Celebrate Creativity in Building and Riding

Celebrate Creativity in Building and Riding

When was the last time you walked around the forest? When was the last time you walked around the forest without using a pre-existing trail?  Most people don’t step off the beaten path. Step far enough off of it, and everything looks like you’ve entered a different world. To trail builders, it’s like setting foot onto an endless blank canvas. We step out into this world and fill our lungs with possibilities and exhale imagination. Our art is a secret that is kept from the public until the final touches are placed.  Our process can be full of solitude and quiet thoughts. A ghost image of a golden dirt sculpture flickers in our mind. An analytical eye can assess the resources around them to weigh out what the project will take. Some of us measure in hours, others in empty beer cans. A plan is formed - flexible because you never know what lies beneath what the eye can see. A spear in the shape of a spade pierces through the surface of the ocean of moss and dirt. 

When it comes to trail building, most diggers stay on trail. Maintenance is such an important part of mountain biking. Every bit of this work is appreciated and worth its own recognition. There is respect in enhancing an existing trail while still keeping the general feel and style of it. These workers are similar to artists who restore masterpieces that have been worn and weathered. The idea is to treat them with respect and restore them to their former glory. 

There are many ways to create lines with a set of tools. Scratch one in, rake one in, ride one in, build one, sculpt one, then burn it in. There are riders who can create a new line without a single tool. They can look at a certain terrain and see a possibility that a thousand other people didn’t see. It’s a gift worth celebrating. Sure, they can point it out to us regular folk and we think “Oh yeah. I see it now.” It takes an artistic eye to see into the future of how this weird shaped rock or root cluster will become a mind blowing use of their talent. 

Comparing riders to each other is a knee jerk reaction of this sport. Riding has become this checklist in some ways. While there is a well-deserved sense of accomplishment in checking a move off a personal bucket list, it is too easy for the crowd to become obsessed with this. We need to remember why we are all out here. We love biking and it is an outlet from the crazy world and its pressures. Instead of putting more pressures on ourselves, we need to be celebrating the parts of this sport that are so inspiring. 

Creativity in biking and trail building can be straight up magical. Let’s celebrate the athlete who poured their blood, sweat, and tears into stepping off the beaten path in any form. Whether it's creating a trail that inspires you or adding flare to a section that wouldn’t have caught your attention previously. Let’s celebrate the artist who carved their soul into the earth. Let’s give respect to the bravery of guinea pigging the unknown. Let’s be artists and athletes.