Today was a good day to ride a bike.
One of those rides that reminds me why I still love this sport so much. It’s Sunday the 21st September, 2025. The weather here in Perth looks like it’s turned a corner and spring has truly arrived. I chose to head out to the trails at Bindoon today. Blue skies. Green fields. Yellow canola. Red dirt, still rich in moisture. Crystal clear sunshine, temps in the low 20s and just a breath of wind to take the sting out of the morning sun when fully exposed on the climb side of the hill. As if that wasn’t enough, it was the first time I’d ever taken the Norco Optic to Bindoon. Renowned for being a pretty savage climb, this place makes a compelling case for ebikes…..but the Optic was up to the task, even if my legs weren’t.
I was struck by how weird it is to still be madly in love with riding mountain bikes after 20 years. I worked for 6 months at KFC as a 15 year old, to save up enough money to buy a Trek Bruiser, my first “real” bike – and immediately quit that job to free up more time to ride on weekends (Amazing how easy and clear-cut decisions were back then!) The bikes have changed. The terrain has changed. Riding buddies have come and gone. I’ve travelled the world to ride and race bikes. A couple of times in my early adult life, I found myself with 3 very young children and insufficient funds to keep whatever bike I had at the time. I’ve been “bikeless” a couple of times, and I even had a brief stint in lycra, rolling around on a fluorescent green road bike (I enjoyed it, I make no apologies) …..but I return to MTB every single time. My true north.
I can’t speak for other riders, but there are a few precious, fleeting moments that I chase on every single bike ride. I’ve been thinking about these moments and trying to distill them into something I can actually describe. It’s harder than I thought… I seek these moments out like any other addict chases their vice. Bikes do amazing things when they’re pushed beyond the level of mere transport – and that’s where physics, geometry and some bike handling skills reveal themselves.
In no particular order, the things I crave are:
Two wheel slides, both feet up. Growing up on a steady diet of MTB magazines in the 2000’s meant that I saw almost nothing but photos of Sam Hill drifting through corners, elbows up, feet up, eyes on the exit. To the inexperienced, the start of a proper two wheel slide has all the hallmarks of a Very Serious Crash About To Happen Right Now and will prompt a panic-dab, or worse, a fistful of whatever brake gets pulled first. The art of the slide is to be found in the balance between trust, traction and testicular fortitude. If some sliding is good, more must be better. Do all the slides. Much Sliding. Such Wow.
Rear Wheel Slides, both feet up – and the sound that goes with it. The bike and the ground working together to rip the tyre off the wheel. Ideally happens when pushing hard through the feet into a nice supportive berm. The front tyre tracks and grips, the rear slides and traces a higher line through the turn. Madness. I love it. This is also an excellent gauge of tyre pressure…..as long as the tyre doesn’t blow off the rim, you’re fine.
Absolutely RIPPING a turn, with no slide at all. Despite there being no slide involved, this is typically a super high commitment turn. Heavy hands, heavy feet, elbows out, flat back – full compression using all the support that the turn has to offer. Nice, deep tread marks that follow each other almost perfectly will be your reward if you care to go back for a looky-see.
Flow to Jump to Landing to Turn – on repeat. Fast, flowy trails where gravity provides all the horsepower, leads you into some nice long jumps, with landings that blend themselves into the next corner…….over and over again. As many times as the vertical drop of the hill allows. People book flights and pack their bikes into bags to do this exact thing for weeks at a time. It is utterly addictive. Speed is fun. Going weightless and silent for the jumps is fun. Smooth landings and transitions into corners are fun.
Nailing a Hill Start – especially on really slippery terrain. Imagine this scenario: You’ve stopped on a pretty severe incline. Maybe you even had the good sense to lower your dropper post before stopping (which helps but isn’t critical) Either way, it’s time to get going again. You swing a leg over, find your pedal and try to set off using your body weight through one pedal and do nothing but spin the rear wheel. Your drive foot goes straight down to bottom dead centre, the bike starts to roll backwards, and you need to start again. The solution? “The Handbrake Hill Start” – just like when you did your manual drivers test. Pedals at 3 and 9 (or close to). Grab a big handful of back brake, and stand on that front pedal. In one carefully measured motion, you release your back brake and allow the rear wheel to start rotating under the weight of your front foot, without spinning. Traction Control, baby!!!! Get foot #2 up on the pedals, get completely off the brake, and you’re away. It’s just taken me 10 lines of text to describe something that happens in less than couple of seconds, but it is SO SWEET when you meter out the perfect amount of traction to your back wheel using nothing but your back brake. Love it.
Lettin’ the Big Girl Eat – There is a sensation that can be achieved on two wheels, at speeds far higher than non-bike-riding folks would dare reach – where bumpy, rocky, rough terrain just disappears under a thick, comfortable magic carpet made of physics and moondust. I call it skimming, or planing. It’s easy to do on a dirtbike – with a good set of tyres and good suspension, corrugations on rutted dirt roads simply cease to exist over a given speed. The same thing can happen on a mountain bike. I experienced it today, maxing out my gears down a rocky, corrugated fire road that runs down the ridgeline of the hill. At slow speed you hit every single rock. At medium speeds individual impacts aren’t felt but there is still a lot of feedback coming through the hands and feet. And finally……at whatever magic speed the Gods of MTB deem appropriate…..it all disappears. Even the noise of the tyres on the dirt changes. All that feedback just……stops. Suspension that was busier than a one legged leprechaun in a sh#t kicking contest 5 seconds ago, is suddenly just eating the terrain in big, steady bites. Big, slow compression into big, controlled rebound, as the bike follows the rise and fall of the terrain underfoot.
For these reasons and many more……I think my love of bikes will carry on for a long, long while yet.
