[ehnto]

Mountain biking is already on a huge uptick across the world, convenient timing I guess. As an avid rider, to use the terminology, I'm super stoked. We didn't previously have "bike parks" in Australia, but now we have a bunch. With a few lift access bike parks being developed on the ski resorts.

However, a fairly bitter pill to swallow this year was some parks I was looking forward to riding being caught in the Australian bushfires. One was a local park, and I look forward to helping rebuild it once it's safe.

It's a scary prospect for that to become the norm. Nature is dear to me. Being able to go riding in the forest is a pillar of my health, mental and physical. I have consistently been unable to ride this summer due to heatwaves and bushfire smoke. Occasionally I would make poor judgement, and leave to ride when it was clear only to be smoked out on the trails an hour later, from fires hundreds of kilometers away.