More Jumps

Growing up, everything I knew about mountain biking came second hand. I knew I wanted to be a mountain biker, I had something that technically classified as a “mountain bike,” I had one good local bike shop, and limited family computer time to learn about this sport that I’d decided I was going to define myself by. So I’d borrow dealer catalogues from the Paradise Creek Bikes (I still have much of the 2008 Kona catalogue memorized, and can hold out at length on the differences between the Stab and Stinky series.) And I’d watch bike videos and then go ride around the neighborhood trying to emulate them.

Beyond hucking to flat off the speed bumps in the trailer park, the closest thing we had to a town trail system was a tiny collection of walked-in dirt trails behind the local Rosauers. The employees would smoke and watch from a picnic table on the loading dock out back as I’d session the two “features” I had.

The first, and scariest hit was off a buried telephone pole that served as a retaining wall. You could huck a couple feet to flat, or transfer a little to the left and snag a little bit of transition on an asphalt bank that ran from the sidewalk down to the parking lot. Don’t take it too high though, or you’ll catch the rusty railing along the sidewalk. That hit was a given whenever I rode my bike anywhere. I’d hit it in flip flops, with my towel wrapped around my waist as I headed to the pool. My lacrosse stick in my pack would bash the back of my head as I dropped it on the way to a pre-dawn practice. I once dropped my chain on the run-in and hit the top tube so hard that I had to go into the bathroom at the gym and make sure my junk wasn’t bruised. 

Then, if you were there to ride, not just in a hurry to get somewhere else, you could loop a huge right turn, skittering on scattered gravel, steal a few more pedal strokes, and hit what I fondly called “The Jump.” It was just a dirt lip really. Maybe three feet tall, with a flat landing at the same height as the top of the lip. But it was perfect for me. I’d hit it non-stop for hours. There was no consequence, no gap, so you could warm up, rolling it, until you felt good and started carrying more speed into it.

That little dirt lip gave me a lot. I distinctly remember the first time I tried to turn my bars a little while I was in the air. I remember trying to get a 360 on my BMX there, and making it about 270° before things went south. But it also gave me some bad habits. I’m pretty convinced that the fact that I really only hit that, and one other, much bigger step up for most of my youth is responsible for my fear of any hit where the takeoff is higher than the landing.

The dirt pile behind Rosauers was the sum total of “mountain biking” to me for years. Even later, once I had my driver’s license and was up on Moscow Mountain every weekend, I’d still head down and session the two hits there. In college I’d swing out of my way as I rode to class, huck off the pole, throw a little style off the step up and pedal off.

When I moved to Driggs I didn’t know anything about this town. I’d never visited, only stopped to get gas once in the past. I came into town on a Sunday, everything was closed, so I rode around town, trying to get the lay of the land. I found myself behind the skatepark, wearing flip flops, no helmet, looking down at some piles of dirt that had obviously been a jump line at some point. I dropped in and took a tentative lap, pedaled home immediately to get real shoes and helmet. In retrospect, that’s one of the most pivotal experiences in my choice to make a life here. Apparently I need jumps in my town.

Since then, the 5th Street dirt jumps have been the first and last thing I’ve ridden most seasons. My dog hates them, she’s bored by predictability, and has no desire to follow me as I ride them over and over again. Instead she camps out on a landing in the middle, barking at me to go bigger as I try not to hit her.

I can close my eyes and exactly imagine every lip, every berm, every pedal stroke. There’s only about 30 feet of elevation change after all, and just a couple hundred yards of trail in the jump line. I love those jumps. I’m still not a good dirt jumper, I still don’t have that “flow gene” that the really strong guys have, that instinct to grab speed from every undulation of the trail, to pump every lip for maximum loft. But I love those jumps. And luckily the city respects the work riders have done behind the skatepark, I watched our mayor prune bushes back from the landing of the biggest and scariest hit a few years ago.

So this spring, I talked some smart people into helping me do something stupid. At the beginning of March we took snow shovels to the jump line, clearing 3 to 4 feet of snow off the whole thing. For the next two weeks I spent hours over there, figuring out drainage, trying to help them melt and dry out. I managed to sneak a few laps one morning when they were still frozen, got my time on the bike before a medical procedure that threatened to keep me on the couch for a few weeks.

They dried out, the upper half of the line was running well. And then the world changed a little.

My biggest takeaway from post apocalyptic literature has always been that the “end of the world” is less about who you become under pressure, and more about how who you’ve always been comes out. The world didn’t really end, and I’ve been very privileged in that much of my life hasn’t really changed in the last few weeks, but still, things changed a lot. And apparently I’ve always been a kid who just wanted to session dirt jumps.

We didn’t ski inbounds the last weekend of the season. We skied a new-to-us line in GTNP, joked about snagging a few ‘ghee laps the next day, and then went and skied the pass with the dog instead. And then inbounds skiing was over, and my partner was working from home, a few emails came, and about two thirds of my normal income was canceled.

But nothing really changed for me. I work from home anyway, the nature of my work means that guarantees are rare, and contracts often just mean more people to chase when invoices come due. Social media was flooded with platitudes about how this was going to give us all the opportunity to reset and create great art and make the most of this drastic change. But I didn’t feel like making anything. So I went to 5th Street instead.

I quickly tired of just riding. I don’t have any tricks, and I’m not really on a path to having any, so after I timidly reminded myself that I’m still capable of taking both hands off the bars for a second while in the air, I was out of ideas. Instead I brought over a shovel and started touching things up, repairing lips and buffing out ruts. I built a new landing for a transfer a local rider had figured out. He came and hit it, gave me some feedback, and asked if I wanted help digging.

For the first week of “social distancing” I spent the majority of my days moving dirt at 5th Street. I melted into my shovel, feeling more calm and centered than I have in months. I didn’t draw, didn’t write. Why should I? Nobody was paying me to anymore. I woke up, checked my email, rode the two blocks to the dirt jumps, dug until I was tired and hungry, rode a little, went to sleep, repeat.

Having Nick help sped things up a bunch. He’s a hard worker, and I’d forgotten how much dirt a motivated highschooler can move. We quickly progressed beyond touching up existing features. We put in new berms, new landings, so many new lips. Nick showed up one windy weekend on his own and built a huge dirt platform in the drop in, eliminating a bunch of pedaling and speeding the whole line up. He’s got the vision and the riding skill, he sees gaps and transfers everywhere. We’ve gotten creative, packing a ridiculous number of options into a tiny area, working to maintain smaller lines for riders looking to progress. Now we’re pushing into new territory, places where the trail has never gone. We’ve got a new hip in already, tomorrow I’ll build a new bridge and a wooden drop.

That first week after things changed, I joked that I was headed off to do dirt yoga, like regular yoga, but with shovels. I was burnt out on my usual creative outlets, writing and drawing held no spark. It turns out that mindlessly moving dirt was just what I needed. A few blisters on my hands, new aches in my back and I’m back to blabbing and scribbling.

I used to theorize about what I’d do in an apocalypse scenario, who I’d become. I’d imagine stockpiling ammo or forming a commune or head into the woods to survive on my own with only a knife. Instead, it turns out that I’d build more jumps.