Sports News

[xoxoxoBruce]

Time to step back and evaluate what you do for fun.

Too many of us are beholden to social-media expectations, the subjective scoring of action sports, and a desire to push increasingly out-there limits. Mountain bikers who once explored the woods to simply blow out the lungs now time their descents with Strava. Climbers who used to clip in and coach partners on big walls now free solo for sponsor dollars driven by Instagram. To impress followers, backcountry skiers accustomed to safe low-angle hippie pow followed by hibachi beers now yo-yo laps on the Grand Fucking Teton.

Increasingly, what we do outside is less about enjoying the activity itself as an intrinsic good, and more about planning ways to go bigger, faster, and farther, often for our selfie-stick mounted cameras. And so it went that once healthy outdoor pursuits devolved into suicide clubs.