There are numerous things to note about life in a bike town.
Many you might expect. More bike shops, and better ones, than you would normally see in a regional town. There are many bike-related businesses located in the town for the obvious reasons. Distributors. Designers. Skills teachers. Trail builders. In the example I live in, there are even two suspension specialists.
All these activities are here in my home town because right on the edge of the joint there is a forest full of trails.
What you may not expect, and this is a feature of town that still amuses me after a quarter century of living here, is that almost all professional relationships are with fellow bike riders. And not because they are selected on that basis. The odds are that if a professional chooses to live here, the outdoors will be a big factor in the reasons why. And if you are going to be an outdoors person around here, there is a solid chance you will be some sort of mountain biker. So it follows that many contacts in the day-to-day are also likely to be seen out in the trails.
The first professional I encountered when we moved here, while we were still living on and off in a campground, was a doctor. I went to see her because I had munted my shoulder by going over the bars, and had the extreme good fortune to get an appointment with a woman who has become a great friend. I knew she was likely to be a great doctor when she listened to my tale of woe then said that isn’t so bad, check this out: and proceeded to pull her shirt aside so the row of screws in her clavicle popped up in clear relief. She had busted herself mountain biking. For the next twenty seven years we have compared notes about our rides every time I have needed medical care.
Since then I have become acquainted with accountants, bankers, lawyers and physiotherapists, all of whom are dead keen mountain bikers.
Not to mention the nurse, the radiologist, the anaesthetist, and the emergency department doctor who dealt with me on one incredible visit to the hospital. All mountain bikers. My get-up made it obvious what I had been doing to snap my clavicle, but the novelty was talking to a series of people who wanted to know which trail, and where on the trail, and oh yes, that bit. They knew exactly where I had binned it.
The latest example of this trend is another medical professional.
When I got on her roster she had just moved here. When we met we discussed the marvels of the forest, among other aspects of her new home town.
She reckoned she loved the forest, but couldn’t imagine going in there on a bike - too dangerous.
I only get to see her once or twice a year. Around the time of our second or third appointment it turned out that bikes were now on the agenda, and she was riding a few of the forestry roads with her crew and really enjoying them.
The next time the Forest Loop was the favourite.
On my latest checkup I learned that they had moved on to full suspension bikes, and were loving Grade 3 trails, like really fizzing about a couple of them.
It is currently pollen season, and she has really bad hay fever. She reckoned if she had known how bad the pine pollen was she might never have have moved here.
But with those trails right next door, there is no way she would move away now!
REPRINTED FROM AN ARTICLE BY GAZ IN NEW ZEALAND MOUNTAIN BIKER MAGAZINE