One way to look at it

First off, let me apologize for the distinct lack of content lately. Winter's ending, I have sweet fuck-all to talk about, mainly because I have no (nice, cool) bike to modify and obsess over. I WILL produce this spring, I promise.

Random thoughts: Right now, the status quo for street/park/jump mountain bikes is singlespeed, rear brake only, hardtail. Any deviance is met with questions and/or admonishments, depending on who sees it.

I started of riding with 2 brakes and gears. No good for for the gears, I rode and still ride a lot of XC and commuting, but I found out I can do both without gears. The front brake, I like doing tricks with. As I broke shit, I eventually reverted to the standard singlespeed, wishing I had gears. I took the rear brake off for a summer, that was really cool. Went brakeless for a week, killed my tires and terrified myself, finally reached the balance point. Despite my best ambitions to the contrary, I ended up with a singlespeed mountain bike with only the rear brake. I dabbled in front brakes, never lasted (because I would fuck it up, I still like using them), and so on.

But things change. Time passed, I got used to it. Kept riding trails and street, even tried brakeless again! The weight bug hit me (that's another blog for another day), and I had other shit to worry about. Now I find myself about to put gears on, from a funny situation. I have a singlespeed hub and BMX cranks (Primo cranks, know how hard it is to make that work?). People are asking me why I'm putting gears on (why not? It's a mountain bike and it'll go faster!), rather than the opposite.

I came to the interesting conclusion the other day; people asked me similiar questions whenever I rode brakeless. Why am I really putting gears on? At risk of another autbiography, my riding this season really went in the wrong direction. Spinning is cool, and I learned a lot of that, but I was going in the direction of tech everything, rather than what I'd like to be doing, fast stuff, gaps, no fakie, just balls-out speed and flowing. I put gears on, instantly I'm going faster, and I can't do fakies anymore. Perfect. Now I have to 360 where I would 180, now I clear 15 feet where I was clearing 10 before. To sum up, it's a new challenge. I have to adapt my style, right down the basic way I approach riding my bike (not tricks, just riding it). Much like going brakeless.

tl;dr brakeless is the same thing as gears.

Think about it. Weird, eh?