Those of you who take four hour lunch breaks to surf the web have probably wondered why this blog has had so few posts in recent months? I've heard a few rumours; perhaps I'm working on something big, and have gone dark so it'll be big news when it breaks. More likely; in recent months my life has been boring even to me, so I'm not going to lumber you lot with it. Train, work, sleep. Work, train, sleep. 3! = 6, but even that's an exaggeration; not every way of arranging sleep, train, work is practical.
However, something has cropped up, so I'll share it with the world. Either because I'm a sharing kind of guy, or because I'm an egomaniac whose voice needs to be heard. Your choice - you get the info all the same.
This weekend I've ended up watching two films on a similar theme; the deadly side of motorsport. One was "Madness on Wheels: Rallying's Crazy Years" by none other than climbing's own Rich Heap. You can catch it here for the next few days, at least. It's a great film; by rarely showing the accidents it avoids the uncomfortable rubber-necking feeling it might produce. But there are plenty of accidents here, under the surface. In a few years when several rally drivers, and more spectators were killed, it's hard not to accept that rallying got out of hand. And yet; at the end of the film the drivers involved look back on it like it was some golden age.
All of this pales in comparison with TT: Closer to the Edge, which follows several rider's quests to win the 2010 TT races in the Isle of Man. The TT is quite simply insane. Between 1907 and 2009 there were 237 deaths. Two hundred. And thirty seven. 2.32 deaths per TT. The attrition rate is mind-blowing. We like to think climbing can be a risky business, and yet if there was a similar fatality rate in climbing it would shock and appall us there.
And that got me thinking about how different cultures shape our approach to risk. Two things struck me about the TT. One was that really serious accidents (and I'm talking about the bike exploding at 180mph kind of serious) didn't put racers off. From their hospital beds they vowed to be fit enough to race next year. Since the accidents didn't affect their attitude, I can only assume they've made their peace with death before they race. TT riders have accepted there's a good chance they'll die, and decided to do that anyway. Climbers don't do that. I think it's because climbing is just safe enough that we can avoid it. We can pretend instead that accidents won't happen to us, and the deception works because accidents are (thankfully) rare.
The other thing I noticed was how old some of the TT riders are. Joey Dunlop won 26 TT races, including his last in 2000. He was 48. Shortly afterwards he was killed in a race in Estonia. This didn't seem to be a rare example either; plenty of the top riders were in their 30s or 40s. As climbers, it's rare to see anyone pushing it outside their twenties. There are old climbers, and bold climbers, but there are no old, bold climbers. I used to think this had two causes; that people mellowed with age and found risk unjustifiable, and that the boldest climbers kicked the bucket before they got old. Thinking about the TT, maybe it's because our climbing culture actually discourages risk; sooner or later the young tigers get the message, chill out and start warning the next generation to be careful.
Either way; I also just watched the excellent life on hold, and was impressed by the boldness of the under 30s on their campaign to highball everything they can put a mat under. I just hope they're being careful...
Interesting piece.
ReplyDeleteI think it holds true when focusing on rock climbing, but perhaps not so true when also including mountaineering, particularly at high altitude which is inherently dangerous/risky but because of the general need to gain experience tends to occur slightly later in peoples lives/climbing careers.
Obviously not everyone goes along a linear progression that leads to high peaks though.