Remember how a little while ago I got all on the topic of sponsorship? And then I made you all sponsor Emma to go and play football in the name of someone you felt high esteem and affection for? And the process was complex and quite confusing and tenuously related to cycling but somehow you all got wonderfully on board and she played football and I felt super inspired by your wonderful friends, family and imaginary characters?
And life was good?
Now, I don’t want to return you to the era of heady graphs and ten dollar a pop self-pimping, but I have, after a couple of recommendations from friends who understood that I like riding and should definitely not buy any more stuff ever again*, just nominated myself to be a Giant Real Rider. Although, I am actually a weenie bit hopeless at filling in forms and found the application process a bit confusing, I have decided to do so. And if there’s voting for me to be done, then I’ll try to remember to ask you to do it. I don’t think you need to vote though, Giant seem more organised that that. And are probably aware of the power of the Filipino Mafia, who were responsible for my Black Sheep powerhouse voting all those years ago.
This may have something to do with the fact that this year, during the Tour de France, I did not enter a single Skoda competition although I was thoroughly convinced that I wanted one there for a few stages. And, back when I lived in Melbourne I was a total demon for the 25 words or less entries. I realise now that there is some kind of art to those 25 words or less things and four of those words should not be “totally”.
As per usual, I digress.
Anyway, basically I have now decided that I need a mountain bike.
I do not have a “time-bound” sense of this need. Maybe I will need it in a few weeks, maybe I will need it in a few months, maybe another two years, maybe I will fill this need by borrowing the bikes of others, maybe I will have one magically poof up out of the air and appear like a bike fairy. I recently made new friends with a Town Bike and it magically poofed up into my loungeroom, so I have to say that stranger things have happened. But effectively, I need to go mountain biking again.
The limitations of life, are quite interesting – if you do only what you have done before, eventually you grow scared of doing things differently and you forget just how limitless life can feel.
So mountain biking is new, and kind of intimidating for me and – in line with a desire to do one thing I am afraid of every three or four days (every day seemed excessive), I’m going to try and get a bit into it. Katherine and I saw three women at Daisy Hill the other day, I figure they could do with getting the numbers up. Perhaps I’ll hit the Turning Japanese trail out there next time. (ps um, dudes, what’s with the trail names out there?)
Now I don’t know why, but I’ve been loving on this video this morning from Fixed Gear Girl Taiwan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MZaajp2a_4&feature=player_embedded
I don’t speak Japanese and I’m not sure if there is a comma missing from the title of this clip, but maybe this is the first woman ever in Japan to do a backflip, or maybe it’s just the first time that this woman in Japan has done a backflip, but either way – I’m loving it.
It’s not flashy or exciting, but it captures most sweetly and humbly how great it is to ride a bike, to try something new, and to pull it off. I love the way that the camera man gets so excited he loses all focus, her friend in the green t-shirt pointing like “that’s the shizzle”, and her little burst of emotion at the end. It feels amazing to do something scary and exciting and for it to work out. Because probably, about a hundred times before it didn’t work out, and you really had to keep committing to trying again and again and again in order to get just that minute of “hells yes, I did that”.
A bit like life. And love perhaps.
*sometimes I fear that growing up is about finally paying off that holiday you took in 2003, because the memories have faded but the credit card interest is forever.
eleanor j jackson 
Dear Eleanor, Miss Helmet Hottie,
Good Luck in the Giant Real Riders competition.
I have entered too as I am doing the MTB leg of the Anaconda Adventure Race in Lorne this December and don’t have an MTB bike.
Hopefully we will both be able to proudly show off our sweet new Giant bikes out there on the trails. So glad you enjoyed your ride on the weekend. I’ve only been mountain biking once, but I certainly found it fun, scary and challenging. Did you end up with any radical bruises?
Oh dear – I cannot compete with that! I hope that you are a Real Rider Real Soon. or at the very least you get a mountain bike fairy… And I will cheer along from the far away sidelines – as long as you send me a helmet shot or three!
I’m not into competition either and I very much doubt I will win a bike and I certainly am not in the Anaconda to win. I am totally doing it for “fun” with a bunch of people I really like hanging out with and just to challenge myself to see if I can be “tough enough”, both mentally and physically to finish. It’s probably going to need way more endurance than cyclocross, but at least at the end of it (if I survive) I will be able to say that I did it!
:-) After that I can concentrate on getting out on the trails and learning to ride off road without killing myself. I promise to send you a photo, but I can already predict I am going to be looking pretty god damn awful by the end of it. At least (hopefully) it will give you a laugh.
Don’t panic, I believe that “beauty” is a pretty open category of good looking, and the best looking is often dirty and happy and flushed from a ride. I am sure you are tough enough – way to challenge yourself!
I shall await the pic with excitement!