Squiggies: Issue #17

This week... a mountain biking story.

Also: a bittersweet goodbye. 

🍽 The Main Course:  In With The New

Last year, when I turned 60, my husband surprised me with a new mountain bike.

A really nice one.

Lighter. Better suspension. Electronic shifters. Better geometry. Better everything, honestly.

And still…I cried a little.

Not because I didn’t want the new bike. I did. But because my old bike, Squiggy, had been with me since 2010.

Which means Squiggy had been there for a long stretch of my life.

We get attached to the things that witness long periods of our lives. Squiggy and I had history. I talked out loud to him. Thanked him when he helped get me through tough stuff. 

We’d done long climbs together. Muddy rides. Scary descents. Trails that made me feel strong. Trails that made me question every life decision that had led me to that exact moment. 

Over time, we learned exactly how to move together. I knew how much momentum I needed to get through sand. I knew when hesitation would ruin things. I knew how we handled switchbacks, roots, rocky sections, awkward climbs.

And then, suddenly… new bike.

I kept hearing, "You're going to LOVE your new bike!".

But I found myself defensive of Squiggy. “I don’t need all this fancy stuff.”

Sure, that was true. But mostly that was just my grief talking.

Not huge grief. Just the whisper of it that shows up when something familiar comes to an end.

~~~~~

A few weeks ago, Squiggy and I went for one last ride together. It was emotional. Like… deep appreciation mixed with a subtle sense of a chapter ending.

Squiggy had accompanied multiple versions of me over the years.

The younger version.
The more reckless version.
The version rebuilding confidence.
The version who felt strong.
The version who absolutely did not.

Maybe that’s why letting go felt so emotional.

~~~~~

Today, there’s the new bike.... Squiggy Too. We’re still bonding.

Some rides feel like the mountain bike equivalent of trying to parallel park someone else’s car.

But little by little, I’m noticing that trust is built through repetition.

A corner that felt scary suddenly doesn’t. A rocky section that felt clunky starts to flow. A descent that once required white-knuckling becomes almost automatic.

Some fear’s still there of course. But familiarity slowly starts to replace vigilance.

~~~~~

Mountain biking has this way of making certain things obvious. 

Like, if you stare directly at the tree you’re afraid of hitting, guaranteed your tire will drift toward it.

If you panic and stop pedaling in sand or mud, things get much harder very quickly.

If you freeze halfway through a technical section, you lose the little momentum that would’ve carried you through.

And maybe my favorite reminder lately:

A section of trail you’ve ridden successfully twenty times can suddenly feel hard again for no obvious reason.

You’re just a different person, a different nervous system, every single day. 

Which is frustrating when we expect ourselves to perform like a consistent machine instead of an actual human.

~~~~~

I don’t really have a neat ending for this.

It's just that the Squiggies made me think of how impatient we are with ourselves when something feels unfamiliar.

We expect confidence before familiarity.

But trust seems to work a little differently than that.

Sometimes it’s built one slightly wobbly ride at a time.

I suspect most of us have our own version of Squiggies somewhere.

❓Table Talk: Unfamiliar, not Personal

It’s amazing how quickly 'unfamiliar' can start feeling personal.

A body changes. A routine changes. Something that used to feel automatic suddenly doesn’t.

And almost immediately, we start turning that discomfort into a story about ourselves.

Maybe I’m getting worse.
Maybe I’ve lost something.
Maybe I should be handling this better by now.

I hear versions of this in conversations about food, body changes, aging, movement, and GLP-1 medications all the time.

But usually, unfamiliar is just… unfamiliar. Not proof that something has gone wrong.

🚲  Sweet Moment(s): Goodbye

Early days with Squiggy. 💖

Until next time - more dogs, less dogma. Always.

Carol

P.S. New here? Welcome! Curious about past issues? You can find them, here.