The Spirit of it All

Some of this is totally fictional and some of it is an adaptation and mixture of true events. You’ll recognize them if you were there!Saturday morning six AM. The bedside alarm is going mad. Your wife rolls over and pulls the pillow harder over her head, not that she wasn’t expecting this, and even though you haven’t really been sleeping since 3:30AM because your sub-conscious is fully aware that it’s been six days since your last ride and the butterflies in your stomach are behaving like an under 17 rugby team on tour about to walk into their first skin club, you still behave like this should not be happening to you this early on the weekend. But that feeling only lasts a couple of seconds after you’ve thrown the alarm clock across the room, hit the DSTV off the top of the TV by mistake and ripped your shoulder almost out of its socket in the process, and your conscious mind takes over from the sub-conscious but retains the ride info as if was a first class rugby pass and you were the ball recipient right in front of the try line. The boys are in the skin club!!!You drag your lazy butt out of the bed and head for the kitchen to put the kettle on so you can try drown that huge Friday night, pre-weekend  hang-over in a mug of triple strength black coffee. You obviously make three or four checks on the way to the kitchen on the ride kit that you laid out yesterday afternoon as you got home from work in preparation for Saturday’s ride – even though the kitchen is only 15 meters from the bedroom. Don’t want to leave anything behind, not that there’s a bunch of chance of that happening when you’ve packed four motocross shirts in your bag so that you have options when you kit up…..even though you know that you’ll probably ride in a t-shirt anyway.You gulp back the coffee and start another one brewing (with much grimacing from the 1^st cup) and grab your car keys so that you can hitch the trailer and load the boot. This is done in no time at all and, once the trailer is properly positioned, you go fetch the pride of your life to load up. There it is, gleaming in the pristine condition you left it in after the post-ride bike wash and polish you administered after the last ride. The filter is clean, the chain is lubed and tensioned, everything is perfect. Who cares that there are still a few clouds out and a bit of drizzle falling…it’s only water and it WILL go away. You load your baby and make sure she’s tied down properly before heading back indoors to grab that second coffee and hit the shower. As you step out the shower you look out the window to check on your bike, a bit to admire it’s beauty mounted up there on its transitional transport device and a bit to make sure she’s still there…..like someone’s really going to untie, unload and carry the bike over your Gauteng-special 10ft wall with barbed wire crown in the time it takes you to shower! You get dressed, making sure that you have chosen the correct baseball cap for the day…..the Calloway cap is for tomorrow, and head for the kitchen. You make a third cup for yourself (you are starting to feel better and heap much praise on the power of coffee having forgotten that you just took 3 extra strength Disprin and two Proheps before you stepped in the shower) and a cup for your wife, not so strong of course, to make peace for waking her up so early so that you can get a smiley good-bye kiss.You climb in the car, crank up your favourite head-grinding metal on the stereo (or what ever music it is that floats your boat before a ride) and head for the local petrol station to fuel your steed up. The fuelling can take a bit of time while your head tries to come to terms with basic mathematics this early in the morning when you’re calculating your two-stroke mix. However, you get it right nine out of ten times (this is your baby were talking about). Next stop is the designated meeting spot for this weekend’s ride. The first 10 minutes is always great, if you’re not there first! If you’re there first then its pretty boring while you wait for everyone else to arrive. The point is, when you all see each other first thing in the morning its like a bunch of kids hooking up at play school in the morning. Smiles are ear to ear and witty banter is flowing faster than the Limpopo in flood season. Hydraulic sandwiches (beers) are procured from all manner of cold storage devices for breakfast, corn syrup is consumed, bikes are off-loaded and kit is adorned. Now the U17s have seen her take her g-string off!!! With a little bit of luck your meeting spot for the week is at a place with a kitchen and you delay everything for a half hour while you wolf down a greasy breakfast over some continued meaningless banter which is washed down by coffee number four which is, in turn, chased by a beer.You, with your buddies, mount up and warm up your machines. The smiles are seriously wide now and you can see the tips of the corners of every body’s mouths just under their eyes through their goggles. And then you watch the smiles disappear as the one pulls in late and we all have to wait while he unloads and kits up…..yes, there is always one – worse, he’s also the guy that brings his fuel in a jerry can and we have to wait for him to decant some motion lotion into his bike as well. Pretty soon though, after some minor swearing and under-breath nattering, the smiles are back and we head off. Of all the rushes that you experience out on the ride, there is nothing that quite compares to the initial rush in the 1^st 30 seconds of the ride when you realise that you’re on your machine again, you’re totally in charge of the twist grip, and it’s doing everything you’ve been waiting a week for it to do. You head out into the unknown, hopefully we’ll be bashing out some new trail today – pioneering is always great fun. And if we’re riding known ground….well so what! The reason its known so well is ‘cause we like it so much. As you pull in to the next pit-stop and order your favourite in-ride tipple, you’re trying to work out to yourself what feeling was better: the feeling you have in remembering what you felt like a half hour ago sitting on your back wheel in one of the most awesome wheelies you can remember yourself having done, or the feeling you have in listening to your mates acknowledging what an awesome wheelie they saw you do. Such is the nature of the dirt biker that before you even say thanks, you are already acknowledging someone else’s ramp, wheelie, speed, etc, etc. Not too much longer and you’re all saddled, sorted and continuing.You get to some new area, the obstacles are great. How do we tackle this river? – head on man! How do we get over the railway? – up and down the stairs of the public crossing! Dig this jump, let’s hang around here for a bit! Twin track trail and you’re pinned in top gear next to your buddy. These are but a few of the things that get the U17s ready for each skin club visit.You pass another crew and one of the guys has broken down or crashed. Its unwritten but its law, you stop! Nobody told you the law, this is the nature of the game. You have never known and you will never know camaraderie such as is found in the dirt-bike circles. You offer assistance and if accepted, you give. And you know in your heart of hearts, that had the tables been turned others would have done this for you!You ride on. By now you’re totally in tune to this whole adventure. The outdoors, the bike, the known and unknown trails. You’re looking out for the lurkers: the sneaky little rocks hiding under grass on single track trail, the sudden ditch that you need to quickly pick your front wheel up for, or the mud patch that you know you’d better be in front for or way behind the guy in front of you ‘cause he is going to cover you in it! You’re also watching out for the potential play sections: where is a dry river bed that we can pin our throttles open in, or another cool jump, or challenging hill climbs or river crossings. Nobody ever argues if you change directions for one or more of these. The great thing about changing direction is getting lost. Never give a destination when you start, only a direction. Trying to find your way back to your start point off-road when you’re lost is guaranteed to open up new trail ground and force some previously untried challenges on you.Six or seven hours later, you’re back at your start point. It feels like its been no more than an hour. You can tell very quickly which dudes were not in front or too close behind at a mud crossing. You can tell which guys had some get-offs (hopefully you’ve had no serious ones…..they also happen). You can tell a lot of things about everybody’s ride. But while you’re sucking down a cold one, there is one thing you can tell about everybody. They had a gas, they are all still on such a rush!!! Each one to a man is already counting hours till next Saturday. And then they’ll start this whole fantastic cycle again.The bond of friendships, the respect for others in the game, the adrenalin of the ramp and wheelie and the rush of the ride, the love of your bike and the sport – this is the spirit of it all.Keep the shiny side up and ride it like you stole itSteve “Tombstone” Lauter