Playing Out Again

Remember when you were younger and riding a bike wasn’t all about getting to work or even hitting big cross-country rides, it was just about playing in the woods near your parents’ house? If that doesn’t ring a bell with you then I invite you to just join me in reminiscing about exploring the paths and woods near home and spending hours and hours just playing on a bike. Getting better and better and just enjoying the “dare you” about a steep drop or a little lip that could be a jump. I want you to come with me as I tear along the unofficial paths that snake through every bit of scrappy urban woodland and are bordered by the kind of litter that teenagers leave behind. My formative mountain bike years weren’t in the clean countryside, but negotiating tricky bits around burnt trees, discarded mopeds, condoms and beer cans.

There’s something to be said to going back to that time. Every town and city has its bits of woodland where dirty steams or railways make the borders and little paths lead to illicit spots for the underage drinker. These paths can be yours again for a bit of remembering why it was you loved bikes in the first place. FMFT has been back to the woods to play out again.

All it takes is a steep run into a gap between a leaning tree and an ivy-covered wall and then a sweeping left hand bend dropping to an off camber slide by the fence to a railway line and you have the recipe for a good few hours of fun. Dropping under a bridge and sharing our playground with a man drinking strong larger we ran over and again at the same section, getting better, more styled and more sideways each time, and pushing back up for another go and a discussion about what looked good and what was fastest each time. All the time we just shared one bike and went for the most fun lines, not the most efficient.

The fading light got us and a quick recce of other good spots left us loads more to go back for. This will be a FMFT summer theme. Just playing out.

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