![]() ![]() The first thing Amy teaches me is correct “attack” position: hinged at the hips with knees and elbows slightly bent, my weight on the pedals with the heels dropped, and hands so light on the bar they’re almost an afterthought. Since then, I’ve been terrified of endos and ride way too far back on the bike in techy stuff. But we all develop bad habits.įor instance, about 15 years ago I went over the handlebar in a rock garden and broke my face and thumb. ![]() We start with fundamental skills like body position, braking, and cornering that might seem basic for someone who’s ridden as long as I have. Now she wins competitions and boosts the XL jump lines. She loved the confidence and control it gave her, so she took more. But her boyfriend loved it so she kept at it, and got better, even getting decent at dirt jumps. “It took me 20 minutes to get the courage to roll off a curb,” she said. A little over five years ago, her then-boyfriend brought her to the bike park. I hired Amy, who is 29, because she knows what it’s like to learn this as an adult. But I’m here on important business: a lesson from Amy Shenton, a competitive dirt jumper and skills instructor. Moms watch warily, and give equally wary side-eye to guys like me who seem to a) not have a kid present to look after and b) not have a job to go to. They roll into almost any line with that blissful ignorance of youth: zero regard for their equipment, their skills, or what lies on the other side of that takeoff. There are kids on sweet dirt jump rigs, on department store bikes, on Striders. #Dirt jump bike fullThe park is full of kids and families exploring the trails. on a summer weekday at Valmont, far past my usual sesh time. Lindsey faces down his nemesis at the Valmont bike park in Boulder, Colorado. #Dirt jump bike professionalAs I’d said to myself at many other points in my life: “Son, you need professional help.” I began to wonder: Was I, in my middle age, just too old to learn this? Was my brain too trapped in its fears, borne out of past crashes and other painful brushes with mortality? But before I gave up, I had to explore one more avenue. After months of frustrating attempts, I admitted I was stuck. My lizard brain-primitive, purely instinctual, and solely focused on survival-was the problem. Without enough speed, I’d come down short, landing the bike hard on the flattened top rather than the sloped landing on the other side. I would roll in every time, all steely-eyed focus…and promptly freak out and tap the brakes before the takeoff. (In reality, chickens probably have bigger lips than this thing.) And I still couldn’t do anything in Valmont’s dedicated dirt jump area-starting with that first tabletop on the small line with the steep, intimidating, wave-like takeoff. I could roll the smaller slopestyle courses-flowing, slightly downhill trails interspersed with jumps that have gentle takeoff ramps-and get the wheels a few millimeters off the ground. I could ride the pump track properly, without pedaling, by using my arms and legs to maneuver the bike through the whoop-de-doos and bermed corners. I started going to Valmont weekly, mostly in the early morning when no one was there to witness my level of suck. ![]() (Know a cyclist who lives to send it? Check out our Periodic Table of Cycling Gravity T-Shirt!) I’m not sure about that last part, actually, but the jumps are bitchen. #Dirt jump bike isoValmont, however, is a city-run facility with a full-time maintenance crew that doubtlessly performs its work under ISO Best Practices and Six Sigma Quality Control. Most dirt jumps are ad hoc creations on odd lots built by odd kids who enjoy shaping earth into mounds with shovels and then hucking bicycles over them. I live in Boulder, Colorado, home to Valmont Bike Park. That’s why, when one of my best friends decided to “store” his Transition PBJ dirt-jump bike at my house last summer, I saw it as an opportunity to try to fill this gap in my skill set. RELATED: You’ve Got to See This Bloodied, Tough-As-Nails Junior Racing After a Nasty Crashīut I’ve always envied the smooth steez of more skilled and daring riders as they flowed over lines and roosted off stuff I avoided. My MO on bikes has always been to keep the rubber pretty solidly attached to the earth. I even found trampolines a little freaky in my youth. I never raced BMX as a kid, never skied freestyle. In my quarter century of riding, I’ve been mostly a roadie and XC nerd. Acutely aware that a devastating injury could keep you from earning a living. Acutely aware of being self-employed and purchasing your own health insurance. The consequences of said crashing aren’t exactly the same, but it feels close enough when you’re in your mid-40s and acutely aware of gravity and your lack of mastery of it. But there’s a twist: It doesn’t crash down on you. The jump is fearsome, a steep wall of soil, frozen in a curl like a wave at Cortes Bank, motionless outside of geologic time. ![]()
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