What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?
Mr. Bear
What do you think Smokey?
Thanks for asking! How does a stuffed animal speak anyway? Lately, I’ve been focusing on finding humor amidst life’s twists and turns. It’s been a journey of rediscovering strength and cherishing memories. Embracing new adventures, like fat biking, has been quite liberating. Remember last winter?
Taking care of my mental well-being has been a priority, and I’m grateful for the support of loved ones during these challenging times. Your friendships means a lot, and I’m taking it one non-bike thing at a time, remembering the joy of biking and life’s unpredictable but beautiful moments.
I parked at the Goose Creek trailhead outside of Bozeman Montana to do a ride up the ATV trail. Again, probably will never be back so hitting up my haunts. #movingtomissoula
Looking at the history of today, July 17th – https://williammartin.com/0000/07/27/. Looks like two years ago I was perfecting the Suce Trail. Four years ago we are making adventure decisions. Eight years past it headed me to the Butte 100. Wow. Diverse. Now we just bike. Is this healthy?
Hiking is always in the equation. So is just sitting around drinking beer. And last year we didn’t even put on a pair of skis. I feel I am becoming rigid and detrimental to others. Like Mo. I feel in love with her diversity. Even I was into back country skiing and snowshoeing. I skate skied and hiked in the summer. I back packed often and climbed mountains. What an awesome life.
Sure, I was as obsessed with cycling as I am now. But in years past, I kept it at bay to enjoy other flavors of life. Now, because of my obsession, we hide from others and are never available for other of life’s offerings. We just bike. I just bike. And if I can not bike, I get depressed and make life miserable around me. I feel bad.
So guess what we did on that Saturday a couple weeks ago? Right!
We planned the day to be full of adventure and possibly epic. And it was.
Even I at one point wanted to just give up. Which is exceptional? I love these moments when I find I just persevere. The toughest part was when we started the hike-a-bike climb up to a saddle on a ridge.
And it was hot, real hot. Oh, and I must not forget about the bugs and meat eating fly. Just before I turned around I left Mo in the shade of a tree and instructed her to save herself if I don’t come back. I headed up the trail.
Which went upwards even more than before. At one point I became delirious and kept telling myself to turn around and catch up with Mo.
Finally, I found a suitable turn around point. It was a prime point at an intersection. Good enough. I rode enduro style back down the ridge.
I found the genuine challenge of enduro which in races we don’t really touch upon. Being so fatigued that the extreme downhill becomes so hard. One mess up and you launch off a cliff. So you keep focused. As much as you can.
I did a drop section and put some feet on the ground. Which means I didn’t crash or jump off the bike. I just cheated a little. “Common Bill, stay focused”, I scolded myself.
After dinner I was reminiscing about our recent backpack to Hilgard. Lots of people do it. Kind of boring right? The boring part being that everyone backpacks. I looked at our aspen grove and noticed that they are changing color. Holy shit I expressed to my partner. We better get out and do a bikepack this weekend. The summer is almost over. We are lucky that we have so many choices. We love backpacking and car camping but that is something everyone does. We actually have the option to bikepack and most people don’t. For one you need the gear … and I don’t mean a bob trailer. What we do is single-track hike-a-bike-remote bikepacking. Tons of friends are thinking … duh. But to most this is a freakish fantasy that they really have not come to terms with. And its fun. Just get out there and be where everyone is not. And stop doing the boring things.
Boneshakerbike 