Oh, the Terror and the Thrill! By Aidan

Hello, my name is Aidan. I am Judy’s grandson. She has asked me to write a blog post for her and so here it is.

First, I need to explain a few things. I live in Montana. In Montana the mountains are gigantic, there is no sales tax, it snows in June, and everybody is left a little bit crazed after spending nine months mainly inside because of the sub-zero temperatures. When you combine all of these things with a predominantly athletic population, you end up with things like downhill mountain biking.

My family moved to Montana on June 19, 2019. On June 20 it snowed. It actually snowed, and moving from Texas, my family had no experience with snow other than a few distant memories from our ski vacations.

Luckily for us it soon began to hail, then rain and then subside. I couldn’t believe my eyes—all in an hour.

Adapting to Montana

I spent the rest of that year trying to learn and adapt to Montana culture. To do so I played lacrosse, which is fun and all, but for someone who doesn’t like running, it’s too much. This decision left me without a hobby, and without friends with common interests. ,

About a month into my athletic decline, my friend’s dad said that his son was going to join NICA, which is a youth mountain biking program. I had never heard of something like this--using a mountain bike for its intended purpose. How absurd!

So I decided to try it out. My dad got me a bike—a free 1993 Trek 8000, but a bike—and I loved it. It was thrilling to ride, and brilliantly bad at being comfortable. Soon I had ridden it up and down our long driveway a couple times, and I thought I was ready for mountain biking season.

I wasn’t.

My dad decided to take me up to Big Sky ski resort to test my new skills. We chose the “most fun” trail that the guys at the bike shop could think of and we were off. Oh, but “we were certainly not about to go on those bikes? Were we?” said the bike shop employee who looked the most experienced in local craft indulgence.

Why couldn’t we ride our bikes? It seems we needed to ride something with rear suspension. Something like these, the latest KONA enduro model. He was very correct--the climb on our bikes would be fine, but the descent would be terrible.

Too scared to see straight

So there we sat at the top of the arch that is the mountains to meadows trail on our freshly rented carbon bikes. I, admittedly, was too scared to see straight, which would have been handy. So we descended onto the onslaught of trees, switchbacks, and jumps.

I came up on a sheer monster of a jump that stood as tall as my father with only the necessity of survival in my mind. I realize now that this jump was likely only about three feet tall, but it seemed much more at the time.

At the moment of release from the biggest dirt jump I had ever hit, I realized I had never really hit a bike jump before, and proceeded to “learn.” My dad always says that “if you’re not falling, you’re not learning.” Fortunately for me, I was not falling.

Flying off a cliff

I landed 20 feet later, screaming bloody murder. We continued to have experiences like this until we stopped, because our hands had gone numb from the vibrations.

It was at this moment that my dad realized how scared I was. My face, though, did not just consist of the utter terror of flying off a cliff. It was filled with overwhelming joy and excitement.

I realized that this is what adrenaline was and quickly ushered my dad back on to his bike. I had the time of my life, and only fell off one cliff. We reached the bottom breathless and on a high unlike any other I had ever had. I had fallen in love with the sport.

I am now a member of the NICA biking team and am currently coming up on yet another season. I am excited beyond words for it. I wouldn’t be here without the willingness to try new things and be scared, because I know it will be awesome in the end.

Fear is the price of admission for great accomplishments.

Aidan is (almost) 14, heading to high school in the fall. While he was in elementary school, he wrote features for the school paper. They were good, so I asked him to write for me. So now he has taken me up on my request. I bet you liked it.