Life is good today

A few days ago a customer who is a casual rider was asking me about my riding schedule. He was doing what so many do and comparing someone else’s cycling to his own. I tried to explain that it wasn’t about cadence, speed, distance that those were only technical pieces used to help you become more efficient rider. We just started training again this week. I had an injury early last season that forced me off the bike for almost 8 months. My god that sucked. So far only a few days of riding and the miles are still depressingly low. It’s definitely not the 250+ a week that I was pulling last season. My legs are not gone but they sure as hell aren’t here either. The endurance and power will take all of March to get back but it will be back with more. Already the fires are burning stronger. My shop is sponsoring at least one team for the MS150 this year and I intend to do that plus a few centuries. While I admit that I and my riding partner Gary do tend to get a bit techie with it all, the core of it is something else. Getting up and on a bike at 5:30 am every day, cold, wet, hot, whatever, dressed like a bad ‘70s tv alien really isn’t about becoming faster or bragging rights. The peace and emotion that comes from banging out a killer hill, from working through the pain and nausea, or even from just cranking out 10 miles at lunch is hard to describe. It is an addiction for sure but more so. The high from a good ride can last days. There is a word for it in Italian, tifosi. The literal translation is fan or fanatic but the general meaning is the afflicted, someone who simply cannot help but be that emotional and involved in their passion. Think wandering Zombie. The zombie needs your brain. A life without brain sucking just isn’t a Zombie option. It is at his* very core. Zombie = brain sucking. Cycling is like that for some of us.

The time off the bike forced me to see how important riding is to my life and general mental fitness. A few years ago while laying in bed in a hospital room my roommate, Larry, asked me what I did for a living and then when I finished telling him about networks and corpotate politics and the image needed as a consultant he,with barely a pause, asked what I wanted to be doing. My answer was sell, ride and fix bikes. Just like that. It all seemed very simple. Larry was a hell of a guy. He had survived lung cancer once after returning from Vietnam only to later get throat cancer from the radiation treatments that had saved him the first time. He was getting a feeding tube put in prior to the throat surgeries. It was made very clear to him that at best he was going to live another year. I asked him why go through with all of the chemo and surgery and not just try to live out the remainder as happily as possible. He told me about his favorite secret fishing hole. Then he told me about his grandson and how this year he would be old enough to go fishing with his grandpa. Larry was willing to endure all of that crap so he could teach his grandson to fish at his spot. If that isn’t a lesson I don’t know what is. Sometimes the world will just come up and punch you in the face when you need it. Apparently I have to learn things repeatedly before they stick. Well I gotta go to the shop. The brains need sucking.

Sam

* Do zombies have gender? Makes for a strange discussion point.