STATE OF OUR TRAILS
Ride a trail enough times and it becomes a part of you, imprinted on your memory alongside all the important information and trivial junk that takes up space in your brain. These trails are so familiar, their detail so baked into us, they’re ridden on muscle memory as much as by sight. But sometimes memory and reality don’t quite tally.
Trails are constantly changing. Sometimes this is seasonal; autumn throwing leaves on the lines, winter’s endless rain filling ruts and holes with water, or summer’s dust making it harder to scrub speed. These changes require a slight recalibration, but are generally factored into the mental map we have of a trail. It’s when larger changes happen that the map, rather than being a guide, becomes a liability. Relying on the lines in your head rather than those in front of you usually leads to unexpectedly cartwheeling down the hill wondering what just happened – just ask Mathieu van der Poel about his line off the rock drop at the Olympics.
WEAR AND TEAR
This last year and a half, over the course of the pandemic, my local trails have been going through changes, with every ride requiring amendments to my mental mapping. Part of
