The 3 Rules of Mountain Biking

Say when it starts. You guys are going to have to skip the first slide and let you know that the story starts with Carl Anderson Park. More accurately leaving Carl Anderson Park. I was with my friend Fu, Fu just got a mountain bike and all he had to do was point and glide right down this little path here in the center. What you can see is no big deal. But Fu looked up and he sigh and slides really messed up. He looked up and he saw it and he was completely afraid. He thought that it was this big downhill course. But now it was, it was really just a little descent and Fu is not a pro mountain biker. So, Fu panicked and Fu wind up in the bushes, unfortunately and I was laughing, but as soon as I stopped laughing. I knew what had happened. You see, my friend Sny(ph) who are on the first slide. We have been mountain biking for a long time and we used to teach people how to mountain bike. We leave this scope rides and we would try to put together mountain treats about what people should do. You see mountain biking is a lot of little movements. It’s kind of complicated, but if you tell people just keep one thing in your mind. They can pretty well do it. They can manage it. We started with our favorite mountain treat at the time which was Furious the mind killer from Dune. It is big, it is bold. It tells you not to be afraid. Unfortunately, it does not tell you shit about riding a mountain bike. So, we had to go back to the drawing board and we kind of thought about what we would tell each other and we could sum it up one way. You will go where you look. We would tell each other “Pick your line. Follow the leader. Watch the trail, whatever.” It all means that your eyes point to where your bicycle goes. It is kind of—it is actually a lot like that whole thing Bruce Lee you use to talk about. Like water goes around the rock. It does not try and go through the rock. It is about watching the where the point of opportunity are, not watching where the obstacles are. This came in really useful when friend Sny(ph) started motorcycling. Because what they teach you when you ride a motorcycle is you do not just point your eyes at the turn. You actually turn your whole head into it and keep looking through it the whole way. So, that is great, but once you know a course really well, like say if you are Nikki Hayden, riding at Laguna Seca. That does not matter anymore. He can turn his head around, look back at the other racers and not fall of the trail or in this case the course. But this can also be applied to business. One of the first things you learn to do when you are riding. Is not to lookdown at your feet. If you look down at your feet, that is exactly where you crash. You can take a look exactly where Pam lookdown at its own feet here. Another thing about going where you look. If you are spending so much time looking at where everybody else is going, then you windup going down their path not the one you are on. So, that can be a big mistake especially if you should not be on that path to begin with. You will do what you believe is really just Furious, the mind killer, turned around. It is a little positive version of it. Because really mountain biking is about committing to your actions. There are a lot of people who stood in here this couple of days and have told us about these adventures they have had where they did not know if something was going to work. They did not know anything about it, but they took the lip and they did it and they committed to it, and really all they had to do was believe that it would workout. But you have to believe the entire time. That is the problem. A lot of people panic in the middle and then they freak out and then they have the worse accidents of their lives. You have to stay committed the entire time you are doing something. How do you do it? You relax damn it. You when you tell people to relax. That is the one thing they do not do. If you say relax damn it. It turns it into a joke. It is something that they can have fun with. So, relaxing is good for two reasons. The first is actually the Physics of the way a mountain bike works. If you are a stiff, and then all of the little bumps and turns on the trail get could put up into and you are going to crash. It is not going to be pretty fun. But the other thing is to remembered that mountain biking is supposed to fun. It is not supposed to be this effort. It is not supposed to be something that you cry about. It is not supposed to be something you worry about. You do it with your buds. It is just mountain biking. Relax damn it. Finally, keep your wheels rolling. I really wish I knew enough about Physics to tell you guys why. When you look up your brakes and stop your wheels. All of a sudden your bike like just go so skiddish, but it does. The secret is to actually lead up to keep your wheels rolling and the more you do that, the more you are going to stay on course. Even though, it is just a little bit scary, you find you make it all the way through. So, I hope now you do not crash.