There are times when you and the mountain bike simply don’t get along at all. When every time you stand up to pedal, your rear wheel spins out. When every uphill switchback is too tight and steep and you stall out right at the apex. When every downhill switchback has you sliding out off the trail or into an endo.
And then there are the other times.
You’re going fast, downhill. A series of rocky ledges that have practically broken you in half on other days present no problem at all. Why haven’t you seen this perfect line before? A dip into a loose, off-camber ravine usually means coming to a near stop. Today it means nothing. The laws of physics are for other people.
Over a bulging cluster of rocks. Usually your teeth rattle and you listen for the sound of a pinch flat. Today you float over it like it’s pavement. You hit the ravine and flip from slide to slide as you rocket down. The consequences of sliding out — scrapes and blood and bruises at the very least — don’t play across the back of your mind. And it’s not like you’ve just successfully turned off the projector either. It’s like there was never a projector there in the first place.
Just past the first switchback — which you ride high on the berm, bringing plenty of speed into the straight — there’s a little launch. Usually you feel just the slightest moment of lift-off. Today it feels like seconds. You land, pedaling. No correction necessary. This is exactly where you want to be.
There’s a tree just to the left of the trail, just slightly before the trail itself angles left. On another day, you’d give it wide berth — at least a couple inches. Today you practically graze the tree as you go by. You’re not tempting fate; this is simply the right line. The way the trail is supposed to take you.
Another switchback. It’s loose, dusty. Without thinking about why it works, you countersteer as your back wheel slides around and then hooks up exactly where it should. Sure, you shouldn’t skid when you’re mountain biking. But sometimes it just happens.
And only rarely does it feel so perfect.
There are short uphills, but they mean nothing, because whatever momentum doesn’t come from the downhill prior is easily supplied by standing up and pedaling hard for fifteen seconds.
The burn feels good.
When you get to the bottom you laugh. A little shaky, a little stunned at the perfection you just experienced.
A good day on a good trail feels like you know how to fly.