Some Call it Progress

Volume 3, Issue 3, April 1996

Remember me mentioning at the outset of this Substack there were some columns that made me cringe upon re-reading them? This is one, even though I still stand by everything I said. I mean, the message I was trying to relay - move with grace and respect, do your own thing, cherish this short life, try not to sweat the Small Stuff but also recognize what the Small Stuff actually is in the context of the Big Picture - it still feels true to this day, for me. But jeeeez, I could be a preachy young dickhead.

I think that we, as a magazine, had a chip on our shoulder around this time, and that we, as individual writers and editors, were enjoying the response our swagger was getting. I recognize in my own writing that I was beginning to employ words and phrases more akin to something Rob Story would have said than what might have really come out of my own mouth. There was a lot of cross-pollination going on with ideas and styles, and I was still very much moldable clay in terms of how I was writing.

The image I’m deploying here had nothing to do with the column, by the way. Nor is it from Colin’s archive. It is a snapshot from a Park Tool ad in this issue. There’s a Post-It note affixed to the page, and in handwriting that is absolutely not mine, the words; “see nipple.” I had never paid close enough attention to this ad the first time around to notice, but now? Now I cannot Unsee Nipple. And hopefully neither can you.

It’s about time we took a little step off to one side here, to get a better perspective on how to gauge ourselves as a species. Y’know, give the human race an occasional internal progress report. This is something that really doesn’t get done enough, this stepping back, so consequently we tend to start wandering around with our collective head stuck a little too far up our collective butt.

If this evolution thing is supposed to hold any water, it would appear that we, as a species, seem to be stalled. The evidence is everywhere. Jeffrey Dahmer, for example. After he was killed last year, they (I use the word “they” because I really don’t know who “they” are, but I’m pretty sure there was more than one of them cremated his body but kept the brain for research purposes. Given that we, as a species, really only know enough about brains to remove tumors with about a 50 percent success rate, it seems a little odd to keep Dahmer’s brain for “research purposes.” Will there be a new determination: “Well, this guy’s brain is the same general size and shape as Dahmer’s, so there’s a likelihood he might start chopping up little boys and stuffing them in the Frigidaire. Better fry him just in case.” I thought that kind of bad Juju went out with witch dunking.

Or the whole O.J. ordeal. Where, after a year and a half of prime time, we, as a species and a nation, are left with the impression that it really doesn’t matter who you are or what crime you may have committed; if you’re big enough, there’s a way out – and a way to capitalize.

We build houses in flood plains, at the base of disintegrating mountains, on volcanoes, then act surprised and indignant and sue our governments when acts of nature shrug these structures into kindling. Then we rebuild in the same spot.

All the while, life seems to adopt the hyper-sped and overtly ugly narcissism of a bad “Melrose Place” episode, complete with nefarious underhandings, overwrought misplaced emotion, and twisted rhetoric.

Which is sort of where we get onto the topic of mountain bikes, and our sport’s center stage, media darling, Mountain Dew to Nike to Seinfeld to Reebok to MTV to everything cool and young and hipper than you status. Where is our collective head? Is it wearing its collective helmet?

It’s sort of gratifying to see mountain biking surge into adolescence, and it’s a little sickening too. There are more of us, and we continue to grow and diversify and impinge by the day. In terms of land access, it means we, the Johnny Come Lately use group, are more visible and more culpable. It means that instead of being brothers and sisters united in our love of dirt, we are breaking down into factions: the retro, the slalom-head, the downhiller, the racer, the soul surfer, the techno weenie, the outgrown BMX rat. And, for the most part, we can’t stand each other. Instead of becoming more tolerant, we are perilously close to hating each other, almost as vindictively as that old guy who used to jab his walking stick at cyclists’ wheels in the Marin Headlands.

On the one hand we have those who tell us that any errant dirty fun in a public place will ruin the sport for all of us, while on the other are those who scream for anarchy –Poach an Illegal Trail Today and Catch Big Air and Lock The Brakes Often While Laughing in the Face of the Rangers! Somewhere in between are those who are just watching with bewilderment while houses are built across favorite trails, watching as the owner of the new house calls these cyclists a blight on the landscape, or ecological menaces. Go figure.

No one in this paragraph is really right. In fact, it’s hard to imagine whether there is any palpable right or wrong about mountain bikes. They’re just bikes.

As a species, we posture a lot. Sometimes we gussy the posturing in the guise of reason or morals, but it’s still basically the same primal foot stamping and fist shaking. We like to impose our wills and desires upon others, and I doubt that any of us are really free from this, not deep down inside anyway. We all deal with this differently. Some, who demand control, go on to become presidents and other titular leaders. Some, who need to be led, follow them. Most of us tread arguable middle ground, following some things, leading others. Rebellion comes by driving over the speed limit or letting our dogs off the leash in a leash control area. And conformity is realized by paying our taxes even though we hate it and marrying the kind of people our parents would approve of.

Hard to say then, evolutionarily speaking, if we’re moving at all. Does it make sense to get steaming hot and bothered about land access, or technology, or fashion, or what density tires to use, or what happened to the Klein in Jerry’s apartment? Or is this the same stymied evolution, along with Dahmer’s brain and O.J.’s new video? Don’t we all, cosmically speaking, have something better to do than point fingers, wag tongues, and assign judgment or blame?

Going out on a ride, for example. On whatever kind of bike, in whatever kind of clothes. Maybe on a trail right through some newly closed land. Do what you have to, without questioning or second guessing your motives, and without judging those who live differently to you. Move with respect and grace, and think for yourself. Who cares if it won’t solve any crises or better the species? One day we’ll all be dead, and this fleeting pulse is too fragile and beautiful to waste on the perceptions of others. Even if you think they dress like geeks. Even if they wear green and yell at you.

I think I need to start calling this subscript “Liner Notes”.

This was not my favorite cover, but this issue was packed with good shit. Bob Allen wrote and shot an epic 12,500’ descent in Peru, Rob Story profiled the Laguna Rads, Les Anthony tapped into the Hornby Island scene, and I wrote a kinda cringey and self-serving piece about the race season of the Swobo Media Assault Team. I also tested a fistful of cruisers; the Electra BMX-4, Fisher’s Klunker, a Kona A-Ha and the Merlin Newsboy. They were all pretty damn awesome in their way, and I was stoked that BIKE let me squander our very limited review space on four bikes that were absolutely not part of the mainstream mountain bike conversation. A roundup video review by intern Chris Daniels including that old gem Pulp Traction, stated “Shameless Specialized promotion hugely detracts from the experience. In what’s basically a 28-minute Specialized commercial, Stump and upstart camera prodigy Christian Begin do some experimenting that gets really cool action onto the screen.”… Oh, and the first of the new XTR spy/briefcase ads!