Riding Street Trials Over the Hill

I've been piecing together a ratty little street trials bicycle lately. And, yes, I know it's a waste of time.

Unlike the bikes I to ride to work, a street trials bike is not a hyper-efficient way to get where you're going. It's a way to stretch what you can accomplish.

When I was a kid, the bicycle was everything. I raced BMX on the weekends and I rode to school most days. And I got to explore our dusty Texas town. It was freedom. My only mistake in biking back then was in wishing for a car.

Fast-forward forty years.

I still love riding. It's still freedom. (It's vastly better than driving a car.) But there's less exhilaration, fewer wheelies, fewer jumps.

Enter youtube and a Scottish guy on a bike. In all the websearches about bicycles I ran across Danny Macaskill's Long Way Home. With Danny's astounding bike accomplishments and Dave Sowerby's video production skills, I found myself mesmerized. I still find myself mesmerized. And when the adult world's worries send me looking for distraction, I watch a Danny video. And the worries disappear for seven minutes. Then I take a deep breath and jump back into my tasks and worries.

I turn 50 this week.

I have no business abusing a poor little bike or my poor heavy body. But I need to be learning, stretching, and aspiring. Sometimes, motion is the only virtue left to August.

I've been piecing together a ratty little street trials bicycle lately. And, yes, I know it's a waste of time. Yes, I know I'm overweight and undercoordinated, but I'm tired of watching a screen. And, no, I don't plan to ride on buildings and highlines and other jaw-dropping pinnacles, but I do hope to learn to control a bike well enough to climb a tall curb, to be the king of the two-pallet stack. I plan to go somewhere without having to go any further than my own backyard.

And I'm not riding this bike to save the world. I'm riding this bike to keep me off a couch, to keep me off the office chair.

How about you? What new and deliciously unwise thing are yearning to try? Whatever it is, may the reward be greater than the other stuff!