What's the difference between studying and riding a bike?

You know the old saying that you never forget how to ride a bike? I’m living proof that it’s a blatant lie. Anyone who knows me or follows the blog may already know that I really love mountain biking. For those of you who haven’t a clue who I am – hi, I’m Caz, and I love mountain biking.

When I say mountain biking I don’t mean pootling along canal towpaths or riding round some nice groomed trails on a £300 bouncy bike from some well known bike shop which also sells car stuff; I’m talking about riding my £2,500 bike up a mountain, then riding it back down again, regardless of what obstacles are in the way. Man-made trails are usually graded blue, red and black – blue being nice, easy, family-friendly stuff, red being more difficult with rocks to get over and steep bits and more technical features, and black is considered severe (look here for more details). Now I’ve never been REALLY good at mountain biking but I can usually manage black, I might have to get off and push over more extreme bits but I’ve managed black trails in the past and red trails are hunky dory fine and dandy and usually no problem at all for me.

However...

We went away with a couple of friends last weekend to the Scottish Highlands for a spot of mountain biking. Now I haven’t been on my bike much in the last 18 months, partly due to Gordon having a slipped disc and being unable to ride as much, and partly due to the time I’ve been putting into studies and extra-curricular things so I knew my fitness would’ve suffered somewhat but miraculously it didn’t – it was my level of skill which had hit rock bottom! Somehow, I’ve forgotten how to ride a bike!  I was absolutely gutted too because it meant I was pansying around things even on red routes which 18 months ago I would’ve blasted over so I got myself quite upset at not being able to ride stuff I knew deep down I was capable of and it kinda spoiled my holiday a bit.

But what’s this got to do with studying or the OU I hear you ask? Well it got me thinking on the way back home. As I wiped the feeble tears from my eyes and talked my ‘problem’ over with Gordon he made me realise that it’s just because I’m out of practice; in order to be good at something you need to work at it constantly to keep up your levels of confidence and studying is EXACTLY the same. The more reading you have to do the quicker you become at it, the more notes you have to write the more efficient you become at making them succinct and comprehensive, the more essays you write the more wordy you become and the easier it is to get your points across. However, if you leave study for a while, even just a month or two, you get out of practice and ‘forget’ how to do it. I have personal experience of this, I’d not studied seriously for about three years and it took a big amount of effort for me to get back into the swing of it.

This is one of the reasons I’ve made sure I’m continuing to study in between my BSc finishing and my MSc/MA starting; because if I stopped I’d find it so difficult to get going again and the trouble with gaps is that they have a dangerous habit of growing exponentially and I’m of the hideously lazy variety of persons who will take a decade if you give them a day, so far better keep myself busy so I don’t have a chance to forget.  I don’t want my old grey matter starting to get lazy too, I want it to stay as active as possible for as long as possible so despite having taken a break from mountain biking I refuse to take a break from studying.

Gordon and I are going out on our bikes this weekend again, but we’ve put the stabilizers on for now.