Ammi Midstokke: The anatomy of a bad idea
I was pushing my bike when it happened this time.
It doesn’t happen often, but when it does happen, I am usually already home or safe or in that space of wise and informed reflection that becomes available after you survive a thing and recognize it was a bad idea.
This time, I was aware I was actively pursuing the bad idea while I was still in the middle of said bad idea and now the bad idea could not be quit for a better idea. Also, better ideas are merely decoy ideas that seldom result in anything better at all, only longer stories, later dinners, and something my dad still refers to as a “short cut,” which has never cut anything short except perhaps his marriage to my mother.
As most people know, bikes are designed for riding. Even the very first bicycles, wooden and without pedals, were ridden. In 1853, a German by the name of Philipp Moritz Fischer invented the very first Tretkurbelfahrrad: A bike on which you crank the pedals to propel the wheel. In my extensive research on the subject via Wikipedia, I found no history of a bike designed for pushing up a hill.
It’s not that I’ve never pushed my bike before. I seldom admit defeat and even more seldom admit to it. Though there’s usually snow involved or a big tree root or some intimidating rock feature and I’m reminded of how expensive my teeth are. I’ll pop off my bike, make sure no one saw, and then pedal on my merry way.
On this day of the Bad Idea No. 821 – which, if we’re honest, looked like a bad idea from the beginning – I was schlepping, cajoling, dragging, lugging, pulling, and pushing my bike more than I was riding it. Thankfully, no one was around to see. There were some intermittent trickeries of topography suggesting I could ride again, only to disappoint me around the next corner.
The anatomy of bad ideas and my pursuit of them lies in the lack of checks in the system. There’s no separation of power. I am responsible for the decision, accountable to implement it, and consult with my own unreliable mind or lunatic friends. Often, someone has done the same dumb thing before and I have a map to follow. Also, I try to do it when my husband isn’t looking.
That’s how I decided it was a good idea to ride my bike up and over one mountain, then up and over another mountain. Schweitzer Mountain, in fact. People do this, though I suspect they train for it, and when I consulted with my trainer self, she said, “It’ll probably be fine.”
That’s her most common advice.
Like an untethered politician, I come up with the craziest, most fringe ideas that would cause panic and protest in the majority of the population if they believed me. They assume I’m insane, incompetent, and incapable, and probably joking. I’m halfway through implementation before anyone asks, “Wait, was that serious?”
Yes, folks, it is. Let’s just assume it’s appropriate to hit the panic button earlier rather than later.
The climb toward the Sky House of Schweitzer starts on a meandering road along a creek with a docile and tenable grade. There are cedar trees and rushing water and those earthy smells that waft from shadowed forests and cool the body. I don’t know when it starts getting steep, but after a time it does not stop getting steep. It’s a 16-mile climb that gets invisibly worse, noted in the fact that you’ve run out of low gears to drop into.
One gets a distorted perception of grade after a while, and starts looking back wondering if it is indeed as steep as it feels. True, there’s a canyon stretching out for miles below you, but you’re not really sure where you came from or where you’re going, only that it seems to be taking much longer than anticipated and you’re almost out of those caramel waffles you think placate even the worst misery (they do not).
I was also alone, so I had no idea if I was fast or slow, but the arrival of muscle cramps suggested I wasn’t able to go any faster. Not the odd angry foot kind, either: the kind that had me watching the ripples of my quad like some creature from Alien was going to emerge out of my flesh. But also my calves, some unnamed muscle on my shin, my left foot, my right hand, and my triceps.
Every half mile or so, I would flop onto the ground in a twisted supine lump and flail about clutching this or that body part and wailing as quietly as I could. I was acutely aware that I was prime cougar food, lying maimed on the side of a road. Crispy on the edges from the sun, fine layer of salt, tenderized flanks.
Commitment to the bad idea is part of what makes it bad. We bad idea-ers have a belief that upon the other side of the bad idea lies a “worth it” so powerful, the idea will be redeemed. This is a farce. Sometimes, we’re so far into the bad idea that it morphs into the only idea, so you try to convince yourself it is actually good. This is not a good idea, which is not the same as a bad idea, but close.
As I pushed my bike to the last switchback, I saw a structure that told me I was in-bounds of the resort. It felt almost like hope until I peered up the dusty, rocky, even-steeper ridge toward the summit. Not that I could see it yet. Just a dirt-cloud following a train of UTVs that waved at me as they motored on by. Not a bad idea.
I drug myself like a filth-coated sloth up the terrain, leaning on my handlebars in exhausted dejection. When I finally made it to the top, there were couples sitting on benches, families having picnics and taking pictures, clean people coming in and out of the restaurant. I hobbled by on blistered feet and ignored the view they were all enjoying. I’d seen it before, and it was definitely not worth it.
While considering my own ride back down the mountain and the pressure-wash I needed once I got home, I noticed other bikers. Throngs of them in their armor and full-faced helmets. They were laughing and chatting like they were actually having fun. They hooted and high-fived as they pulled their bikes off the chairlift that had carried them to the top, then they rung their bells as they descended the playful trails all the way down the mountain and back to their cars.
And that is what a good idea looks like.
Ammi Midstokke can be reached at ammim@spokesman.com.