A grumpy mountain bikers appeal to ‘mountain bike couples’

There’s a look. A facial expression.

Whether or not you realise it, the look exists.

Words by Ric McLaughlin.

You’ll have a preset collection of various looks for a set of scenarios which you barely even consciously realise exist.

I recently deployed one such number from said dusty back catalogue. It was the “Two blokes catching each others eye whilst browsing through Valentine’s Day cards in Tesco’s” look.

It consists of a slight curling of the right corner of your mouth, sunken shoulders and a very, very faint roll of the eyes. A small, barely perceptible contortion of muscular tissue which somehow acknowledges that yes, this truly is a load of horse shit.

“this truly is a load of horse shit.”

Not just regular horse shit either, the stuff from a dead one with a runny bum. The last voiding of the bowels of a beast grown sick of this world and all it’s aggressive intestinal bacteria. It’s the Valentines Day look.

How best to reaffirm to the man or woman to whom you are morally and fiscally attached that your feelings still haven’t changed. All communicated via the medium of red glitter, hearts and a cartoon teddy bear that looks like it may have had a romantic tryst with the underside of a bus.

“The last voiding of the bowels of a beast grown sick of this world and all it’s aggressive intestinal bacteria.”

It stinks. The whole thing stinks and could well be the most flagrant waxing of £3.99 you’ll perform this year.

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But there are worse things poised to crawl forth from this disgusting froth of bath bombs and petrol station flora. Those who feel the need to share it. Or worse again still, those mountain biking couples who feel the need to share it.

You see sharing is what we now do. A cynic would say that the vast array of apps, omnipotent cameras and a whole host of delightfully shit little cartoons which, when used in their hundreds, can often replace the need to deploy an actual word have produced an online society all too quick to share.

Go on, open your social media feed, see how many thumb cycles it takes to hit upon “We don’t need a special day to tell each other that we’re in love because…”. Jesus, I can’t even finish that. Sorry. Some toast just came back up.

Their helmets thrust together, perhaps on a chairlift, getting ready to ‘drop in’…

“Some people go riding with their other halves. They even claim to enjoy it.”

Some people go riding with their other halves. They even claim to enjoy it. Apparently, the endless stopping and waiting, the pleas of ‘just go on without me’ and ‘why are you being such a dick about this?!’ just don’t exist.

To them every day, not just Valentine’s, is a hazy blur of dusty singletrack, magical ‘just so’ selfie moments and two-wheeled, hand-holding, fist-pumping wonderment. Bib-shorts duly moistened, they’ll escape to a cabin somewhere inaccessible except perhaps via zip-line or heart-shaped jet-ski where together they will mate with the gusto and verve presumably hitherto only experienced by pandas and/or Sting.

There’s probably a word for it but I guess they just call it ‘love’.

Dry heave.

Leave mountain biking alone. Please. I’m begging you. In the name of all the dine in for two for £10 meal deals and dead third century saints. Please. Leave riding bikes alone.

About the author. Ric McLaughlin is a mountain biker and journalist. When he’s not being a hopeless romantic you’ll find him writing for Red Bull or testing bikes for the MTB media.


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