a bit in the wake of a storm front, it just might be the perfect time to load up the kids and the dirt bikes and take advantage of one of the few opportunities we’ll have to ride with friends between December and March. It’s risky, though, because the deep water we will no doubt encounter—stuff that provides a welcome relief from the heat elsewhere in the calendar—can instantly plunge anyone it captures into a world of pain that will last the rest of the day. Temps in the 40s just feel refreshingly brisk when wrestling a bike through highly technical terrain at a snail’s pace, as long as we’re reasonably dry.
You know what’s coming, right?
The whole gang was able to stay upright through many swampy sections until late in the day. Then it became clear that everyone was more excited than in shape; we were becoming tired when we still had a long way to go to exit the woods. As concentration decayed, obstacles that had been fun to negotiate earlier now felt treacherous and worrisome. Crashes were increasing in frequency, and it was only a matter of time before somebody fell into a water hazard. Meanwhile, our slowing pace meant daylight was waning rapidly, and with it the barely adequate warmth with which we’d started this adventure.
Finally, the inevitable occurred. Dylan, my ten-year-old stepson, went down face-first into a knee-deep “puddle”— more like a small pond—and got thoroughly soaked. He was already spent and discouraged from his dogged (and ultimately unsuccessful) efforts to climb a wickedly steep and slimy incline a mile back. The addition of bone-chilling muck was just too much, and he crawled over to a secluded spot off the trail to cry in private.
After my usual pep talk failed to fan any embers of determination within him, and he showed no improvement after a few minutes alone, I knew we were in trouble. There was no way for his physical condition to improve until we could get back to the truck, and he couldn’t obtain that relief without pulling himself together. In the meantime, the sun was setting, and he would only feel worse—and lose even more of his ability to ride—as he spent more time being that much colder. He had to ride out and do it right now. But how? I’ve had to ride out of bad situations before, so how did I do it? Looking back, it was hard to say. Something had happened automatically for me, but it wasn’t happening automatically for this little boy. Sometimes the most basic psychological principles are the hardest to explain.
I knelt down to think, and my knee gave way, causing me to tumble over and bury my arm in an icy bog I hadn’t even noticed beside me. Only a short while prior, I’d wrenched that knee badly while helping one of the kids get his bike up though a nasty pass; I’d simply stumbled backward while on foot, but the toe of my boot had gotten caught for a split second under a root as I was falling, and I could actually feel, quite vividly, the bones in my knee pull apart and snap back together on my way down. I knew this wasn’t good, but as long as I didn’t put much weight on that leg, I could make do. And I was so focused on shepherding the children back out of the woods that my pain receded into the background; I’d forgotten all about this problem while wondering what to do about the disintegrating child a few yards away.
Motorcycles need protection, too. In addition to wearing armored gear, off-road riders outfit their bikes with skid plates, radiator guards, and other items to keep parts functional after the inevitable tumbles. This was a particularly resilient and forgiving machine.
Then it came to me. Duh! People block one thing from awareness by putting something else in its place. When I rode out of the woods with a broken rib a couple years ago, I had to concentrate on riding with extreme smoothness; not only was my pain reduced when I encountered fewer shocks to my torso, but, more importantly, I was focusing my mind on a task instead of the scary fact that it hurt to breathe. When I once found myself suddenly engulfed in zero-visibility fog on a long stretch of mountain switchbacks with no shoulder for refuge from blind traffic, I pressed on by narrowing my attention to the tiny strip of white line I could barely see a foot or two ahead of me on the road’s edge. That time, it wasn’t an issue of physical pain but of sheer terror after having been very nearly sideswiped by a car driving by in the opposite direction!
There also have been numerous times when I’ve had to keep going through unexpected downpours on the street or when night and temperatures fell quickly while I was still a long way from civilization. Sometimes I could wrap myself in a blanket of imagination, thinking about how good the hot shower would feel at my destination. Sometimes I could detach myself from physical sensation altogether, retreating into my mind so completely that signals from my body registered only as neutral information, stripped of any compelling impact. Sometimes I have repeated a song over and over. But mostly the trick has been to focus my attention sharply on a key element of riding technique—something I was continuously doing right now, and right now, and right now.
Obviously, impending hypothermia and other physical dangers cannot be ignored indefinitely. If you’ve ever ridden while extremely cold, you may have found yourself entering a sort of trance state involuntarily; that’s not what I’m suggesting as a goal here. Certainly, there are many times when we must simply stop riding and find another way to deal with our dilemma. But, in situations wherein riding to safety is a better risk than stopping, it’s useful to know how to manage the distractions of pain, discomfort, and fear.
What works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another. I trotted out all my examples while gently insisting that Dylan remount and complete the trek back to the truck. I thought that there was no viable alternative but to strap him on my back and return for his bike later. Dylan didn’t think the situation was quite that drastic; however, he didn’t like any of my suggestions about what to focus on for the twenty minutes more he needed to ride. So I left it up to him to find something on his own through trial and error; after all, that’s how I learned what worked for me. At least he knew he needed to focus his mind on something—something other than how much his hands ached and his face burned and how raw and weak his whole body felt.
He finally crept down the mountain and out of the woods, repeating a mantra he’d heard years before at many a bedtime reading. He filled his helmet with the words like protective insulation, not only from the cold but also from despair: “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can . . .” It was enough to lever his attention out of the ditch so his body could follow. What’s your way?
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