Guest Editorial

Split Personalities

By JD Cruise

   There is most certainly no definitive answer to the question of attraction that lures some into the spider-web of mountain bike riding.  I can say this with the utmost level of confidence simply because I find myself becoming endlessly more entangled in this proverbial web with the slow passing of hours that combine seamlessly into what we identify collectively as the “off season.”  The problem isn’t so much the time spent out of the saddle for me as it is the fact that I predicted the time would come where no longer would the slow passive, or trick oriented riding styles of my locale and neighboring habitat suffice in terms of keeping me satisfied (or perhaps occupied is a better term) with feeling guilt for using my Mountain Bike in ways it wasn’t intended.

    “Commute or trick,” they say around these parts to signify the two primary choices of a semi-urban community with an abundance of huck worthy obstacles and pavement rich flats.  It appears aside from a relative lack of exposed soil, this area offers very little in the ways of elevation changes.  It comes as no surprise, really, that a majority of the bikes encountered on a given day are sporting either skinny, road worthy tires or the squatty stance of a brightly painted BMX rig. Mountain Bikes are generally elusive beasts among the bicycle hierarchy in New Jersey, slightly out of place to both the serious commuters and the serious “trick daddy’s” lurking about the back lots, parks, and makeshift street-side ramps.

    I’ve been happily defying this trend for some time, successfully campaigning a dual suspension trail bike along the tarmac jungle, aware of the stares the enigmatic brushed aluminum frame and gleaming disk brakes generated among the passers-by.  My steed an animal not native to these parts, with components laced in contradiction and confusion: Suspension overkill for meager curbs and manhole covers, brakes that make the stoppie a regular affair, and wide knobby tires that rather than claw for traction, end up vibrating on the glass-like surface of black pavement all around.

    And yet still, the steed is somehow at home here, a beast thriving on adaptation rather then relying on its native roots.  It guides me through tight spots of industrial congestion without a stutter and across snowplow rippled back-roads without an ounce of discomfort transmitted up to the bars.  It slices in and out of backed up traffic like a hot knife through butter then pops up over the curb once the roadways begin to come alive again.  I manage to transgress alleys with feline finesse then cross the dewy grass of the baseball diamond outfield without leaving so much as a footprint.  Despite the stares and the looks of curiosity, the city becomes my playground, the union of man and machine, each designed for a life spent elsewhere yet oddly comfortable here.

    Weekends and vacation days are well budgeted in accordance with the weather as the other half of my bike’s split personality is allowed to unleash its bottled desire.  You see, it’s less than an hour’s drive out to the country; the rolling green pastures and twisty fire-roads, the smooth rolling hills and the dusty cliff faces of freedom.  It turns out my bike requires absolutely nothing in terms of modification to feel right at home railing around a tight rutted corner or splashing across a rambling brook.  Road bike commuters are few and far between in these parts as are BMX free stylists and suddenly my Marin is no longer alone.  The trail heads and water crossings are alive with fellow Mountain Bikes, my solitary companion thrust back into the herd of its kin.  We move as a pack, devouring the terrain before us like carnivores after months of fasting.  The memories of the ride begin to form as they happen, a rare glimpse into the future where the present will become replayed time and time again.  Like all great things, the ride comes to an end and the bikes are hauled back into the twinkling landscape of the city at dusk.  Until the next return to the wild, the bike, like myself, will be content with falling into the rhythm of the city’s heart beat.  The stares will begin again in commutes but the secret that sustains us will burn clear in our minds.