Zen and the Art of Hike-a-Bike

photo by Brooks

Unpopular opinion: I love hike-a-bike. I really do. Hike-a-bike is the act of pushing, pulling, or carrying your bike, usually because the terrain is too steep or too loose to pedal. In the bicycling community, this would be like saying, “I enjoy paying taxes” or “I love washing the dishes.” A friend once threatened to extend the ride by 13 miles just to avoid a short hike-a-bike up a steep horse trail. Paying taxes, washing the dishes, or pushing your bike up a hill can be difficult and tiresome but also incredibly mundane - Sisyphean even. 

Thich Nhat Hanh claimed you can meditate while washing the dishes. Think about that. The second most-famous living Buddhist (second only to the Dali Lama), a world-renowned and revered Zen master says you can do this transcendent-touching, nirvana-actuating activity while doing something as banal as washing your dishes. That’s amazing. And, I think, if you can meditate while doing the dishes, you can meditate while pushing your bike up an enormous hill. If you don’t ride a bike very much, copy and paste this into your word processor and word search and replace “hike-a-bike” with whatever “hard thing” it is that you do. The same can probably be said about trail running, climbing off-widths, or sinking a putt for birdie. 

A Buddhist once described meditation to me as the middle of a three-circle Venn diagram, where the three circles are concentration, awareness, and mindfulness. Concentration is the ability to focus tightly on an anchor or object of meditation. Richard Rohr, a Catholic contemplative, describes this exercise as “a long, loving look at the Real.” While a ridgeline, the end of a switchback, or the backside of your friend who’s way ahead of you is not the Ultimate Reality, I find the ability to focus tightly on an anchor like this good practice for the real deal — the lotus position under a bodhi tree or washing the dishes kind of real deal.

Awareness and mindfulness are more difficult to differentiate. Both help us be present. Anyone can white-knuckle grin and bear it to the top of a hill. Or clasp their eyes shut  until finally the singing bowl bell gongs. I have. These experiences sucked. Meditation is more than the furrowed brow of concentration. It also requires the space to have a sense of all that is happening around you. In other words, having a sense of our physical sensations and mental contingencies while keeping an object of meditation. 

The textural sound of pea gravel beneath my shoes and tires. The pleasant ambiance of the forest: locusts, birds, and streams. The feeling of sweat in my mustache, hunger in my belly, and fatigue in my legs. Seeing the path of least resistance ahead of me. Noticing the rutted dirt, the blocks of rocks, or even the owl in the tree. Noticing it all for what they are while ever moving toward the anchor. That's meditation. 

If this sounds all too much for you, try this. The next time you’re pushing your bike up some heinous climb, take some deep breaths. Begin to notice 5 things you see; 4 things you hear; 3 things you feel; 2 things you smell; and 1 thing you taste. I promise you won’t regret it. You may not achieve nirvana but you’ll be closer to getting back on your bike and with a more “present-presence” than you would have otherwise. I think a 20% grade climb up loose gravel in a forest is a worthy monastery or meditation cushion. There are no to-do lists, emails, or notifications. Really, the only thing that exists is the present moment. So just be there. Or rather, just be. 

Meditation or looking deeply, Thich Nhat Hanh says, is to see the true nature of things. Which, according to Buddhism, is to see and understand things as impermanent. You don’t have to be Buddhist to appreciate this. The hill I am pushing my bike up; the feelings of joy and grief I experience; the thoughts of compassion and greed that come and go inside my head; indeed, my very life is not forever. How could they? The future doesn’t exist (this is a hill I am willing to die on). 

Don’t believe me? Listen to Marc E., from Collection 8, Episode 3 of The Great British Baking Show. Marc finished his showstopper dharma wheel cake while the other bakers worked frantically to finish their final touches. Sitting on his stool, like a zen master with a Cornish accent, he counseled, 

“I take every opportunity I can just to take a mindful breath. Just kind of brings me back to the present moment. ‘Cause when you think about it, when we’re worrying, we’re worrying about things that happened in our past. Or [we’re] worrying about the future. And ultimately, we’ve got no control over that, have we?… Of course, it’s easier said than done.”

Easier said than done. Like pushing a bike up a hill. Thanks, Marc. 

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On spirit animals and singlespeed bicycles

A few weeks ago, I was standing in a circle of volunteers before an adaptive mountain biking event. We were all introducing ourselves with some first-day-of-summer-camp-type questions: "What's your name?" "How long have you been biking?" And, "what's your spirit animal?" Everyone knows my spirit animal is an alligator. If you didn't, now you do. I'm from Florida. I love swamps. And I'm tremendously introverted so chilling at the bottom of a river or sunbathing on a log while also scaring away like 98% of people by merely existing sounds really nice. This wasn't the first time I've been asked about my spirit animal and I've obviously put a lot of thought into it. However, when it was my turn in the circle to share I freaked out. I forgot all about alligators. "Hi, my name is Chet. I started mountain biking during the pandemic and," I continued, "my spirit animal is... a wiener dog."

A wiener dog. I didn't even say dachshund (the scientific word for a wiener dog). I had one shot and I blew it. 

For context, I used to have a wiener dog. He was gifted to us when I was in first grade. My sister and I named him Wishbone. He was not your ordinary, high-maintenance, miniature dachshund. Wishbone was fearless and thought himself to be about the size of a St. Bernard. Our neighbors had horses and Wishbone would chase after these elegant animals, roughly a quadrillionth of his size, barking and threatening to bite their hooves or ankles if they would just have the common decency to dare him to do so. Wishbone was a menace engaged in a false sense of competition with every animal bigger and better than him. 

Every afternoon Wishbone would run along the fence line, made of hog wire, and antagonize our backdoor neighbor's Chow Chow named Chili. Chow Chows are bellicose and territorial dogs but Chili tolerated Wishbone's war of aggression for years until finally, Chili had enough. One day he stuck his head through the hog wire, pulled Wishbone through by the neck, and proceeded to whirl our beloved pet around the same way an orca throws around a baby seal before she eats it. My Uncle Ray and I bore witness to the melee while playing catch in the backyard. Ray moved into action and tagged Chili with a baseball. I don't remember how far away he made the throw from, but it was impressive. It stunned the dog long enough for me to hop the fence and scoop up our blood and piss-soaked pup. (I learned that while fighting, dogs urinate on the other dog as a way of adding insult to injury. Brutal.)

Wishbone: Grade-A good boy.

Wishbone was fine. He healed up quite nicely with three permanent puncture wounds around his jugular. He lived a remarkably long life pestering animals more than twice his size. Classic Napoleon Complex. 

Napoleon Bonaparte was believed to be an unusually short man (historically inaccurate) whose insecurities propelled him toward aggressive, militaristic authoritarianism (correlation is not causation). Alfred Adler coined the term "Napoleon Complex" to describe people who possessed an aggressive and authoritative attitude to compensate for their short height. GASP! Deeper meaning? I mean I am short but few people would describe me as "aggressive." 

That said, I am not without other inferiorities or insecurities and sometimes these drive me, like my dog Wishbone, toward irrational and irresponsible Napoleonic impulses. For example, riding a singlespeed bicycle makes me behave a little like the French Consulate. 

A few days before my spirit animal blunder at the adaptive MTB event, I arrived at a local trailhead the same time as a fancy Santa Cruz full-suspension bike. I got up the initial climb on my rigid singlespeed first, and I made it a goal to never let him catch up with me the rest of the ride. In other words, I was mentally racing a guy who, for all I know, was just out for a nice, leisurely, after-work ramble. It didn't matter. I showed no mercy, I took no prisoners, and I gave no quarter. Unbeknownst to him, my budget-built all-terrain bicycle and I destroyed him. This was my Battle of Austerlitz. 

My chest swelled with pride! And then collapsed. And then rose and collapsed again. I was gassed and totally out of breath. I ripped my legs off for one lap around the park but for what? To beat an oblivious opponent only to stop long enough to catch my breath and watch this guy come granny-gearing up the hill before dropping in for another spin around the downhill section. My Austerlitz was also my Waterloo. 

There I was the beaten, battered, and pee-pee-soaked wiener dog of Stringers Ridge mountain bike trails. Don't be like me. Enjoy riding your bike for the sake of riding your bike. I hope your trail spirit animal is better than mine. Like a jack rabbit or a mountain lion. Maybe one day I'll get the fat bike I want and my spirit animal can be this seal that flubbers onto shore and farts while looking directly at the camera.

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