To get straight to the point, this will be my last regular post on The Mountain Bike Life. I’ll continue to be an editor behind the scenes, but I’ve reached a point where I have to refocus creatively on other projects. It’s also time to come clean with myself and our readers and admit that I’m not, not really, a mountain biker. Not like the other authors of this blog.

Riding on down the trail.

The truth is, The Mountain Bike Life – with or without capitals – has never been my life. I enjoy mountain biking, but it’s not my life, and I can’t see it ever becoming more to me than A) something I do to spend time with Rivers and B) one of the long list of things I enjoy doing to move my body. The Mountain Bike Life is his reality, and his dream. I’m happy for him that it is reaching a point of momentum – the fabulous team is established, the readership growing, the content is varied. It’s a good time for me to move on and invest more of my time and energy in projects that further my own dreams and goals. I’m sure I’ll be back now and then after some of our awesome adventures – high on my dream list is completing a trip with Sacred Rides, and you know I’ll be begging to write a guest post here when that happens.

Thank you to those who have read my posts so far, especially those who have commented, shared, and +1’d what I had to say. That means a lot to me, especially because throughout much of this process I have felt like a fraud. My friend Lauren writes brilliantly about imposter syndrome, and that feeling has held sway over this whole project for me. I have lived in the fear that people will realise I’m not ‘really’ a mountain biker, that I am always reaching to come up with relevant content, and that I don’t really have any expertise. I suppose I wasn’t really fooling anyone, but the pretense was wearing on me. I am a writer. I am an editor. I am a writing teacher. All of those tasks have come into play here, they were just used for content that I am not an expert in.

More my dream – digging my pedicured toes into warm warm sand.

I want to be clear – I like mountain biking. I wish I had more opportunity to get out to ride and more people to ride with. I will continue to ride, to look for a bike that fits me better, and to find people besides Rivers I am comfortable riding with, but it is not my life. And I’m eager to stop pretending that it is.