Your local trail that you have ridden more times than you can count. Yes…that trail where you know the placement of every rock, every root, every tree and every single spec of dirt is the place where you are going to have the big one.
I have been in the midst of technical riding heaven with more super chunk than you can possibly imagine, and I will have my worst wrecks on stupid parts of local trails. It is a sad truth…but it happens to all of us and we always get up (hopefully) with that WTF look on our faces trying to figure out what went wrong. So why is it that local trails are prime real estate for the worst to happen?
Why You Are Going To Wreck On Your Local Trail
The same reasons you think you will never wreck on a trail that you know like the back of your hand is the same reasons why you are going to eat dirt, so let’s take a look at why local trails are prime hot spots for catastrophic events.
You Know Every Single Part Of The Trail
And since you know every single part of the trail, you pay attention to none of it! How many times have you just been rolling along at a good clip and realize that you have not really been paying attention to where you are going? When we ride new trails, you are 100% focused on what you are doing, where you are going and how the bike is interacting with the trail. When you are riding your local hot spot, you are thinking about what you are going to have for dinner that night, wondering if you need to stop for gas on the way home or anything else BUT what you are actually doing most times. Why would you? You know this trail like the back of your hand with zero surprises!
So what happens? One rock, one slippery root, one moment of mental breakdown causes your bike to fly off in a direction you weren’t prepared for and your dreams of bacon cheeseburgers are smashed with a mouth full of dirt. As you look up at the sky on your back, you hear your riding buddies in the distance yelling, “what the hell just happened?!”…normally followed by heckling laughter…
It’s The Law Of Numbers
When you add the last point together with statistics, it is just bound to happen. If you only ride a trail twice a year, your chances of going down regularly are drastically decreased. If you ride a trail 100 times a year, falling 3 times is much more probable. Just by pure statistics, you are going to end up going down at your local hot spot without fail.
Pushing It To The Limit
When we know trails as well as we do our local ones, we have to push it past a limit to keep the flow and interest going. I don’t know about you guys, but one of the ways I bring the stoke back to local trail systems is by finding new lines and pushing what I consider normal riding on those trails. As you push yourself harder, faster and higher, you are going to end up pushing past that threshold at some point in time.
So…next time you are ripping it up at your local hot spot, remember, it is the scene of your next encounter with the dirt or a tree. Try to pay a little bit more attention to features and changes in the terrain…
Wreck picture by Jeff Gandy