Come Up Off The Seat

Are you white knuckling the handlebars of life and not even realizing it? Is it helping? Cherese shares about a time that doing exactly the opposite of what she thought would get her off of a mountain alive actually brought back joy.

Hey, friends, this is Cherese Lee and you're listening to the Just Waiting for You Podcast. Whether the sun is shining where you are in life today or you're walking through a crappy storm and you really wish you got some rain boots. The power of a story is sometimes all you need for that perspective shift. Hang out with us for a few minutes and find out what happens when you realize that someone is just waiting for you.

It's a story. It's just a story. So, soon after quarantine began in spring of 2020, we found ourselves in the same place most other people did. We were sitting around staring at each other. Now, there's a lot of us. My husband and I have five kids. They range in ages.

So, we had two high schoolers that weren't really used to being around a lot. We had a college kid who had come back home and was used to living on his own. And then we had our girls who were in elementary school at the time, and they were used to (of course like every kid) running ragged and being in every activity. So just like everyone else, we were starting to lose our collective minds.

So, my husband suggests that we get out the bikes, dust them off (they were very dusty), and take them up to the mountain. The nature-loving girl in me was like, “yes, let's do it.” I want to be outside. Let's get these kids outside. I love riding a bike! I mean, listen, your girl could really run the hot pink banana seat all over Bland Road and Grandview Avenue in my grownup days.

So, in my head, I think I was like, “oh, we're going to, like, go ride bikes at the park.” Not paying attention to the part where he said we’re going to take the bikes to the mountain. This was not my first experience with mountain biking. It definitely was not his first rodeo. But when I realized we were going to the mountain, I had to admit I have a little bit of PTSD.

Let me tell you just a little snippet about the first time I ever went mountain biking. So, Brandon and I were dating. We were in college and Brandon's family had taken up mountain biking while he was away at school, namley his dad and his brother. They found it to be a great way to spend time together in the evenings. It helped him get healthy.

Let me also tell you something about my beloved Lee family. They have two speeds - all or nothing. My sister-in-law and I refer to our husbands lovingly as our sledgehammers. They just plow through life, and that can be really fun. It can also be a little daunting. So anyways, I'm home for Thanksgiving break and Brandon says, I'm going to go mountain biking tonight after my dad gets off work with my dad and my brother. You should come.

Now, listen, I was fairly athletic in college, and I thought, “eh, that sounds great”. So, we load up. We head to the mountain. And again, I had zero idea what to expect. So, we start up these trails. (Sidebar - the pink banana seat bike did not have gears back in the day.)

So, I'm trying to learn gears. I'm trying to figure out this whole mountain biking thing-what a single trek is (turns out, guys, it's a trail that's the size of your wheel). Not great. So, we take off. And I'm just following Brandon. Like, all I can do is just stare at his back wheel trying to figure out where we're going.

If you've never been actually mountain biking, there's all these rocks. There are vines all over the place-sometimes small trees in front of you. And you're just supposed to just keep going. So, Brandon's dad and his brother up ahead of us are squealing in delight.

Well, about halfway through our ride, it starts to get dark and it's freezing cold because it’s West Virginia in November, and the guys have headlamps on their helmets.

I do not. And so, I'm just following them, trying to stay alive. And I start to cry. I can't feel my fingers. I can't feel my toes. I'm scared to death. I really-I just-I just want to go home. I just want to go home. So, we finally make it up the mountain. We get back to Brandon's parents’ house, and it was pitch dark.

And we walk in the door and the smell just hits me. Brandon's mom had been making fresh bread, and there was a giant pot of homemade dumplings on the stove. And it was just so warm in there that at that point, I'm pretty sure I started crying tears of joy. And I remember sitting there at the bar in their kitchen and eating that amazing, warm food and thinking, “oh, thank you, Lord, for getting me off that mountain. I will never go back up there again”.

So fast forward to the pandemic and realizing that my husband says we're going on the mountain. Now, part of me was pretty pumped about this because, you know, five kids running off some energy. Part of me just thought you know, thinking back to the days of the mountain in the freezing cold and dark and not knowing what I was doing.

So that first day up on the mountain with the kids, we take a few spins around the parking lot. We get used to the bikes and we go on what the guys would refer to as, you know, just a little baby trail (which I found to be pretty challenging). The family decides it's a pretty great activity and actually one that everyone is willing to go do.

And so, it becomes a thing, and we head back up there again. Well, this time we get ourselves off the bunny trail, so to speak, and start on the actual mountain biking trails. So, at this point, I have elementary school kids that are doing a great job. I have high school and college kids up there doing a great job.

I have my husband who is reliving his glory and is just having a blast up there. And then there's me. And everything hurts. I'm pretty miserable because it's just-it's just so stressful, right? Are-are the kids-did they make it through that pass up ahead? Has anyone wrecked? Holy crap. Here comes another huge vine out of the ground.

Am I supposed to lean into that turn? Not into that turn? I can't remember what he said. Not to mention, it's just physically hard. Right? And I hear my husband from behind me yelling, “Come up off the seat!”, and I'm thinking, “What? Come up off the seat?” I'm like, you're a crazy person. I…listen. I'm not up here to do circus tricks.

I'm trying to get off this mountain alive. So, at our next stop (because probably somebody had to pee in the woods and let's be honest it was probably me), I'm like, “what are you talking about?” And he says, “you have to come up off the seat when you're riding.” And I said, “how on earth would I keep control of the bike if I come up off the seat?”

And he was like, “Exactly! You are feeling every single bump. You're feeling every rock. You're feeling every vine. And when you're sitting in the saddle and feeling that, what happens to your arms? Your arms are stick straight to those handlebars and you are white-knuckling as hard as you can. And it makes it so you can't lean into a turn or not because you're so stiff and you overthink every move you make on the bike because you just felt that rock. You just felt that vine.”

“Come up off the seat.” I'm like, “Well how does that accomplish anything?” And he says, “Well, in biking, when you come up off the seat, it moves your center of gravity lower. And have you ever tried to basically stand on a bike and have stiff arms? It doesn't work. You don't feel every little thing.”

“You don't try to overcompensate for every bump, and you just roll over them. And then what happens is that you've saved all your strength for the really, really hard trails”. (now, part of me is thinking, “Holy crap, this wasn't the really, really hard trail.) But also, “Oh, okay. I would really love to maybe not feel all the bumps.”

Now, downsides? Oh, for sure there's downsides, you guys. Someone hands you a bike and says here, but don't sit on the seat. Excuse me, that's how a bike works. I like feeling it. I like knowing what's happening. I guess you could say I like being in control of all of it. But it turns out in mountain biking when you come up off the seat, you really do just roll over all of it.

And next thing you know, you start to enjoy it and you don't overcompensate. And sometimes you look back behind you and there was a giant branch, and you never even knew. You're just enjoying the ride.

I went home that day pretty, pretty sore still, but also pretty affected by the entire experience. Now, maybe because there was some residual PTSD, but also because, I thought to myself, “Have I been doing this for the last 20 years since the last time I rode that bike? Have I been sitting so hard in the saddle that everything affected me, whether it was a kid’s bad grade or a tone from someone at work that I just took so deeply?”

“Did I feel the need to be in control of every single situation throughout the day so much that it just hurt me over and over, and that it made it so I no longer enjoyed the ride?” Yeah, pretty much. I would encourage you to look around at your day and ask the same. Am I sitting really, really in the saddle?

Am I thinking that in doing that, I'm saving myself from the potholes, from the giant rocks and the vines? Maybe what I'm actually doing is torturing myself a little bit and not enjoying the ride. Cause it turns out, I can't move those vines. I can't make a difference on how many rocks are on my trail that day. I can, however, come up off the seat, give up a little control, loosen up just a bit and roll right over.

Thanks for joining us. I hope you allow yourself to feel the things today and then have the courage to ask, “But what if it looks like this?”

Go forth and show up for life my friends. Someone is just waiting for you.