While I’ve been making steady progress with my 36-er, I hadn’t shot a video of my riding or mounting it, till today. Today though, as I was practicing, I saw a couple of people seated on a bench, looking at me, and even shooting a video, as I attempted to freemount and ride away.

I’d already done some riding earlier in the day, and my left knee was a bit sore from all the dismounting, and the heat was quite sapping, so I was both a bit tired, and not exactly doing great. I was not bothered though, and wasn’t trying to push myself too much. The guys shooting the video though, both intrigued me, and I guess the inner clown/showman in me came forth; I generally seem to do better when I’ve got an audience, particularly an encouraging one. I had no clue what the guys were saying, but I took it to be encouragement, and tried harder to land a start, even as they kept recording me. Usually, when I fail to land a free-mount after a bunch of times, people watching me tend to lose interest and move on, but these guys were dedicated in continuing to shoot me, and I was happy!

After a few more misfires, I actually nailed it, and managed to ride away! I rode for a bit, dismounted, gathered my breath, and after another couple of attempts, managed to remount and ride back. I met my ‘fans’, shook their hands, and then asked for the videos they’d shot. They showed me the videos, and I was actually quite happy, as it was the first time I had a video of me free-mounting and riding the 36-er! They didn’t speak much English, and I had to do some work to explain I wanted them to share that video with me! The next hurdle seemed to be that the guy didn’t seem to have mobile data on his phone. I set up a hotspot he could use, and after a bit, I got the videos! I thanked him and left. I practiced for a bit in another place, and then got home.

I uploaded the video to YouTube, and after doing so, I wondered if I could get YouTube to translate the commentary (the guy shooting the video was a bit of a motormouth) and render the subtitles in English. After a bit of fiddling around, lo and behold! I had it. When I saw the subtitles though, I was both a bit amused and felt a bit sad. The guy who I thought was encouraging me? He was saying in Russian that I was a moron, and he couldn’t wait to see me crash and hurt myself/break my head. He also speculated that my headphones wouldn’t survive when I crashed. His committed video shooting? That wasn’t to support me at all, but he was hoping I’d crash and give him a nice ‘fail’ video. The translation was rather plain, and it made me a bit sad; maybe I’m naive to expect strangers to be kind and encouraging, but I think I’d much rather be that kind of naive, than be a bitter and cynical person.

After I recovered from the initial sense of betrayal/sadness, I was able to actually laugh at myself, and at the situation. Those guys might have been hoping I’d crash, but they did actually help me get more out of my practice session, so it’s all good. The experience reminded me though, of a parable of Kahlil Gibran, that I’d read in my childhood. Guess I’m a bit like that dreamer after all!