How old are you?
Young age brings a sense of invulnerability.
Have you ever been hurt doing a physical activity?
Once you experience some fear or pain, things might change.
Did you look at your video?
You kind of sit in the middle of the bike all the time. Not that good. I give the bike a lot of credit for your speeds, and your lack of fear helps, too.
I have many, many things to say about this. I'm still new to this whole "being in the public eye" thing, so I apologize if something I say comes across as abrasive or defensive - it is because of my developing communication skills.
First off, looks can be deceiving. Passing judgment on what was going through someone's mind based off two minutes of footage isn't a useful endeavor. You might be able to see what I see for those two minutes, but you can't feel what I feel, and it leaves out everything that happened off-camera leading up to that event. I was having issues with my gas tank all day. The mounts were worn, and when I tried to get into cornering position in the braking zones I was sliding all over the bike. I decided to switch up my strategy and hit the problem from a new angle. I decided to constantly pinch the tank with my legs in order to prevent the sliding. I did this in my last session only, which is the session you see here. It resulted in my fastest times.
Second, age doesn't matter. Based on principal, I will refrain from answering that question. What matters is that we have the intellectual and emotional maturity to understand that we are only human, and as such, we are vulnerable. There do exist young individuals - people we'd colloquially refer to as "kids" - who display levels of intellectual and emotional maturity greater than those three or four times their age. I work with many of them.
I have been physically traumatized several times in my life. But when we encounter our limits, and it bites us, we have a choice to make:
- Do we tell ourselves that this is our limit, and that we shouldn't ever come back here, that it's not worth it?
Do we tell ourselves that our mistakes could have been prevented, if only we had known better? Then, do we dust ourselves off and try again? Do we take a step back, analyze our faults, take corrective action, make ourselves better, faster, stronger, and hit the problem harder?
I believe the choice we make depends on the value that we attribute to exploration in that particular area of our lives. For me, going fast is important. It's important to me because it's the realest physical manifestation of the values that I believe in - challenging ourselves, exploring our limits, becoming one with our surroundings, unlocking that higher level of consciousness.
I know that my fleshy bag of mostly water (read: body) is much squishier than hard steel and asphalt. I know that I can't go fast if I'm broken and bleeding. I planned and prepped accordingly.
I don't care if anyone personally dislikes me for what I did, thinks I'm stupid, or whatever. Like I said before, this isn't about me. I think it's in the fact that I knew I was doing this for a cause greater than myself that I found the courage to face my fear, and conquer it.
because I didn't have safety wire to double-secure the GoPros per the AFM rules.
edt - also, how'd you get away with the camera mounted on your helmet?
