I’ve heard a saying that you can’t truly celebrate the exuberance of your victories without acknowledging the weight of your defeats. When I started typing, it seemed like a more poetic lead-in than “I f*cked up” but now it just seems disingenuous.

So, I messed up. No, not because I didn’t catch Claire when she stacked massively today. But, because I said I would. I’d been spotting her on this roll-in and the first two times she did it were perfect. Speed, form, line choice, brake control, rollout – all perfect. I’m guessing you know where this is going?

She was keen to roll in a third time and I asked if I could take a picture. No problem, just as long as I was prepared to step in as needed. “Of course, no problem.” What are the chances I’d be needed? The other two rolls were smooth-as. And if things went south at the top I’d have plenty of time to step in. Yeah…

And, lo, how I’ve been there before myself. The third run-in and confidence peaked. The Clairebarian attacked faster, braked later, and took a slightly spicier line at the same time and she was hitting the ground before I could drop the Olympus. My heart sinks in those moments when I’m picking up the pieces instead of saving the day and this was the former times one thousand. 

Sometimes when I watch Claire ride it’s easy to forget she’s a little kid. She’s so smooth, she attacks climbs, and her trail reading is impressive. But with our helmets off and her feet dangling in the air as she sobs into an ever deeper trail-side snuggle, I’m holding up a weight much heavier than my kid. It’s not the first time on a ride that I’ve had to remind myself she’s a little. 

In the end, she’s not hurt-hurt. Her knee pads did the job and the damage is contained to some scrapes on her shin. The tears are mostly exhausting the panic of the moment. Eventually, they give way to excitement over the fact that she used all her fork travel for the first time ever. And then she asks me to push her bike back up to the top for her. 

Roll-in number four doesn’t look anything like the others. There’s no smile at the top before she starts pedaling. She crawls into, down, and out of the feature with none of the confidence of her first three times. I start to step in because an OTB moment at the bottom seems imminent, but Claire rolls it out. 

She looks back and nods to the feature and we’re off. Gradually she gets smoother, faster, and more confident as we leave it in the distance. We’re a ways from done and when we roll out the bottom it is posts-up and a mix of single track and forest road climb to get to our next descent. Energy levels are obviously lower, but we grunt it out. 

There are a couple of janky features that she doesn’t ride on the day that she almost definitely would have checked off if it hadn’t been for her crash. “Next time.” How do you feel about the rock roll you crashed on? She shrugs, “Good.” And to her credit, when we stopped in to visit Gramma she didn’t immediately (immediately) rat me out for taking her picture while she was eating sh*t.