Hannah Report: On Being Fearless

Someone once said to me, “You must be fearless.” “Fearless?” I thought as I laughed to myself; that conversation didn’t last long, but the thought lingered. Me? Fearless? Is that what it looks like from the outside, does being a professional downhill mountain bike racer make me appear fearless? I know myself too well, and I am far from fearless, actually quite the contrary. What does it mean to be fearless anyway? Is it a state of being, an emotion?

I slide my knee pads on, tie my shoes up tight, pull my gloves up, put my helmet on and finally flick my goggles over my eyes. I've done this countless times before, but every single time the goggles touch my skin I feel a fearful enthusiasm. This is a routine; if I was fearless there would be no plan, no thought, no consideration and no preparation. If I was fearless I would ride without learning anything and I would constantly be at my limit. We aren’t limitless, so it's only a matter of time until it comes to an end.


I don’t wake up in the morning and think to myself, “Man, I need my hit of adrenaline so I should go out and race down the hill as fast as I can.” Every run is considered; after all, who can live every day fearlessly? It’d be exhausting.

Racing a downhill bike doesn’t make me an exception to the real world, it doesn’t excuse me, and I don’t feel numb to things that should scare me. The numbness that shivers through my body when fear overcomes me gives me a weak humbling. I can’t go and climb the edge of a mountain, I’m afraid of the dark, I don’t like jumping off cliffs into water, and snakes make me scream.

I guess there is an acceptable confusion between fear and confidence. If you have pre-planned everything, if you have done the preparation and have the experience then there is no need for fear, but this kind of fearless is a concrete confidence, not a shallow fearlessness. Being in a state of fearlessness is not the reason you win a race.


Someone I look at who appears absolutely fearless is Casey Brown. However, she is no exception to the mind numbing fear that we’ve all felt. She is definitely the kind of person that is really hard to upset, or make angry; she’s not emotional but she’s not careless. As I stood beside her at Queenstown in the lift line ready to go up for another run I asked her, “What scares you?” With a casual facial expression I imagined the answer to be a subtle, “Nothing.” So I explained to her why I was asking and said, “What gives you that sick feeling in the stomach, the breathlessness in your lungs, what makes you feel invisible and vulnerable?” Her answer - “When the waves in the ocean are out of control and there is no safety, that scares me.”

I am not fearless. Learning to control your fear, mentally and physically is what brings you to the point of winning races and competing at your best – it's that complete control that can make it appear as though you are fearless.


Thanks to my sponsors: Polygon Bikes, Kenda Tires, BOS Suspension, E*thirteen, VP components, Spank, BOX, KMC, Alpinestars, IXS, Zefal, Ride 100%, ODI, Skyline Queenstown, Camelbak, JetBlack, Reverse, Unior, ClearProtect, Shimano, Moonlight, TiSprings, FiveTen

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