If you ever get so busy you need to tell your friends you can’t make it to their events and happenings, you might feel inclined to tell them, “I’m lost in the woods.”
In the metaphorical sense, you’re not lying. It doesn’t matter if you’re literally in the woods, or not. The sensation may be the same when you’re walking in an unfamiliar place as when you’re juggling work-life and private-life.
You could always say you’ve “gone surfing,” but the aura of this phrase is way different from, “lost in the woods.”
It’s a lot more playful to say you’ve gone surfing. So, if you’re trying to convey a sense of how much is piling up in your life, you can let your friends know how far you’ve gone into the trees.
Hopefully you have a good close friend who will offer to help you find your way back out.
It’s no fun to be overwhelmed with stuff you are required to do, especially if there are lots of things you’d like to do.
I’m going to sum this up in a breezy way, though I promise it’s not meant to be thoughtlessly disrespectful.
If you are in the woods, but you’d rather be surfing, remember surfboards can be made of wood. Make that metaphorical surfboard and turn your forests into ocean swells.
One aspect of riding bikes in the dirt is that there will always be opportunities to make the trail better. At times, the trail may need to be made safer, such as removing huge trees which have fallen. Other times there may be a need to divert water off, or away from, the trail. And then there’s the really fun way of making trails better: adding features.
Of course adding features is the fun part, but the safety part really does come first. The last thing anyone wants is for the newbies to get hurt. They’re the future of sports, so we want to make the trails safe for them.
Before I get you thinking that making a trail safe is all about removing hazards, let me make it clear, that’s not always the case. In the case of a tree falling across a trail, especially if it’s on a turn, or down a drop, or anywhere it’s not visible right away, then it has to be removed so people don’t get killed. Some obstacles can be left on the trail and made safe by signs warning any riders that a significant obstacle is coming up.
In fact, some of the best trails have difficult sections and easy sections, so anyone and everyone, no matter their skill level, can enjoy them.
All that said, the point of this article is to get people interested in making their own features to make the trails near them better.
Do you enjoy jumps? With a shovel and some water you can make some sweet jumps. Mound up the dirt. Get it a little wet, then smack it into the shape you want.
Do you enjoy berms? These beauties can be shaped with the same tools as are used to make jumps.
Do you enjoy riding skinnies? A good skinny can take a bit more craftsmanship, but the tools can be as simple as a hatchet or as complicated as a chainsaw and a drill. The most complicated is of course by using no nails or screws.
Do you enjoy bridges? These are like skinnies, except usually wide enough so riders can pass each other going opposite directions. They require some carpentry skill to build properly.
Dirt and wood are what the above are commonly made of, but there is a way to build all of the above using rocks. To make jumps, berms, skinnies, and bridges out of rocks takes a huge amount of patience as well as a great deal of spatial recognition. If you don’t have either of those, start small until you’ve developed those skills. Otherwise, stick to building with dirt and wood.
The last feature I want to bring to your attention is the seesaw. It’s what is pictured at the beginning of this article. They can be built right, and they can be built poorly. The good ones are balanced in such a way as to return to one side or the other but never hover above the ground. In other words, one side is weighted so the rider knows to enter on that side.
If you’re not sure what any of the previously mentioned features are, you can check your local YouTube…or you can check your local trail system. I bet you can guess which one I would recommend.
June is bike month. Bike month begins with beautiful weather. It’s difficult to spend any time indoors on an electronic device when the trails are beckoning and the weather is fabulous.
But first…
…it’s time to invite some friends.
The trails are calling my name, your name, everyone’s name, so we may as well make it a group event.
Let’s go ride a bike.
Sure biking can be done solo, but isn’t it so much more fun with some friends? Isn’t it much better with a group, especially if the group is full of people you love/admire/respect?
As many of my biking friends do, I have a project bike.
It’s fun for some of us to crank on a bike and make it closer to what we dream of a bike being. Not only that, but it’s fun to see what different styles of bikes are out there (see just about any of my previous articles on bikes) and to find one you like. It’s fun to make an old bike new or to restore a classic.
Well, I suppose I should be more accurate and say I HAD a project bike. Mine blew up the other day when I was just messing around on it. Praise the Good Lord I wasn’t in the mountains, I was just tooling around town when it exploded, so there wasn’t far to go after the horrific accident.
Okay, more honesty: I’m begging for sympathy here. There was no horrific accident. It was more of a traumatic moment specifically located in my brain. Sad really. I spent a lot of time building up the bike only to have the frame give out on me. Granted it’s an old bike frame. Things like that don’t last forever.
So, now what? Like those friends I mentioned do, I’ll start over, find another frame, start putting things together and have myself a new project bike. By the way, my bike had no seat. That’s because I wasn’t quite done yet. I had everything but the seat. In fact, my ride when the frame broke was intended to get me to the local bike shop so I could get a seatpost fitted and then a seat. Hopefully next time I can finish.
Anyone can be an art teacher. Watch me do it. Free lesson!
Rule number one: art is everywhere, all around us. Along with that, anything you call art IS ART! Bammo, whamo! Now you know, you can go color something with crayons. A wall, a window, the wood slats under your bunk bed, it doesn’t matter. Crayons are most great artists’ inroductory medium.
Pens and pencils may be next, though some folks may argue that charcoal is before those.
Charcoal can be interesting because it works on most surfaces. Charcoal and chalk work well on concrete. To remove it, just wait for rain.
Pencils are great because you can erase the lines and shades you made. If you use an eraser, just remember to not erase too hard near the edge of the paper or you could rip it. That’s probably rule number two, but who’s counting these silly rules anyway?
Here’s another thing about art: it should be about stuff you like. So, for instance, if you happen to like cars you should either paint cars or paint cars, you know what I mean? Some people really like train cars because I see they paint train cars a lot. There are miles of paint, and miles and miles of art. Perhaps too there’s something satisfying about having your art travel to other states, other countries. Paint your mural and say goodbye.
Then again, maybe you’re not about any of those things.
Possibly you want to enjoy your own art and don’t care much for an audience. Make some art and keep it in your sock drawer. Ain’t nobody looking in there but you.
Rule number whatever is this: make your own thing. Copying other people’s art is fine, to a point. It can help you be artistic. It doesn’t make you an artist though. An artist has to have a measure of creativity, and a dose of originality. The ability to make your own art will give you a sense of accomplishment as well as the satisfaction of knowing you can make what no one else can. Art cred is found in the thing no one else thought of doing—until they saw yours.
Xenosthesia.com 