Dancing, but only so well

I generally see my road bike as an extension of myself. My hands, feet, and hips communicate intentions from neurons to muscle firings to a system of kinetic and mechanical energy transferred throughout the bike. I propel myself forward, negotiate myself through tight packs, around turns and up hills, and respond to poor traction in rain and gravel almost as if my brain speaks and listens directly to the wheels. (A friend even joked that my hair plugs into the bike like the tails/hair of the characters in Avatar plug into their animals)

However, I can not say the same about mountain bikes. Last weekend was my first mountain bike race, and I only had about 30 minutes previous MTB experience (pre-riding a quarter of the course that morning). I found the bike had a mind of its own. I could suggest paths to it: between rocks, over logs, and around corners, but it would bounce, slide, and veer far beyond my own intentions. As the race went on (it was a 6-hour, two-person relay), I learned what to expect from it and how to work with the bike's responses. As the bike bounced over the terrain, I learned when to put power in my stroke and when to recover. I found the rhythm in the compression and expansion of the frame as I wove around trees and up embankments. I found myself in a dance with the bike. That said, if I poorly negotiate through situations with a dance partner, I just feel embarrassed and my partner may see me as a bad dancer. When I negotiated poorly with the bicycle, I went tumbling off the bike onto the forest floor with its sticks that stabbed my back and rocks that scraped my legs while my bike came crashing onto me in hot pursuit. Needless to say, that happened more than once.

The highlight of the whole race, of course, was all the camaraderie and the enjoyment of playing in the woods, but it also left me to wonder, if I spent as much time on a mountain bike as I do a road bike, would I come to also see it as an extension of myself? If I spent as much time dancing with someone, would we begin to move as extensions of one another? The farthest I have gotten in dance is to practice the negotiation of intention and movement between two different bodies. Maybe the higher level of dance is two separate bodies joined to have unified movement and intentions. Obviously this is nice to similarly think about as people move through life, but from my observations, that case is by no means common. When it occurs and it appears that two people move with unified intention, it actually seems there is a lack of character in the relationship. A bike is worthless without a rider and I am inhibited without a bike, but as far as I can tell, individuals function rather reliably on their own. There are some things that are nice to simply become an extension of or have as an extension of myself, but there are plenty of others that I hope, no matter how much time I spend with them, continue to challenge me and force me to learn and adapt.