A QUESTION OF DUST
BARNEY TRAVELS HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD TO GET DUST IN HIS EYES, A BEER IN HIS HAND AND LOVE IN HIS COLD, COLD HEART.
WORDS BY BARNEY
PATAGONIA'S AYSEN RALLY
PICTURES BY BARNEY & GARY PERKIN
It’s hot today. Really hot. And I’m riding through some of the most astonishing scenery I’ve ever seen. But right now, I’m totally oblivious to it. All I can see is the blurred outline of the rear wheel I’m chasing, and slowly, even that is gone. The dust kicked off the wheel in front seems to spiral outwards, packets of talcum powder exploding from it like little cluster bombs, firing curtains of glowing oblivion in the air.
The manual - Should be higher!
The experience is totally new to me, and utterly gorgeous. At first, the dust merely catches the light and makes the air heavy with a sort of magical expectation. And then the fog deepens. Sounds from outside seem dulled; all I can hear is our whoops and hollers, the clickclickclick of the freewheel and the occasional shriek of suddenly applied brakes. And suddenly the trail points a little more downwards, and our speed picks up. This is what the dust has been waiting for, it seems. It erupts in astonishing profusion from the wheel I am following and can already barely see. Every knobble on the tyre spits out more of this ambushing miasma, curling and billowing like squid ink.
And then I am totally blind, at over 20 miles per hour.
Slow down, slow down. I start to pull back, and I reverse myself from the epicentre of this extraordinary blindness. I’m navigating by touch and sound – my eyesight is useless, and my whole consciousness is bent towards my front wheel; every tiny interrupted susurrant lip, every breakaway loss of traction (which just kicks up more dust for the rider behind me) is amplified. It’s useless, I know – even as I become aware of an obstacle, I’m already over it before I haul on the bars – but I can’t help myself. And then, as the rider in front pulls away, slowly, slowly, the world swims back into focus, and I’m once more surrounded by the mountains, the undulant meadows, the leafless trees. I like this place.