It's been over a month since I've ridden on the road, a week or two since I've been outside. Glory be, an hour long spin, averaging about 17 MPH (blowing my HR up to tempo speed) was wonderful. Some thoughts:
- It was strikingly fast. No, 17 isn't fast. It just feels wicked fast when you haven't been riding on the road. Today I remembered why I love riding on the road.
- I'm strikingly fat. Boy, do I miss my commute/workout ride.
- I wear less clothes than I used to. Base layer and summer jersey was plenty for 52 degree temps.
- Man that was fun - even just doing 5 loops of the Crofton Parkway. I may get to ride a bit in England, may have to wait until I get home. Either way, the season is about to start and I'm pumped and happy.
Now a downer.
I just got the annual Bicycling magazine Buyer's Guide. They spend a lot of time most issues bitching about how uninclusive bicyclists are of non-cyclists. So they spill a lot of ink on bikes most of us will never afford or be able to justify buying, and a lot of cruiser type bikes, plus a mere smattering of mid-range bikes that most of us actually do buy. So it's kinda inclusive.
But you know what they miss almost completely?
Fixies, single speeds, and 29'ers. The fastest growing chunks of cycling-dom (outside of 'cross racing), and they miss it. Yeah, Bicycling is inclusive alright... just not of your typical enthusiasts.
Argh. Shoulda just got Dirt Rag.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Saturday, February 17, 2007
NO I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO RIDE. DAMMIT! WHAT'RE YOU LOOKING AT!
The weather is awful. It's 13 degrees out. Most Saturdays, I'd be two hours into one of my weekly aerobic base building rides. Not today, not in the last month. Haven't ridden on the road in two weeks, outside in a week. The Trainer God has kicked my ass too. I'm fat. I feel awful and mean. I'm going to England for two weeks in a few days, so no ride-y there either.
It's gotten bad enough that I'm going down to Modells and buying a pair of running shoes in a little while.
Yeah. Pretty bad. Don't expect any blogging for a few weeks.
Should be a great vacation - going to spend it drunk and ranting, and quite possibly insane. Fortunately, that means I'll fit right in, given the low quality nature of the establishments I'll be frequenting while on vacation.
See you when the weather isn't an indecency.
It's gotten bad enough that I'm going down to Modells and buying a pair of running shoes in a little while.
Yeah. Pretty bad. Don't expect any blogging for a few weeks.
Should be a great vacation - going to spend it drunk and ranting, and quite possibly insane. Fortunately, that means I'll fit right in, given the low quality nature of the establishments I'll be frequenting while on vacation.
See you when the weather isn't an indecency.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
I Have No Shame
I'm coming to appreciate that I have no shame.
It takes a long mostly-layoff like we've had the last few weeks with the Global Cooling, to make me really appreciate how nice it is to just ride. Hard, easy, dirt, road, cross, crit, commute, coffee run, doesn't matter. What matters is the wheels and cranks turning, the legs slightly burning, and feeling the wind on your face, heavier breathing on your lips and a little sweat on your brow. I'm a groupie for riding. It's really shameless.
As a kinda fat dude who road races, I have no shame. As a guy (racing age 40) who is lamely getting ready to write the District Upgrades Coordinator and explain that I'm ready to move to Cat 4 - as if the increasing competitiveness leads me anywhere but to the realization that I got nothin', I have no shame. As a guy who knows he needs to knock off 30 pounds between now and May, but still managed to eat a couple sausages at Capitol City at a going away lunch for his secretary today, I have no shame. As a guy who put reflective tape on a bunch of the spokes of his fixed gear cross bike/commuter/trainer in order to not get hit, I have no shame. As a guy who put the full-on Planet Bike fenders on his crit/winter trainer bike in early November and then just left them there (including on charity, club, training, and trainer rides), I have no shame. As a 40 year old with a gut who wears spandex with utter confidence that the chicks think he's hot, I have no shame. As a guy who holds out hope that one more time around the block, one more spin of the pedals, hanging on to the top ten for one more lap in this crit, will all stave off aging, or death, or at least defeat in this race on this day, I have no shame.
And there's nothing wrong with that. The bike is teaching me a lot of humility. It regularly feeds me my own lunch, and as often as it does that, the harsh lessons of competition are crammed down my throat with the help of my friends and the bike, tag team style.
But having no shame is pretty cool. It frees me up to enjoy just riding, most days. I can go hang with Johnathan and Trevor and those guys at Rosaryville and ride and get totally dusted, but have fun. They are really good mountain bikers and although it's a wash or maybe on a good day I'm a little strong in some ways than some of the regular group, I get crushed in the dirt. You know what? It doesn't bother me. I'm just there to have fun. I don't give a shit if I come in last on the loop, as long as my face hurts from smiling. And the severe oxygen debt pained grimace. You 'crossers know exactly what I mean. Hell, I can get all cocky on a road ride, get shut down, and come back to ride hard the next day as if the previous ride never happened. No shame at all.
It's pretty cool because I can actually enjoy geek-o-rama on wheels, aka Bicycling Magazine. Yeah, I adore Velo News, it's the hot chick with not a hair out of place. But Bicycling is the girl next door I'm friends with who wears sweats and sometimes forgets to take her curlers out before she steps onto the porch to pick up the paper. And I'm cool with that. She makes great cookies, you know? Want to hear something cool from Bicycling? Here's Bill Strickland on why we try to downplay getting our butts kicked on hard rides:
Hah. That's pretty good writing and is an interesting exposition of group ride psychology. You'd never see it though, if you were too cool to read Bicycling and only ever picked up Velo News, for fear your friends might see you reading the un-cool rag.
You know what else is pretty cool? Performance and Bikehard and Mt. Borah and local bike shops having clearance sales. Cheap good stuff puts nice gear in the hands of many many people. The more people who ride, the better off we all are. The happier they are riding, the more they'll ride. The more they ride, the more we get trails, bike parking racks, showers at work, and so forth. Performance can also shoot you a cheap wool jersey overnight to deal with a cold snap. That's pretty cool. You wouldn't know that if you only buy Assos, full price, from the retailer or Competitive Cyclist.
Another thing that's pretty cool - Assos, and Etxe Ondo and Castelli and a bunch of premium manufacturers who make very nice stuff that lets you ride in brutal weather. What other sport can you play more or less comfortably, in weather running from 25 degrees, to 100 degrees?
Yet another thing that's pretty cool - if you aren't a complete jerk, you can make a lot of friends riding, from all different walks of life. Doesn't matter who you are, where you come from. If you ride, you're cool with me. Or in a perverse variation on Eddy B's comment, "you not bike racer, you nobody." There's probably some cool Zen koan in that whole thing, about losing your identity and slipping into a pack, something larger than yourself, but I'm writing easy and cool tonight and I'm not going to try to impress you.
Know what else is cool? That the bike embarasses everybody from time to time. Armstrong had bad days on the bike. So did Mercyx. Hell, even Coppi withdrew from races and bombed out from time to time. Just when you think you're turning into a jerk who's too cool to read Bicycling or order some wool socks for next day delivery from Performance, your bike spits you off and throws you to the ground, or unceremoniously refuses to carry you up a hill as your friends pedal away. Doesn't matter, but the bike humbles you if you're cool enough to accept that and move on.
The final thing that's pretty cool, is the bike is something you can keep going back to and experiencing in a whole variety of ways. My favorite training loop around here is down Patuxent River Road, down to 408, over to Deale, back up, around maybe to Severna Park then back home. I've ridden it a zillion times. It's boring, right? But you know what? Every time I ride it, the light is a little different, the coffee in Galeville tastes different, I find some hills harder and some easier than the last time... it's not the same and it's not boring. I ride it with friends it's one way, with the Snow Valley group it feels another way, on my own it's also unique. I can think about it profoundly, or simply, or blend the two, and it doesn't matter. I can commute, race, train, lose weight, complain about gaining weight, or just shut up and ride. Doesn't matter - it's like a fabulously decorated empty vessel into which I can pour whatever I need to imbibe right now.
Yep. I'm a 40 year old guy (racing age) going on at great length about bikes, as if I had a schoolgirl crush on them.
I have no shame.
It takes a long mostly-layoff like we've had the last few weeks with the Global Cooling, to make me really appreciate how nice it is to just ride. Hard, easy, dirt, road, cross, crit, commute, coffee run, doesn't matter. What matters is the wheels and cranks turning, the legs slightly burning, and feeling the wind on your face, heavier breathing on your lips and a little sweat on your brow. I'm a groupie for riding. It's really shameless.
As a kinda fat dude who road races, I have no shame. As a guy (racing age 40) who is lamely getting ready to write the District Upgrades Coordinator and explain that I'm ready to move to Cat 4 - as if the increasing competitiveness leads me anywhere but to the realization that I got nothin', I have no shame. As a guy who knows he needs to knock off 30 pounds between now and May, but still managed to eat a couple sausages at Capitol City at a going away lunch for his secretary today, I have no shame. As a guy who put reflective tape on a bunch of the spokes of his fixed gear cross bike/commuter/trainer in order to not get hit, I have no shame. As a guy who put the full-on Planet Bike fenders on his crit/winter trainer bike in early November and then just left them there (including on charity, club, training, and trainer rides), I have no shame. As a 40 year old with a gut who wears spandex with utter confidence that the chicks think he's hot, I have no shame. As a guy who holds out hope that one more time around the block, one more spin of the pedals, hanging on to the top ten for one more lap in this crit, will all stave off aging, or death, or at least defeat in this race on this day, I have no shame.
And there's nothing wrong with that. The bike is teaching me a lot of humility. It regularly feeds me my own lunch, and as often as it does that, the harsh lessons of competition are crammed down my throat with the help of my friends and the bike, tag team style.
But having no shame is pretty cool. It frees me up to enjoy just riding, most days. I can go hang with Johnathan and Trevor and those guys at Rosaryville and ride and get totally dusted, but have fun. They are really good mountain bikers and although it's a wash or maybe on a good day I'm a little strong in some ways than some of the regular group, I get crushed in the dirt. You know what? It doesn't bother me. I'm just there to have fun. I don't give a shit if I come in last on the loop, as long as my face hurts from smiling. And the severe oxygen debt pained grimace. You 'crossers know exactly what I mean. Hell, I can get all cocky on a road ride, get shut down, and come back to ride hard the next day as if the previous ride never happened. No shame at all.
It's pretty cool because I can actually enjoy geek-o-rama on wheels, aka Bicycling Magazine. Yeah, I adore Velo News, it's the hot chick with not a hair out of place. But Bicycling is the girl next door I'm friends with who wears sweats and sometimes forgets to take her curlers out before she steps onto the porch to pick up the paper. And I'm cool with that. She makes great cookies, you know? Want to hear something cool from Bicycling? Here's Bill Strickland on why we try to downplay getting our butts kicked on hard rides:
Sometimes, for some reason, cyclists just can’t confess when a ride has blown us to bits. We’re not, as a breed, averse to bragging about this or that ride’s difficulty — repeating the stories of our most harrowing days is one of the ways we give our local lore heft and permanence. And when we feign nonchalance about an asskicker it’s not like we’re fooling anyone, even ourselves. There’s no way Andy and Matt, riding beside me, could have not realized that I was about to bawl. You know that scene in Good Will Hunting when Mrs. Doubtfire tells Jason Bourne “it’s not your fault” over and over and over then hugs him and somehow that makes it okay for Matt Damon to leave his lifelong friend Ben Affleck so he can track down Minnie Driver (who I’ve always thought was approximately how hot Janeane Garofalo would look after six beers) and have more sex with her? That was the kind of release I needed: The winner of the Derby stopping at the line and clicking out and coming over to hug me and coo that, “Finishing 37th is not your fault.”
Instead, from inside the empty shells of our bodies, we agreed once more that the ride had been spectacularly jolly, then we split apart to make our separate ways home.
Sprezzatura, the Italians call it: the ability to make an exceedingly difficult feat appear to be easily accomplished. In the U.S., thanks to Hemingway, we think of this ideal as grace under pressure. I almost never embody that quality; often, on the toughest bike rides, I am too obliterated to even be aware of its existence. But I think sometimes despite or because of my exhaustion I can sense it up there just ahead of me, just out of reach, so close, that beautiful thing, up there in the possession and protection of the supple, spinning legs of the truly fine cyclists, and it is those times — to put it bluntly — that afterward I lie.
Hah. That's pretty good writing and is an interesting exposition of group ride psychology. You'd never see it though, if you were too cool to read Bicycling and only ever picked up Velo News, for fear your friends might see you reading the un-cool rag.
You know what else is pretty cool? Performance and Bikehard and Mt. Borah and local bike shops having clearance sales. Cheap good stuff puts nice gear in the hands of many many people. The more people who ride, the better off we all are. The happier they are riding, the more they'll ride. The more they ride, the more we get trails, bike parking racks, showers at work, and so forth. Performance can also shoot you a cheap wool jersey overnight to deal with a cold snap. That's pretty cool. You wouldn't know that if you only buy Assos, full price, from the retailer or Competitive Cyclist.
Another thing that's pretty cool - Assos, and Etxe Ondo and Castelli and a bunch of premium manufacturers who make very nice stuff that lets you ride in brutal weather. What other sport can you play more or less comfortably, in weather running from 25 degrees, to 100 degrees?
Yet another thing that's pretty cool - if you aren't a complete jerk, you can make a lot of friends riding, from all different walks of life. Doesn't matter who you are, where you come from. If you ride, you're cool with me. Or in a perverse variation on Eddy B's comment, "you not bike racer, you nobody." There's probably some cool Zen koan in that whole thing, about losing your identity and slipping into a pack, something larger than yourself, but I'm writing easy and cool tonight and I'm not going to try to impress you.
Know what else is cool? That the bike embarasses everybody from time to time. Armstrong had bad days on the bike. So did Mercyx. Hell, even Coppi withdrew from races and bombed out from time to time. Just when you think you're turning into a jerk who's too cool to read Bicycling or order some wool socks for next day delivery from Performance, your bike spits you off and throws you to the ground, or unceremoniously refuses to carry you up a hill as your friends pedal away. Doesn't matter, but the bike humbles you if you're cool enough to accept that and move on.
The final thing that's pretty cool, is the bike is something you can keep going back to and experiencing in a whole variety of ways. My favorite training loop around here is down Patuxent River Road, down to 408, over to Deale, back up, around maybe to Severna Park then back home. I've ridden it a zillion times. It's boring, right? But you know what? Every time I ride it, the light is a little different, the coffee in Galeville tastes different, I find some hills harder and some easier than the last time... it's not the same and it's not boring. I ride it with friends it's one way, with the Snow Valley group it feels another way, on my own it's also unique. I can think about it profoundly, or simply, or blend the two, and it doesn't matter. I can commute, race, train, lose weight, complain about gaining weight, or just shut up and ride. Doesn't matter - it's like a fabulously decorated empty vessel into which I can pour whatever I need to imbibe right now.
Yep. I'm a 40 year old guy (racing age) going on at great length about bikes, as if I had a schoolgirl crush on them.
I have no shame.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Your Monday Picker Upper
Feeling down?
Feeling stupid?
Don't.
No matter how dumb you are, there is somebody out there much, much dumber than you could ever imagine being.
Trust me on that.
Or if you don't believe me, check out this video.
See? You're not the dumbest person in the world, no matter what your parents, teachers and girlfriend keep telling you.
Double Special Extra Bonus Points: Check out the Troy Aikman face she makes. Suuuu--wwwweeeeeet.
Triple Extra Bonus Points: If that made you hungry, how 'bout a Sheet of Meat? Mmmmmmmm... "I'll have the sheet of barbecue pork. Could I get a couple beams of corn, and a couple tie rods of hush puppies while you're at it?" Man... nothing reinforces our place in industry, like being told that in the future we'll eat sheets of lab-grown meat...
On the plus side, think of how efficient it will be to buy a 36"x24" sheet of steak for your next picnic... just slap that bad boy on the grill, flip it once, and it will be perfectly cooked. You'll be able to cut the thing with a table saw, bevel the edges with a nice English Roundover bit on your router, and serve it up with a couple attractively dado'ed ears of corn. Hell, you won't need knives any more, you'll be able to efficiently slice the sheet into sandwich meat on your band saw. Mmmmmmmm... I'm going to love being a more productive industrial unit contributing to society by eating more efficiently cultured meat sheets.
Y'know what? I'm not optimistic about the future when I read about how we'll all chow down on "sheets of meat." I yield to no man in my love of meat in all its forms - near raw, medium rare, marinated, ground, raw in some cases, well done if properly seasoned, smoked, sauteed, or included in some kind of processed blend inside a synthetic gut casing. I think Slim Jims are a gift from God, although not as nice a gift as bacon and turkey jerky.
But reading about sheets of meat is almost disgusting enough to make me donate to PETA, swear off meat and turn vegan.
What, are you nuts? Me turn vegan?
Hey, I said it was almost enough. Now wouldja shut up and pass me a couple blankets of Spam?
Thanks.
Feeling stupid?
Don't.
No matter how dumb you are, there is somebody out there much, much dumber than you could ever imagine being.
Trust me on that.
Or if you don't believe me, check out this video.
See? You're not the dumbest person in the world, no matter what your parents, teachers and girlfriend keep telling you.
Double Special Extra Bonus Points: Check out the Troy Aikman face she makes. Suuuu--wwwweeeeeet.
Triple Extra Bonus Points: If that made you hungry, how 'bout a Sheet of Meat? Mmmmmmmm... "I'll have the sheet of barbecue pork. Could I get a couple beams of corn, and a couple tie rods of hush puppies while you're at it?" Man... nothing reinforces our place in industry, like being told that in the future we'll eat sheets of lab-grown meat...
On the plus side, think of how efficient it will be to buy a 36"x24" sheet of steak for your next picnic... just slap that bad boy on the grill, flip it once, and it will be perfectly cooked. You'll be able to cut the thing with a table saw, bevel the edges with a nice English Roundover bit on your router, and serve it up with a couple attractively dado'ed ears of corn. Hell, you won't need knives any more, you'll be able to efficiently slice the sheet into sandwich meat on your band saw. Mmmmmmmm... I'm going to love being a more productive industrial unit contributing to society by eating more efficiently cultured meat sheets.
Y'know what? I'm not optimistic about the future when I read about how we'll all chow down on "sheets of meat." I yield to no man in my love of meat in all its forms - near raw, medium rare, marinated, ground, raw in some cases, well done if properly seasoned, smoked, sauteed, or included in some kind of processed blend inside a synthetic gut casing. I think Slim Jims are a gift from God, although not as nice a gift as bacon and turkey jerky.
But reading about sheets of meat is almost disgusting enough to make me donate to PETA, swear off meat and turn vegan.
What, are you nuts? Me turn vegan?
Hey, I said it was almost enough. Now wouldja shut up and pass me a couple blankets of Spam?
Thanks.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Rrrrrrode Tttttttoday...
It was fffffffffrickin' cccccccccccold. Timmy and John pussed out beforehand. Young Tom, who is of an age where a pussout or two is no big deal, with luck he's got 60 years or so to rally, also pussed out. Johnathan said his wife was sick - not a pussout, but suspicious. Highly suspicious.
Much to their credit, Trevor and James showed up and we rolled. James made it about three miles before we heard "flap flap flap flap flap." That was James trying to shake his North Carolina fall-weight-appropriate gloves to try to get Wisconsin-ass-winter-deep-freeze out of them, as his hands were icing up after just ten minutes. So he had to bail. That's not a pussout - when the weather kicks your ass, as I've established previously, it's not a pussout.
So the appropriately dressed and well insulated Trevor and I rolled Bell Branch out to 450, to Crownsville Road down the Millersville Road, up Dairy Farm to Waugh Chapel, to God's Own Gift, the Caribou Coffee. It was a fixie friendly route - mostly flat, up and down false flats, and just one or two little hills, about 25 miles of joy, which was plenty long enough given the temperature and the wind. (Around 25f, with winds gusting up to probably 20 MPH. Can you say, "fffffrickin wwwwwwindchchchchchill"?) We had a nice chat about lots of stuff, mostly family, just an easy zone two spin. The effort level was surprisingly high - I'm working on a theory that because the body pulls blood out of the extremities into the core when it gets really cold, that's why cycling in the cold seems so high effort. By "working on" I mean "conjecturing about on cold rides."
One "Mint Condition" later - a huge coffee with about three shots of espresso in it, and mint / chocolate sprinkles on top, along with some mint in the coffee - we were headed back to Crofton. It felt pretty good in spite of the weather and dead-numb toes. I'm sure there were some hard core people out there who rode much longer today. I'm sure also that most of them waited until 9:00 AM, instead of shoving off at 7:00.
It struck me that cycling is about acceptance. We talked about racing with different people and I discussed some minor crit altercations I have had with folks, for things like half wheeling, whacking the brakes at the wrong place, and so forth. But I accept those folks - first accepting the fact they do that, it's just racing - but also accepting them as friends on wheels. No, they aren't friends like an old best Army buddy who at one point would have died (literally) to help you, but they are good friends, people who share in the struggle on wheels.
We also accept things on the bike the way they are. If it's cold, we accept the fact, and dress right for the weather. If we're slow, we accept it's our own damn fault, and cut back on the donuts while (trying anyhow) to scale up the mileage. If we race and get beat, we tell the other guy, "great race," and try like hell not to excuse away our own failings. Most of all, we accept whatever it is that the road throws at us, whether it's potholes, flats, epic hills, epic bonks, and the occasional road rash. We accept most of these things without really thinking about it, or occasionally make a few quips or complaint about it, but I've never heard of somebody quitting riding "because I just can't stand the conditions under which we have to work." We just accept it and move on, usually pretty silently with the tires making a bit of music along the road surface.
Getting on a bicycle about 18 months ago saved my life. It took a lot of weight off me - not enough yet - and forced me to confront some things about myself I didn't like. I had to accept I couldn't eat or drink like I used to; I had to accept that I'm not exempt from health warnings. I also had to accept the fact that I'm responsible for my problems, and that I have the ability to get myself out of them. Accepting these hard facts that the bike bashed me in the face with, was the first movement I made towards getting the fitness & health side of my life wired back together again. There's no deeper meaning to it, no metaphysics - the bike just says "here's what it is, if you don't like that, find another hobby."
At it's core, it is about the truth. When you ride the bike, it doesn't lie to you ever. Most other people in our lives will lie to us - sometimes in an obviously harsh way, other times in a cruel way, where they are kinder to us than they really ought to be, if they are truly looking out for our own good. It takes a bicycle and a big hill to really tell the truth about our fitness and lifestyle though, and damned if that bike is even capable of telling us a kind little lie. "You're not fat... you're big boned. You carry it well. It's probably genetic." These are things my bike wouldn't think of saying. All it ever says is "hey, you need to lose weight, fatboy," and "you aren't all that fast compared to these other guys," and, "is that all you got? I was designed for T-Mobile. You are most definitely not pushing me very hard."
Yeah, like the weather, our bikes don't lie. But that's okay. I can accept that. Can you?
Much to their credit, Trevor and James showed up and we rolled. James made it about three miles before we heard "flap flap flap flap flap." That was James trying to shake his North Carolina fall-weight-appropriate gloves to try to get Wisconsin-ass-winter-deep-freeze out of them, as his hands were icing up after just ten minutes. So he had to bail. That's not a pussout - when the weather kicks your ass, as I've established previously, it's not a pussout.
So the appropriately dressed and well insulated Trevor and I rolled Bell Branch out to 450, to Crownsville Road down the Millersville Road, up Dairy Farm to Waugh Chapel, to God's Own Gift, the Caribou Coffee. It was a fixie friendly route - mostly flat, up and down false flats, and just one or two little hills, about 25 miles of joy, which was plenty long enough given the temperature and the wind. (Around 25f, with winds gusting up to probably 20 MPH. Can you say, "fffffrickin wwwwwwindchchchchchill"?) We had a nice chat about lots of stuff, mostly family, just an easy zone two spin. The effort level was surprisingly high - I'm working on a theory that because the body pulls blood out of the extremities into the core when it gets really cold, that's why cycling in the cold seems so high effort. By "working on" I mean "conjecturing about on cold rides."
One "Mint Condition" later - a huge coffee with about three shots of espresso in it, and mint / chocolate sprinkles on top, along with some mint in the coffee - we were headed back to Crofton. It felt pretty good in spite of the weather and dead-numb toes. I'm sure there were some hard core people out there who rode much longer today. I'm sure also that most of them waited until 9:00 AM, instead of shoving off at 7:00.
It struck me that cycling is about acceptance. We talked about racing with different people and I discussed some minor crit altercations I have had with folks, for things like half wheeling, whacking the brakes at the wrong place, and so forth. But I accept those folks - first accepting the fact they do that, it's just racing - but also accepting them as friends on wheels. No, they aren't friends like an old best Army buddy who at one point would have died (literally) to help you, but they are good friends, people who share in the struggle on wheels.
We also accept things on the bike the way they are. If it's cold, we accept the fact, and dress right for the weather. If we're slow, we accept it's our own damn fault, and cut back on the donuts while (trying anyhow) to scale up the mileage. If we race and get beat, we tell the other guy, "great race," and try like hell not to excuse away our own failings. Most of all, we accept whatever it is that the road throws at us, whether it's potholes, flats, epic hills, epic bonks, and the occasional road rash. We accept most of these things without really thinking about it, or occasionally make a few quips or complaint about it, but I've never heard of somebody quitting riding "because I just can't stand the conditions under which we have to work." We just accept it and move on, usually pretty silently with the tires making a bit of music along the road surface.
Getting on a bicycle about 18 months ago saved my life. It took a lot of weight off me - not enough yet - and forced me to confront some things about myself I didn't like. I had to accept I couldn't eat or drink like I used to; I had to accept that I'm not exempt from health warnings. I also had to accept the fact that I'm responsible for my problems, and that I have the ability to get myself out of them. Accepting these hard facts that the bike bashed me in the face with, was the first movement I made towards getting the fitness & health side of my life wired back together again. There's no deeper meaning to it, no metaphysics - the bike just says "here's what it is, if you don't like that, find another hobby."
At it's core, it is about the truth. When you ride the bike, it doesn't lie to you ever. Most other people in our lives will lie to us - sometimes in an obviously harsh way, other times in a cruel way, where they are kinder to us than they really ought to be, if they are truly looking out for our own good. It takes a bicycle and a big hill to really tell the truth about our fitness and lifestyle though, and damned if that bike is even capable of telling us a kind little lie. "You're not fat... you're big boned. You carry it well. It's probably genetic." These are things my bike wouldn't think of saying. All it ever says is "hey, you need to lose weight, fatboy," and "you aren't all that fast compared to these other guys," and, "is that all you got? I was designed for T-Mobile. You are most definitely not pushing me very hard."
Yeah, like the weather, our bikes don't lie. But that's okay. I can accept that. Can you?
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