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.)
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| 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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