimes a concrete edge that really has no place there.
The procedure is always the same:
Blow. Shock. Pain.
And immediately afterwards: Trouble.
Fucking floor. Fucking bike. Fucking lack of attention!
The beauty of the underground
And yet something strange happens.
You begin to perceive the ground again.
It suddenly becomes a landscape of textures. Sand. Gravel. crumbly tarmac. Pavement that curves like yeast dough. Grass, roots, bricks, concrete slabs.
The handlebars twitch in your hands.
Or it vibrates like an electric toothbrush.
And sometimes the bike suddenly rolls smoothly and quietly, as if someone had re-tarred the world.
The last time I had this intense feeling was in the nineties - while rollerblading. Even then, there was this mixture of happiness and terror.
A perfect strip of tarmac felt like flying.
A pavement edge like a punch.
A little suffering is part of it
Perhaps that is the real truth of gravel biking.
It brings us back down to earth.
Not as a decorative background, but as a fellow player. Sometimes even as an opponent.
The price for this direct experience is blows, moments of shock and occasional outbursts of anger.
But maybe that's not such a bad thing. You have to suffer a little for beauty and elegance.
Of course, I say that in a relaxed manner.
Until the next pothole.
Then I bared my teeth again.
Grrrrr.
Dimitri Lehner
Editor
