I’m a naturally loud and weird person who expresses excitement through volume. Also, alcohol is supposed to be a depressant, but it doesn’t appear to work for me; all it does is make me happier (and louder) – until I have a little too much at which point I get weirder (a too-happy, too-loud kind of…
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A friend recently asked my advice for how to prepare for the longest ride he’d ever done. My approach is somewhat unorthodox when it comes to this sort of thing; I like to train to ride a lot farther than the event itself, and whenever possible, throw in a handful of sessions with my old…
When it comes to weight and body dysmorphia, we cyclists can go toe-to-toe with any thirteen year old tween who has done their time flipping through the pages of Vogue and Sixteen. However fit and thin we might be, at some point it dawns on us that we’re not as light as we could be….
If I were a pessimist, or a realist for that matter, I wonder if I might have started any of the various activities which have brought me the most pleasure and satisfaction. Though I have Cycling in my mind when I make that statement, this principle expands beyond the vast and il-defined borders of La…
There are few pleasures in life as great as to achieve a goal, to accomplish something that doesn’t come easily. Great lessons are taught through this activity; we learn that it is our determination and not our doubt that defines our limits. We learn that through studied discipline we can cultivate the skills required to…
I’m often told I romanticize Cycling’s past, that the days gone by weren’t quite as rosy as I make them out to be. There is some truth to this, certainly, but the assertion isn’t entirely accurate in the sense that I romanticize everything about Cycling. Because events are seasoned by our thoughts and individual experience, we necessarily cannot…
In my favorite scene from Lawrence of Arabia, T.E. Lawrence, after lighting a colleague’s cigarette, allows the match to burn down to his fingertips before snuffing it out. Having witnessed the stunt, the dim-witted associate attempts it himself, only to blow out the match before it gets anywhere close to burning down. “That damn well hurts!”, he states,…
Fitness. The rhythm, the feeling of precision in our movement, the sensations of The Ride. The temptation of knowing we might in some way control our suffering even as we push harder in spite of the searing pain in our legs and lungs. The notion that through suffering, we might learn something rudimentary about ourselves – that we might…
When you’re digging deeper into Rock and Roll, you’re on a freight train headed straight for the blues. – Jack White The analog for this in Cycling is that as we dig deeper into cycling, we’re headed for The Mountains. Suffering is the altar of our sport, and Rule VV emphasizes the experience: the pain…
Looking Pro is a delicate art rife with paradox and enigma. Aesthetics in a sport as difficult as cycling is itself a contradiction; surely anything wrought with such suffering should be driven by function and function alone. Yet cyclists are both some of the hardest people in sport and the most vain. For a cyclist…
Aesthetics have always played a major role in my quest to become a better athlete. On the surface, this may seem a ridiculously vain assertion, but for me, the reality is that looking like a pro makes me feel like a pro, and when I feel like a pro, I’m motivated to ride like a…
Performance-enhancing methods. This is a term we hear so often in cycling; it refers to the practice of using products or processes that elevate your performance beyond what you could naturally do. It is a terribly complicated matter for the fans, and I can only speculate as to how complicated it is for the professionals…