Encre Noire Sport Lalique 2013

"One last deep breath!" he thought, as he inhaled deeply and amidst a cool breeze that swept through the treetops and the blurred sounds of chirping birds and crickets, he heard his own breathing: "Mhhhhhhhhhhhhhh". One last glance was cast at the deep valley lying before him, with the rolled-down pine trunks that seemed to have been smashed together into a kind of bird's nest from this height. He stood 1,277 m above the water level, which the mountain stream below seemed to hesitate to adorn like a sewing thread. Sport!

The two gloves gripped the handlebars of his fully suspended mountain bike tightly, as if welded on. Suddenly, every detail of the previously so boastfully secure technology seemed of utmost importance to him. It was all that mattered now. Would the overheated chain withstand the stresses of spontaneous jumps over fallen branches and trunks? Is there enough air in the front suspension? Does the ergonomically free-swinging saddle absorb the shocks of a hard impact after a necessary detour off the path upon re-entry? Was the decision for the puncture-proof tire on the rear wheel the right one, or does it lack the important flexibility on stones? Can the inflated front tire withstand a sharp gravel stone, or a sudden crossing of a wild stream? What if a bug flies into his eye? And if the bike really should go faster than the body, can the clip pedals be released? ...

For many summers, he had ridden over clearings illuminated by the sun like a magnifying glass, which radiated a noble and sublime permanence from the mossy ground, yet were so different. Each time, when the microbial and fungal cultures devoured old trunks and made way for new life. He had long since given up the crazy idea of testing the superiority of culture over nature in this deserted environment. His grapefruit deodorant amidst a cool freshness of ferns and damp pine cones seemed to him the epitome of human cultural arrogance. And the realization that this impression testified to a deeply felt romance made the descent no less difficult. He caught himself avoiding the rabid decision to take this trail with sticks and stones as it came, by delaying it in his thoughts. The valley seemed to spread out deeper before him, and the more his eyes adjusted to the darkness, the clearer the proportions on the ground became.

The peak of human arrogance in his mind was marked by the question of whether it is not much more arrogant and dishonest to design a perfume (which developed as an olfactory camouflage, a symbol of human triumphs over animals) in such a way that it appears "natural," without revealing its synthetics, or whether it is indeed more honest to say "yes" to the imposed cultivated nature of grapefruit synthetic and let both scents wrestle with each other. Whatever! The only wrestling was that of the now gradually rotating and glistening rings of the tires, which set in motion under steaming mud. "One thing is for sure..." he thought, "the faster I go on the descent, the straighter I ride, and the less I get into a wobble and jeopardize my posture." Since then, only one thought remained in his head: "Down into the depths!" A smile crossed his face, that of a madman, and that was the last anyone saw of him before he arrived, completely intoxicated by adrenaline and dopamine, at the ground in his beloved cider tavern to order a Schöfferhofer grapefruit and call his girlfriend to let her know that everything was fine and he would be back soon.