I Can Run for Miles … So Why is Cycling Up Hill so Hard?
I thought I was good at cardio, but mountain biking left me humbled.
I seem to have fallen into a Mountain Biker Instagram rabbit hole and keep seeing reels of cyclists on harrowingly thin and steep trails, who all look like they are seconds away from falling off a cliff.
Here are some screenshots, so you can get an idea of the kind of heart-stopping routes I’m talking about:
Like seriously, what kind of maniac does this?
My boyfriend. That is who.
Which is how I ended up renting a mountain bike last weekend and following him up the hill with the promise that we would only go on easy trails (‘but put on your elbow pads and gloves and knee pads and full face helmet, just in case’).
In the end, I did come back largely unscathed, and what actually left me mentally scared weren’t the steep rocky passages we’d been down, or the sharp turns that tried to throw you into bushes, or even the path that weaved through trees which were closer together than my handlebars are apart.
