Beast coast

Above: Peter and Tucker Shearer (left to right) in a rare stationary moment.

My first real attempt to jump my bike was in 1982. It was a Schwinn Stingray, metallic green with a banana seat, and the instant I pulled up on the cars, the front wheel detached from the frame. It was a disaster.

Fast forward to seventh grade, now atop a Schwinn Predator that I had purchased with proceeds from my paper route. Launching off a foot-tall dirt mound that someone had built near my friend’s house, I ended up in the dirt, and the front tire somehow hit me in the back of the head. This was pre-helmet laws, unfortunately, and pre-cell phone cameras, fortunately.

Since then, my bike-handling skills have improved. Following one cross-country mountain bike race in the early 2000s, I committed to learning how to navigate three- or four-foot drops, and although they last for just a fraction of a second, the thrill of being airborne enthralled me. It is, as the late comedian and cyclophile Robin Williams said, “the closest thing to flying.”

Stretching the limits of skill and courage

The prospect of defying gravity is so tantalizing that it can eclipse both injury and common sense. Two seconds of airtime can’t possibly justify risking six months of injury and yet, even last year, I found myself at a downhill bike park, working up the courage to attempt maneuvers that stretched the limits of my skill and courage.

So when Tucker and Peter Shearer agreed to meet up with me for an afternoon of dirt jumping and bike talk, I was hoping to pick their brains for a few pointers. Tucker, now sponsored by Transition Bikes, and Peter, the winner of the Under 20 Maxxis Enduro series last year, have mastered the art of both launching and crashing their bikes, and anyone who tells you that those two feats aren’t related isn’t trying hard enough. I’d seen their Instagram videos with backflips and suicide no-handers, and, as practicioners of truth in journalism, they had responsibly posted outtakes with devastating crashes that would have crippled this middle-aged weekend warrior.

Learning to crash

Knowing how to crash is a skill set that they learned through parkour, an offshoot of gymnastics that begins with tumbling and rolling. Peter works as an instructor at Gymnastics Unlimited, but both of them honed their ability to flip, twist, and tumble at the same time they discovered mountain biking at age 15. What began with innocent rides through the woods progressed to jumps and stunts, enduro racing, and thirty-foot gap jumps at their clandestine training spot, deep in the woods.

Building their own Shangri-La

That was our destination as I trailed Tucker up an impossibly steep climb, my heart rate shooting into Zone 5 and my gears dropping to the biggest cog. The ground had finally hardened from the spring thaw, and fuzzy fiddleheads unfurled from the duff as we pedaled deep into the woods.

I barely knew what state we were in when Tucker pointed out the jump lines and berms that he and Peter had built into a covert gully, as secluded as they could be in the tri-state area. With nothing but shovels, rakes, and a chainsaw, they had built their own Shangri-La.

Let’s start with the premise that everyone’s paradise is different. Even an avid mountain biker like myself has little use for the thirty-foot gap jump and even the small kicker that the Shearers cleared with ease. My mind was stuck on physics. How does one come to know that if they spend days building a thirty-foot gap jump, that they will, in fact, be able to clear it? As sons of an engineer, I imagined Tucker and Peter using slide rules and calculators, launch angles, and calculus.

To clear the jump… or not?

This is all something they could probably have done but didn’t. Homeschooled until the ripe ages of fifteen and sixteen, they completed their GEDs and have each taken courses at Northwest Connecticut Community College, as much to reassure themselves that they belonged there as to complete the course work. Peter is continuing his studies there currently, but both are students of the world, figuring it out as they go along, whether that is chimney sweeping (Tucker), plumbing (Peter, soon), bike mechanics (both), or photography (mostly Peter, unless he’s airborne, in which case Tucker takes the camera).

So how did they know they could clear that distance? Experience. One jump after another, session after session, even crash after crash. This wasn’t the advice I was seeking, but it explains their vision for this retreat: as a place to develop their skills that provides maximum practice opportunities with minimal pedaling. This might sound counterintuitive or even lazy, but being able to “session” huge jumps allows them to improve exponentially without the cost or time commitment of traveling to lift-serviced mountains.

These kinds of places don’t exist much on the East Coast, and for good reason: building them is typically a herculean undertaking. Sink a spade into New England soil, and you’re as likely to hit a rock or a root as fresh loam, especially in this tri-state region, where limestone, schist, and gneiss define the hills of the Southern Berkshires. Somehow, though, the Shearers found a deposit of Vermont-style “hero dirt” that made for easy shoveling and, quickly, huge jumps made of rich, tawny soil.

Being present in the moment

Looking back on it now, readers should be forgiven for concluding that Tucker and Peter are adrenaline junkies, hucking their bikes into the great beyond. But spending time with them is more of a lesson in mindfulness. Much like a cold plunge, one has no choice but to be present in the moment while mountain biking, and the Shearers are most certainly that.

There are thousands of inputs each moment, with the bike moving on all planes and terrain that is constantly changing. And while they may not have broken out the slide rules and compasses while designing their jumps, I watched them repeat their runs with mathematical precision, calculating weight, speed, humidity, and angles in the sophisticated computers ensheathed in full-face helmets.

I’ve known the Shearers for a minute now, so to speak. Tucker helped me out with a major upgrade on my gravel bike, and I see Peter about as often as I see my barber. I’ve been thinking about how to write an article about them for a while, and reading it back now, I feel like I’ve failed to capture exactly what it is that interests me about them. The first rule of good writing is to “show, don’t tell,” but in all of my notes, I haven’t quite struck on the essence of these guys, so I’ll just say it: they are wholesome in a way that is refreshing and pleasing.

The image of them that is seared in my brain from that afternoon of dirt jumping is not of Peter pulling a no-hander or Tucker ripping a berm hard enough to spray mud on me, but of the two of them, shoulder to shoulder, checking out the photos on Peter’s camera or laughing at one of Peter’s ridiculously catastrophic crashes that he showed me on his iPhone. There is deep brotherly love between these two consummate competitors, and although I was unable to uncover the wellspring of it from a brief afternoon on the trails, it’s reassuring to know that it still exists in the world, blossoming in an overlooked gully.

Update: Since first writing this article, the Shearers placed third at the North American Enduro Cup; Tucker in the Pro Category, Peter in the Men’s 17-18 Category.

To learn more about Peter and Tucker Shearer, check them out on Instagram @pshearer110 and @tshearer_03.