The human brain is full of stories. Stories about who we are and how we fit into the world, but mostly stories about what will come. Our gray matter is, quite famously, an association machine—it largely links the future to the past. We’re always looking ahead, always running predictions. Predictions that can cement into beliefs.

And, if you’re a mountain biker, some of your strongest beliefs might in fact be about how fast you are, because the main virtue of our sport is speed. Truly, the pastime that rules our lives, whether you’re a recreational rider or a racer, is an endless game of relative positioning. Someone is always out in front, it’s an unavoidable quirk of singletrack.

We are obsessed with rank and possessed by the idea that our personal value is wrapped up in it. As a result, so many of us are bogged down by the idea that we are slow. And that is a very difficult narrative to outrun because, unless you’re Valentina Höll or Jackson Goldstone, there’s always somebody faster. Which means that, as riders, we’re always stuck chasing, and that puts us right back to where our brains started 300,000 years ago.