Why you should brave the weather

Living on the West Coast of Canada, you get used to mountain biking in the wet and cold come winter. Well, unless you spend your weekends planted on your trainer like some sort of pampered cycling royalty. Usually it’s a matter of just convincing yourself to get out your door, amidst constant drizzle and the featureless grey skies. But sometimes the weather is especially anomalous, like it was on a recent weekend. Sumas Mountain, looming through the mist, took on medieval qualities as the rain pummelled down. The climb up was strange, with water cascading down the old logging road forming rivulets and cutting off the usual lines up the steeper sections. Then came the slush section, sucking out what energy we still possessed and numbing the extremities almost to the point that we had to turn back. But we forged on to the singletrack that led downward, where we were treated to a winding mud luge interspersed with hike-a-biking over downed trees from previous storm cycles. Spent, we made it back to the truck, an hour later than planned and missing the feeling in our fingers and toes. It was the wettest, coldest we had ever been on a bike. And yet, it was the best ride we had done in a long time because it gave us stories. It gave us a shared sense of triumph. Camaraderie. And really, that’s what biking is all about, and that’s why I will never duck out on a ride because of weather. You never know what you’ll miss.

Dwayne Friesen Dewdney, B.C.