Before the New Year, it was my ride up Haleakala. At present, it’s Keepers Tour: Cobbled Classics 2013. Before Haleakala, it was one of the various Cyclocross races and before that the Zoo Hill Time Trial. The targets change, but throughout my life as a Velominatus, there always seems to be a goal looming over the horizon which spurs me on. Training, for its endless nature, is like painting the Forth Bridge in Scotland: it takes a year to paint and you have to paint it every year.
In contrast to my opinion of painting a bridge, training is something I fundamentally enjoy. Lucky for me, I love training for the sake of training; I don’t feel any compelling need to do a particular ride in any particular time. What I do feel, however, is the need to do any particular ride in a better time than I have previously. I’m fortunate to delight in the process of finding form and fitness, of getting better. I love seeing the improvement; I love setting incremental goals and reaching them through the elementary process of working towards them.
Cycling, in this way, presents me with an incredibly rewarding outlet for that bit of my nature that lives on seeing marked progress. In every walk of life, things are complicated. The deeper we wade into any endeavor, the more embroiled we become in the mechanics of staying afloat – to say nothing of actually moving towards an end. Yet, Cycling is simple; put in the work and the results come.
The more complicated my life gets and the more conflicted my priorities, the more I find I love Cycling for its elemental simplicity. Set a goal, make a plan, follow it. There is no one to look to but yourself. There are no external dependencies. There is only the endlessness of The Work.
Vive la Vie Velominatus.
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@Mikael Liddy
Speaking of tough, and cool... in a race today Paul (the guy I roomed with on the Tour of Sharjah) had a blowout as he was attacking on a very fast downhill at nearly 100km/h.
He realised he had to stay upright so he used the concrete dividing barrier in the road to stay upright and grind the speed off, Nascar style. Has totally fucked his wheels, bars and levers and his hand is a bit messy but otherwise OK.
I passed him about a minute later and thought he'd just had a normal puncture and stopped. If it was me I'd have been a blubbering wreck. A hard man, with very impressive bike skills.
Different kind of bike story here. Years ago my friend and I were at a gas station during a tornado. We saw the facade of a building across the street get blown off and fall into the street. Just as it happened a guy came flying down the street on a motorcycle, hit the pile of lumber and somersaulted over it twice before sliding sideways on the bike into the gas station driveway. He got up, dusted himself off, came into the gas station and asked for a pack of Marlboros. I'll never forget that.
Had to give up climbing about 6 years ago. Had to get one shoulder repaired and the other had major impingment. Just got tired of being in pain all the time. I have thought about setting up a slack line over my pool.
The latest video of Potter was great
Moonwalk from Reel Water Productions on Vimeo.
In other news I completed my cardiac rehab today. I hope I never have to sit on one of those exercise bikes again.
@seemunkee
AWESOME!! Didn't know that you'd had problems. Did you have a stent? Scary stuff.
@starclimber
Why is he wearing my grandma's jeans?
@scaler911 Yes, had a 99% blockage of right coronary artery. No heart attack, no damage.
Although the expression is still in the Lexicon, the Forth bridge no longer requires continuous painting....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7250560.stm
@seemunkee
This is why I like to keep my blood treated with plenty of ethanol, makes it nice and thin so it can get through all those small places and keep things running.
Congrats on your rehab progress!
@Sauterelle
FUCK'IN HARDCORE!!! I dream of doing stuff like that! Of course I would have been in the fetal postion crying like my four year old daughter after her big brother stole her Ferbie and chucked it against the wall (with my permission, of course).
@Buck Rogers
you've done enough trauma to know the dude prolly had a blood alcohol >0.2. just saying.