I don’t think this is what Jamie Darlow meant when he asked me to “write about your favourite part of mountain biking”. His suggestions were all the lovely, fluffy feel good reasons you’d expect: “Shredding, climbing, the sound of tyres ripping into dirt, being with friends, drinking beer, surviving something scary, etc etc.”

My immediate response was a lot darker and stronger though and the more I’ve leaned into it the more I’ve had to admit my personal MTB truth is pretty toxic.

Hopefully most people reading this won’t regularly be in the same hellish head hole that I am, but even if you’re not then I reckon the basic biking principle of ‘escaping’ is pretty universal, so maybe there’s something you can pull from it. If only that you’re glad you’re not a self absorbed pity party addict like I am.

Don’t let anyone, including Guy, convince you he can’t shred on a bike

If I had a soft voice and promoted therapy, yoga and self love, I’d call mountain biking the ‘ultimate accidental mindfulness’. I don’t just mean that if you’re not mindful of that rock or tree you’re going to have an accident either. But the irrefutable truth is if you’re thinking about steering decisions, body position, braking or gearing every split second you’re automatically blocking out the stresses of your everyday life. Because those trees and rocks don’t care how you’re going to make the next rent payment, your workplace politics, how you look on social media, who said what about who, or all the other white noise ringing in your head.

Adrenalin, cortisol and endorphins are absolutely wonderful drugs for making you feel alive and empowered in an increasingly controlling, pressured and prescriptive world too. Whether you get them from saving a washed tyre in a turn, smashing a climb until your breath tastes of blood or sending a jump, the emoto-chemical high is very real. Even better, it’s still a massive high even if your wheels actually barely left the ground. In fact, plenty of riders have found solace in it, and mountain biking and mental health benefits have long been linked.

Tinkering with and riding bikes is a natural fit for guy

If you find escapism in shopping and tinkering with toys, it’s hard to think of a better outlet than getting into pedalling around a bike off road. Not only because the amount of hop up options and potential adjustments are dizzyingly huge. They’re also relatively simple and low consequence compared to motorsport and aviation and are more visceral and physically realised than tech, trainsets or DIY.

While there’s definitely a huge amount of work to do in terms of inclusivity, I still hope rolling into a trail head car park is easier for most people than walking into a golf club. Although Ollie Cain would probably disagree, arguing the mountain bike media uses class based stereotypes and elitism to put down new riders. 

Guy on some of the most technical terrain going in the 1990s

Even the huge variety of different ‘mountain biking’ experiences – from gentle green flow trails to Red Bull Hardline, or playing in the local woods to epic bike packing races through the Atlas Mountains – looks like another bonus when it comes to self medicating your mental health.

But Jamie’s innocent initial question made me confront something I’ve definitely known for years but never fully explored. While it’s been a life saving upper in many ways, mountain biking can also spiral my psyche downhill faster and more dangerously than any double black trail.

A modified helmet slid on over the top of Guy’s ‘do, letting him ride in style

By way of back story I’m that needy, youngest child, try hard you all know and probably avoid if you can. Relentlessly, pointlessly competitive and determined to be noticed in every situation. Growing up in the wake of far more gifted, significantly older siblings I traded quality for quantity.

Too impatient to learn the skills to progress sustainably I just developed the pain tolerance to push what little raw ability I had to the limit. I worked harder, not smarter, convinced myself that relaxation and contentment were a weakness when in truth I know the quiet moments are the dangerous ones. And I don’t know why I’m using past tense here because it’s exactly what I still do.

Guy’s focus and work ethic is both a salve and the cause of demons

Exercise was always a way to diffuse the frenzy but again everything I tried hit the same talent V tenacity wall. I scarred myself for life diving to return shots in badminton. My runty little teenage body got dragged effortlessly across endless try lines at rugby matches. I literally rowed until my back broke at college. But that’s exactly when I had my Excalibur moment of mountain biking. I was too scared and unbalanced to ride BMX like the cool kids and soon realised the crushing physical realities of road riding was the perfect environment to unravel any hope of happiness as soon as a gap appeared ahead of me in a group.

But a couple of days before my spine shat itself after a rowing regatta I saw an ancient Peugeot hybrid bike glinting deep in the canal where we trained. Rope and G clamp in hand ‘the bike from Atlantis’ was raised from the depths, and wobbling through the local woods on its bent wheels became the rehab I never returned to rowing from. Working in the local bike shop between lectures introduced me to the rest of this new tribe hiding from other sports in the woods and hills and for the first time I felt I truly belonged.

Anyone who rode ATBs in the 90s will probably see something of themselves here

Making mountain biking into work through wrenching, warehouses and then words gave me permission to do something I enjoyed. Even if I didn’t deserve to laugh that hard, if it happened while I was putting food on the table, helping someone choose the right or wrong component or showing them a route they’d love I could justify it to my subconscious self.

More recently, I found that if I talked about a bike while I was riding it, the demons couldn’t get a word in edge ways. It also filled the early hours of the mornings as magazine work dried up. So I could still fall asleep at the editing desk in my own dribble before the doubts started on their long and detailed ‘to undo’ list.

It seems trying to outrun the truth gets harder as you get older though. Parents die, your kids become adults and new perspectives become as glaringly obvious as the realisation that your attempts to escape the past weren’t as successful as you thought.

It’s the same with riding too. Berms are everywhere now, jeering and rolling their eyes at me in the same way as the soccer star kids did when I tripped over the ball again at school. Jumps still terrify me as much as talking to girls. Every time I panic brake rather than lean into a spiralling turn it twists the same knife of shame that made me take myself off the team list for rugby matches because I knew I’d let the team down. Ev

en the trend towards winch and plummet riding takes away the ruts, rocks, trees and torque to traction hyper focus that keeps the bad thoughts at bay.

Becoming too reliant on creating a bike test narrative to drown out your own negative talk is increasingly an issue when I leave the GoPro at home too. Especially if I can’t find the suspension sweet spot click and define the exact kinematic / geometry interface issue of a test bike like I couldn’t last night. Because then I’m failing at my job as well as my riding. For my self absorbed sins that’s enough to make me ignore the perfect riding conditions, the lines I did get right, the right hand berms I did OK, the times I didn’t brake and the incredible gift of great friends. Thankfully they know me well enough to realise that a kebab and open ear on the way home and the removal of a 0.4in volume spacer will bring me back from the brink and it’ll be me on WhatsApp first wondering when we can do it again next.

It’s cheesy, but riding with friends is best for your mental health

So to circle back to the original question, the favourite thing that still brings me back to mountain biking is this: My self hate might be better at bike park features than me, but I can still leave my doubts eating dust on technical single track. And that’s one of the best feelings in the world.