Have you ever tried to get your friends to try tracklocross?
You show them a video.
They watch and say something like, “That looks fun.”
They follow up with, “I can’t do that, though.”
They haven’t even tried the bike yet, let alone been offroad with a fixed gear bike. They haven’t tried a skid stop. They haven’t ridden over roots. They haven’t even tried a steep hill.
The flip from fun to not being able to do it is fascinating; why is the threshold to riding tracklocross more than a physical one? The bike is simple, and you ride it somewhere stupid. The bike should not be a conceptual barrier. Yet tracklocross looks so difficult to enter.
Someone encountering tracklocross from outside sees fixed gears, strange bicycles, skids, people riding inappropriate terrain, weird gearing discussions, possibly brakeless bikes, subcultural clothing, references to obscure bicycle brands, people apparently enjoying being thrown around forests, and photographs making everything look far more competent than the average first attempt actually feels.
Stepping over the tracklocross threshold
I’m not going to say tracklocross is easy. In fact, I’d argue, and I have, that the difficulty in tracklocross is what makes it fun. Yet this difficulty isn’t what stops people from starting; it is the difficulty of seeing yourself as part of the culture.
When you showed someone the video, you more than likely showed them someone looking confident on the bike. A successful skid stop, speeding between trees; what you didn’t show was the years of riding that went into that clip. They didn’t see the bit where your front wheel slipped out on the wet piece of moss on the grey Tuesday in mid-November. For the tracklocurious, their self-efficacy is the first door they need to open.
Self-efficacy is where people believe they are able to carry out an action. Two equally competent cyclists can come to a technical bit of downhill, and both perceive it differently. One could see themselves ride it, and the other could see no way they could ride it.
Which brings us back to the video. When people watch the video, they see the riders as more skilled and knowledgeable than themselves. They don’t see themselves as comparable to that person, and for vicarious experience to do its work, they need to see the riding as attainable.
With tracklocross, before you can even ride a trail, you must perceive riding a fixed gear bike offroad as something you can do. Culturally, then, does tracklocross afford participation, or does it offer itself only to people who already look like tracklocross riders?
The doorway to tracklocross
Imagine there are two doors. One says PUBLIC ENTRANCE. The other is blank, it is sticker bombed, and there is a group of people hanging around who are all talking to each other and seem to be a crew. Both doors are technically open to anyone, but there does seem to be a difference. That difference is about how we read environments for cues about expected behaviour, membership and legitimacy.
One tells you that you can go through, and the other requires an almost immediate interpretation. This is the entry point to tracklocross. We might discuss how inclusive it is, how there are fewer rules, and how everyone is allowed to participate. Which is us talking about the public entrance and believing that is what we are showing. The reality is the blank door is the one we are showing.
There is a whole culture behind tracklocross, and that brings cultural richness. Messenger culture. Brakeless riding. Track bikes. Skids. Alleycats. Hipster jokes. Bike nerd arcana. Streetwear. Subcultural aesthetics. Technical language. All of this brings a beauty to fixed gear riding and a rich culture. It does, though, make it feel like you are joining a movement rather than just riding a bike.
Then you add offroad cycling to fixed gear riding, and the tracklocurious have more doors to open. They now have two cultures to interpret before they can be part of the weird world of offroad fixed gear riding.
Tracklocross doesn’t require mastery of fixed gear cycling plus mastery of mountain biking. It creates its own problem space. As a beginner, you do not need to be fully formed. If you wish to identify as a tracklocross rider, you do so by encountering tracklocross problems.
Now, you could say I’m contradicting myself here. It reads like I’m saying, go through the PUBLIC ENTRANCE and eventually you can be part of the crew at the other door. Which is simply putting a cultural hierarchy in place. Ultimately, you can use the PUBLIC ENTRANCE forever and choose to enter the other door if you want. Both are authentic participation.
We get hobbies backwards
Competence is not the price of admission. Competence is what participation produces. When we are scrolling the internet, platforms tend to highlight presentable competence, and we then believe that we need to be competent to start. Because of this we are putting ourselves in an impossible place.
There is also an age split here. We expect adults to be competent at their hobbies, and even to arrive at new hobbies competent. Kids, though, are allowed to be incompetent. A child falls off a skateboard, and we all understand that they are learning. A 45-year-old man falls off a skateboard, and they feel they are surrounded by judgment.
Modern leisure culture has become strangely hostile to incompetence. Hobbies quickly turn into identities, performances, improvement projects or content.
Tracklocross should preserve the right to be bad at something.
You should go and ride a fixed gear bike in the woods; you might fall, you might dab a foot, you might stall on a climb. Accept these as parts of the possible friction of tracklocross. If you can do that, then you will have found a form of freedom. You are not then going to have to use competence to justify participation.
The beginner bike commitment
Did you know that if you buy a fixed gear bike in order to ride tracklocross, the bike is not solely a tracklocross bike? If you hate tracklocross, the bike can be a good low maintenance commuter. It can also be used to nip out to buy a coffee. You can go for a cruise along a canal towpath to clear your mind. You are not committed to becoming a tracklocross rider, or a fixie hipster, by buying a fixed gear bike.
For many people, starting a hobby is about buying an identity.
If I buy the climbing shoes, I must become A Climber.
If I buy the skateboard, I must become A Skateboarder.
If I build the fixed gear, I must become A Fixed Gear Person.
This idea is more than likely perpetuated by advertising and media. Look at mainstream cycling media and how much stuff it will tell you to buy to become a cyclist. Mainstream cycling media says the way into your identity is consumption; I’m saying it is through experience.
I’m going to tell you this: buying a bike that can be used for tracklocross does not mean you have to be a Tracklocross Rider. You can simply ride the bike today. You can even ride tracklocross on it, but you can resist the affirmation, “I am a Tracklocross Rider” if you want.
By avoiding the affirmation, we avoid the obligation. If you don’t remove the obligation, then who are you if you haven’t ridden a fixed gear bike offroad recently? You don’t have to think of how far you rode, or if the ride was “legitimate”. Identity creates rules, and then adds them to the doorway of participation.
All that we need is:
I rode my bike in the woods today.
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