I’ve been catching a little bit of flack from my friends lately, wondering why I’m still skiing and not on my bike yet. The truth is that right now, riding a bike doesn’t seem that interesting to me. I’ve been trying to figure out why getting up at 3am to ski dirty sticky snow is somehow more appealing than riding a bike in the sunshine, and I think I’ve got it figured out. It’s all about The Line.
Hopefully some of you took the time to read and watch Brittany’s recent post about Reinhold Messner. In the video, Reinhold talks about seeing a line on a mountain, and then being able to make it a reality. What only exists in his imagination will be made into reality once he climbs the route. This works in the same way for skiing, whether it’s a gnarly route with rappels from one snow patch connecting to another or a big mellow bowl. A skier can look back and admire the tracks they’ve laid- big turns, little turns, a slash on a wind lip, a slarve turn on a spine- a skier’s tracks are their personal signature, their artwork.
Compare that to mountain biking, where the goal is simply to follow the trail. To be sure, there are always slight variations between riders’ lines on singletrack, but we’re talking about a difference of inches. The only person who invents a trail in their head and then makes it a reality is the trailbuilder- every subsequent rider is simply following someone else’s dream. Not only that, but most trails aren’t the result of just one person’s vision, but are more likely the result of a few people building a trail within the confines of land managers and all the other hoops one must go through to make a trail. In fact, most trails were probably just a deer or cow trail at one time, all us bikers are just following some dumb cow’s vision.
Anyway, I’ll probably love the bike again in a couple of weeks. Thanks to The Line, though, I’ll always prefer skiing. Maybe I just need some new gear: Spring 2010 Gear Guide – The Best And Burliest New Mountain Bikes, Apparel & Accessories At HucknRoll.com. Valid While Supplies Last. 
Frank: I understand what you are saying, and riding the MTB will never equal backcountry snowboarding for me (I regrettably just put storage wax on my split, as the recent warm temps have really made getting out in the snow too disagreeable for me), but-I usually can come up with ways to be creative with mountainbiking, although not in the same sense as new descents.
I like to set up long ride goals, linking prime sections of trail, and training to do these rides in the most fun way possible. Like, Kokopelli from Fruita to Moab in two days, doing the LPS-Porcupine finish. Or Colorado trail from Molas Pass to Durango in a day-I am sure you get the idea. This season I will be lining up for the CB classic, hopefully with adequate miles under me to finish comfortably this time. I guess I am saying, while I am sad that my boarding season is over-I also look forward to planning some interesting MTB adventures.
But you are still right-The Line rules, and I look forward to next season with great anticipation, even now, as every year my hit list seems to grow longer rather than shorter.
I’m glad you understood what I was trying to convey, Barrows! The hit list does keep growing, doesn’t it? I’m already daydreaming and scheming of a way to go back to South America this fall, I’m not feeling fulfilled this year.
Really good point on biking and having some goals. A few years back I did 24 hours in the Sage (solo), and that summer was probably one of my better riding summers. I came up with all sorts of crazy link-ups that lasted all day in order to train for the race. That really helped with the motivation.
The other issue I’m having this year is that the local hit list on the bike is pretty tapped out. After 13 summers in Crested Butte, I’ve ridden most of the obscure rides once or twice and the standard classics 50 or even 100 times. Lots and lots of riding here, but still…
^^^I’m getting to that same point here, and all the other cool stuff in the region will be off limits for some almost Wilderness designation or another. I don’t have much hope in new trails going over well either, unless they are built in horsefly country down low and out of the precious “rock and ice” we need to “protect” from bike tires. My goal instead is to do more hiking, camping, peak bagging and fishing this summer. I feel like I’ve been too focused for too many seasons on the bike and it’s getting stale. It’s hard to stray though, the flow is so addicting and it keeps you sharp.
Sorry about the big ‘W’ eating up a lot of your favorite trails. We lucked out here and didn’t lose too much in the latest FS travel plan. Sounds like you need to do a roadtrip this way sometime to ride some new trail
Either way, I think I’m on the same page as you as far as trying to do a few different things this summer, especially easy scrambling/climbing routes like Wham ridge on Vestal and the Blanca-Little Bear traverse.
What I really want to do is hang glide, but that’s a lot of work to get certified to fly off Crested Butte, and a lot of money, and I hate the logistics part of it (running shuttle between the LZ and the take-off, for example.) That will always be the beauty of the bike, get on it and ride…