From the notes of Joe Kopena: Several people have already asked: What on earth is a Houser line?! To begin, thats misframing the entire topic, because Houser lines are not of this earth. Instead, youll find this term employed in a number of different areas. In mountain biking, a Houser line is a path taken that you proclaim was the most awesome and obviously totally intentional, but is actually just the natural path the mountain forces you to follow when youre completely out of control and have a spare tube wrapped around one or more brake rotors. In medicine, a Houser line is that artifact on an X-ray thats just faint enough that the doctor wont commit to whether or not you need to stop riding immediately. In theology, some alleged experts use the term to denote that first crack of light you see as you die, but this is wrong. Science tells us that if you are truly on a Houser line then you will live forever. All of these uses though are rooted in the actual mathematical term in analytical catastrophe theory, in which a Houser line is an asymptotic barrier along the temporal axis, on the approach of which a decision must be made, and on the far side of which nothing will ever be the same. Some say this concept is named after Brett Houser, beloved ECCC superhero and self-caricature---may he rest in peace---but this is again wrong. He was actually named after the concept, to be a constant guiding star on his long, tumultuous journey through life and the local trail systems. In sum, the only way to truly understand the concept is to race this weekend. When you encounter a huge plywood sheet that says (skull) Insane Drop (skull) with an arrow to the left and (sad face) Workaround (sad face) but no actual accompanying directional arrow for the latter, at that precise moment your own personal timeline will indeed be rapidly approaching a Houser line. (Thank you for this, Joe)
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 15:15:40 +0000
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