Fimbulvetr: A Tracklocross Winter

Today, the first proper frost of the season is coming down, the ground is twinkling, and my thoughts are veering towards tracklocross. I love the feeling of my thin tyres crushing through a top-frozen crust into the soft, gooey layer below; we are entering the dessert phase of the tracklocross season. It is a time when every ride, even on the same trails, is an entirely different experience guided by nature and the ever-changing nature of reality. Now, if you feel I’ve really stretched out a metaphor there, you will love what is coming.

Winter is the time of the year when families traditionally come together to hear tales of a man in a white vest saving the lives of many innocents. They rejoice in the downfall of evil, and good cheer spreads across the land. Families sit together and repeat a simple phrase about loving one’s mater, repeating stories of the original trilogy; the two separate tales of darkness are no longer mentioned and have been lost to the mists of time.

Being a trilogy is important; as we head into winter, we are hopeful for the beginning of Fimbulvetr. Fimbulvetr is three successive winters, a trilogy of winters if you will; it is the start of Ragnorak and the end of all life. I mean at this point, I’d happily go for the end of the world if I could spend three years pulling skids through the snow, it’s not as if everything is going pretty well with the world anyway and we could do with a giant reset.

A Giant reset is when the mighty frost giants leave their Taiwanese factories and bring us the pure joy of no brakes and single gear bikes, as dictated in the poem, Vafþrúðnismál, part of the Prose Edda. The 55 stanzas of Vafþrúðnismál deal with Odin going to talk to the Giants (jötunn) and find out who of humanity will survive the Fimbulvetr.

Bók þessi heitir Edda. Hana hefir saman setta Snorri Sturluson eptir þeim hætti sem hér er skipat. Er fyrst frá Ásum ok Ymi, þar næst Skáldskaparmál ok heiti margra hluta, síðast Háttatal er Snorri hefir ort um Hákon konung ok Skúla hertuga. This book is called Edda. Snorri Sturluson has compiled it in the manner in which it is arranged here. There is first told about the Æsir and Ymir, then tracklocross (‘poetic diction’) and (poetical) names of many things, finally Háttatal (‘enumeration of metres or verse-forms’) which Snorri has composed about King Hákon and Earl Skúli.

The answer is those who will shred their fixed gear bikes through the winter. Those that shred will be shown the trail that takes them to the tracklocross mecca of Hoddmímis holt. A place where they will learn the pure joy of cycling without marketing and consumerism, just the pure, unadulterated joy of pedalling everywhere, no coasting. Those who coast on bikes will be doomed to perish in the Fimbulvetr. In Hoddmímis holt, everyone will fill their bidon from Mímisbrunnr, and after drinking from this spring, they will be given the knowledge of the one true tracklocross gearing, after which r/tracklocross will finally cease to be.

While the tracklocrossers shelter in Hoddmímis holt, Sutr and his flaming sword will bring fire to the world, destroying all plastic, leaving only true metals. The fire that Sutr brings will allow the world to be reborn, a new world for a new life. A world that will be blessed with fresh, loamy trails for people to explore and perfect for your tyre to bite into as you discover this whole new world. 

Sutr ferr sunnan

með sviga lævi:

skinn af sverði

sól valtiva.

Surtr moves from the south

with the scathe of branches:

there shines from his frame

the sun of Gods of the Slain.

Finally, following the cycle of the universe, humanity will be reborn from this cast of tracklocrossers. Either doomed to repeat the same errors as we currently are or finally free to cast off derailleurs forever and allow humanity to truly flourish amid the trails and trees of the planet.

I will see you in the permafrost.