Imposter Syndrome

Once upon a time, I wrote a column comparing myself to a bird. As in, the mountain biking equivalent of a bird. I basically outed myself as a not very impressive downhiller (that'd be swift/swallow territory), a sub-mediocre marathon racer (your Canadian Geese and other truly epic migratory birds), and an otherwise capable but not spectacular rider. Nowhere near fast enough in any one discipline to be a hummingbird, lacking the killer instinct and raw power to be any sort of bird of prey. For this analogy, I chose a starling as my representative feathered avatar. This was, admittedly, a solid two decades and change before a bike brand of that name showed up, and before I found myself not-ironically buying one of those eponymously named frames. But there I was, pigeonholing myself, if you will, in one of the more circuitous flights of fancy I've indulged in while trying to loosely correlate human experience into some sort of nature-based analogy.

However, at that time, I had enough of a chip on my shoulder to consider myself a solid workhorse when it came to grinding out miles and chasing finish lines. Yeah, I know. Horses are not birds. Pegasus doesn't count. I also considered myself decent enough on a bike, pre-freeride explosion, to be thought of as a not totally shit bike handler. This was probably a bit of a reach on my part, but since I was neck deep in XC racing, there was ample evidence surrounding me every weekend that I was a long way from the bottom of the barrel in that regard. And, since XC racing was my jam, that is where I derived most of my self-esteem merits and demerits.

Meanwhile, I was working for a new magazine staffed by skiers. They thought that XC racing was dumb, that Lycra belonged on the road, and that people who both wore Lycra and raced XC were kooks. More or less. When the freeride explosion occurred a few years later they were jubilant. For my part, I cried quiet bitter tears, knowing that this signaled the end of what had been, for me, a great and beautiful chapter in the evolution of mountain biking. Not so coincidentally, I also came to realize that my self-perception of riding skill was woefully out of step with the new and rapidly changing standards of the time.

Time, being time, marches on regardless; not really caring about egos, burnout, trends or dwindling testosterone levels. But even though it has been a loooong time since I have pinned a number to a skinsuit, I still in some way identify more with that bygone version of myself than with the baggy clad old dude who can't really wheelie and who removes all the tokens from any suspension he is on that sports more than 150mm of travel.

Which, in a roundabout way brings us to the new, not yet ready to be mentioned by name, XC test bike that I took delivery of a week ago. A 120mm travel flexstay race whip with a twist grip lockout for both fork and shock at the same time, 1400-gram wheels wrapped in fast-rolling Rekons, and zero concessions toward the longer travel "trail" identity that has become intermixed with the original XC genus. As in, not even a single nod to downcountryism. In frame storage? Getthefuckouttahere. Run to the pits if you get a flat, loser.

Sweet Jesus, this thing is fast. And I totally feel like a fraud trying to review it.

See, for the past couple months, I have been exclusively riding the Starling. And I built the Starling on the stout side. Coil shock, Mezzer Pro fork, 1800, maybe 1900-gram wheelset with thick, sticky, T9 Butcher tires. At a guess, I would say this new test rig is about 12 pounds lighter than the Starling, and easily four of those pounds are in the wheels and tires. I have grown accustomed to just settling in when the ground tilts upwards and pedaling resolutely along, opting to slow down rather than pin the heart rate, because, let's face it, we aren't gonna set the world on fire anyway. Maybe that's defeatist, but the Starling isn't designed to excel at XC racing, so why pretend? Just enjoy the scenery, click off the miles until the fun stuff happens, and keep enough gas in the tank to get a little rowdy on the descents. "Who are you kidding, old man," the Interior Observer takes pains to point out. "It's not like you've got the juice in those hams to get out of your own way anymore, anyway."

But I had some shoes, right? Because you don't ride an XC race bike with flat pedals, and you don't ride an XC race bike with puffy footwear that looks like it was designed by refugees from the Disney wardrobe design department. I may be a little too rotund to comfortably walk around town in a skinsuit nowadays, but according to the extremely vocal heckling by the wife of a local racer (who I was in the process of lapping at the time, it bears mentioning) at a Surf City 'cross race in 1999, I was already questionably plus-sized to be rocking that look back then. So, even when I thought I was still fast, I was chunky. Point taken, however. Now I try to avoid being heckled by near total strangers for my attire. Nevertheless, shoes. There are some areas where we do not compromise. XC bike, XC shoes. This is not negotiable.

So yesterday I pulled on the shoes, ratcheted them down, clicked them into the not entirely XC worthy pedals I had blasphemously threaded into the very damn light cranks, and pedaled out of town on the new, as yet unnamed XC test bike.

I already said Sweet Jesus, right? But it bears repeating. Sure, XC bikes are narrowly focused and probably not what 90 percent of us need to be riding. And absolutely, they will not make your life easier when the terrain gets steep or chunky, and if the terrain gets both steep AND chunky they will probably be miserable. But oh dear lord they roll out like something magic. Most of my rides involve a few miles of pavement and some incredibly shitty washboard fireroad to get to the nuggets of trail that this stretch of desert has on tap. And I generally churn along on the monster truck tires of the Starling, not thinking about heart rate zones or average speeds, just watching the scenery roll by, slowly.

Those miles went by yesterday in about half the time that I am used to. And even though I was muttering to myself to stay mellow, keep the heart rate nice and calm, nothing to prove here, it took all my willpower to resist winding that damn thing up and pinning it until the entire horizon dissolved in a red haze.

Which, by the time I hit the trail, kind of became inevitable.

For an hour, I felt like a god. There is still something elementally glorious about a superlightweight, tightly focused, fast as hell bike. I suspect this elemental gloriousness is going to be something that becomes lost to most of us as we opt to ingest the hidden boost of electric assist, but damn, to be able to wind this thing up so fast, under my own power, and so easily go straight into my own red zone? That is a beautiful thing.

By comparison, I never managed to get my max HR over 175 on the same trails with the Starling. I suspect that has something to do with the fact that my ability to generate watts is slipping even though my heart rate can, apparently, still go through the roof when it wants to (to allay concerns from people who know about this stuff, back when I pinned numbers on regularly, my max HR was about 203. So I have always been rabbity, not that it ever seemed to have any advantages other than making me nervous about wearing the damn thing out too soon), and so I'd just run out of ability to motivate all that metal and rubber uphill before going into the red mist. The new bike, being much lighter and burdened with way less rotating mass, meanwhile, was a ticket straight into Zone 5. Only faster way there is staircase sprints.

The half hour after that glorious first hour was grim. It took about seven solid minutes of coasting downhill to get my heart rate to drop back below 160, and then I felt like my legs were blocks of wood.

I am old. I am heavy. I am of dwindling wattage. I am not qualified to really speak to the strengths of this bike. I am paying for yesterday. I do not care. I've got my shoes. And fast bikes are still absolutely awesome. Tomorrow we go again.