Every re-ride helps me suck less.
Every Tuesday for the last six weeks, I borrow a car, strap a rack on the back, and wrestle my mountain bike onto it.
I am not what you’d call mechanically minded, so this takes me a good 20 minutes to do.
Then I drive the better part of an hour across Toronto to the Don Valley. The whole time, I’m wondering if I attached the rack properly, continuously checking the rear-view mirror to make sure my bike hasn’t liberated itself on the highway.
All that to then get to the trail where I ride, badly. Until recently, I had no idea how bad I was at mountain biking.
I was, to borrow the old learning ladder, unconsciously incompetent … I didn’t know I sucked.
Now I’m consciously incompetent. I know precisely how much I suck.
My goal isn’t to compete in the next X-Games or even turn this into my adrenaline-fuelled hobby. I just want to become a consciously competent beginner.
And, possibly not in that order, to not die.
My coach Vince is an IT guy by day who loves helping beginners get a little less terrible. He’s taught me a lovely little frame for tackling the scary bits, and it comes in three parts.
The Pre-Ride
You get off the bike and walk the tricky sections. You go slowly, take a look around, and you pre-guess what gear that steep climb might need.
It’s a first date with the trail — low stakes, just getting acquainted.
The Re-Ride
Now you put your hard-won knowledge to work. What did I fumble in the pre-ride? How do I do that bit better?
You might re-ride, and re-ride, and re-ride again.
The Free Ride
You’ve got the right gear, the right body position, and the right mindset.
You’re no longer bracing, but enjoying it for what it is.
Pre-ride, re-ride, free ride. So much funkier than “consciously incompetent.”
I could simply not do this. I’m a grown adult with a perfectly good life full of things I’m already good at.
Nobody is making me wobble down a river valley feeling like a fraud.
And that, I think, is exactly why I should.
Most of us arrange our lives to stay inside the zone of what we’ve already mastered. It’s comfortable there.
But it’s also where the edge goes dull.
So here’s my gentle nudge: go be bad at something on purpose.
The awkwardness of being incompetent is the very thing that keeps us sharp.
