When do you say no?

If you have been riding for more than one month in a reasonably populated area, chances are you have met other riders, and chances are a better rider was present. If what I said before is true, you have most also likely thought “I wish I could do that”.

This has happened to me; I started riding, and soon endured the wet and miserable 12 miles cycle to my nearest skate-park, which upon arriving I almost mistook for a month old pot of Scottish broth. I peered round the corner only to see a worn down collection of wood loosely head together by some hair pins. Even though I had endured 12 miles of hell with a 20lbs bag on my back (not a shop insight for food, so lunch and 4 litres of water for the day plus our tools) I was still dazed by this sight.

I sat down for ten minutes or so and rested myself, took a large mouthful of water and set off. I grabbed my bike and parked myself on top of the flat-bank. Whilst waiting for an opportunity to throw myself down the steep embankment and hurdle up the jump-box not far away from the bottom, I watched on in bewilderment at the other riders. Playing about on the mini-ramp like they themselves where made of rubber, and the word pain made no sense to them what-so-ever. Their confidence did them well however, for seven-twenty tire-taps to fackie where landed, and people did make their bikes go above them in an inverted table. I looked back at my line and it was free, I launched myself down the bank, pedalling hard the whole time twisting in some contortioned manor when I left the quarter pipe at the beginning of the jump box. After these steps where complete the most predictable of things happened, I fell. Landing on my back a very short time after setting off on what I thought would be a great moment of my life all I can remember thinking is “How, how did that happen and why can’t I be like the others.

The answer is very simple and nearly every person on this earth could answer my thoughts, I was out of league, jumping into deep water not knowing how to swim. Sure I had jumped down a few stairs before, me and my friend also erected a few “jumps” but they did so little for me in the way of experience I might as well have been counting the number of stones on the ground. I was beat.

I didn’t do much for the rest of the day, kept myself to myself and learnt what to do when going from horizontal to vertical. It started to come to me a little more with each gentle flow up and down the 9ft quarter. I eventually got a little confidence back up and took myself to the top of the flat-bank for one more try. I got my line and pushed on, this time I soaked a little transition with my knee’s and let them pop at the lip, setting myself into a beautiful path to the other side. Excellent, mission successful.

That was my first visit to a park and the first time I had been exposed to someone who could tell me what a bike was made of and why it was better than other material. It was the first time I had seen someone hop about on their back wheel before gracefully re-entering a mini pipe. It was as far as I am concerned a perfect first go.

Around two weeks later I returned to the skate-park. The same people as last time where there, and a small nod was received from each of them as I got on my bike. A little cruise round the place to make sure I hadn’t forgotten how to do anything and I was right back where I started, the top of the flat bank. I went down it and succeeded, and again, only a little harder and so forth. An hour or so later and I was doing pretty well, had a good bit of height plus some control. I felt I had accomplished something. After this I cycled over to the mini-ramp to say hello to few of the others.

After a brief conversation he had me convinced to try the spine. He had my confidence shooting through the roof with smart little comments such as “it’s easy dude, everyone can do it”. Obviously it still took me a while to try, but when I finally got my whit about me I leapt onto my bike and scrambled down the ¼. When I hit the spine I hadn’t a clue what I was doing, the person which had been egging me on to do it had failed to explain the difference between the jump box and it and so of course gravity won. In fact not only did gravity win it completely beat me to hell and back, acting as if it where no different from the jump box I landed level on other side, my bike shot out in front of me. After this a little bit of human instinct kicked in and a put my arms out behind me to break my fall, I landed on wrist, fracturing my lower arm.

The whole point of this article is to ask a question: When is the right time to say no? I learnt my lesson then and try to be more cautious when learning new tricks. The problem is everyone wants to progress, the sport can become monotones otherwise, especially with entry level riders with a limited trick bag. With people aspiring to be better, do others really need to try and convince to do bigger and better things? Of course a little encouragement can help anyone along the way, but where do you draw the line on what you can do, might be able to do and what is simply out of your league?

~ Stephen (ectolo) McCartney

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