A Cyclist’s Time is Fluid

Pictograph of Hands in Red Rock Canyon, NV

This blog has always been about the trailside tree with the tumor; Mike the grey haired commuter on the maroon Miata, lining up the 80 water bottles from my pantry end-to-end and performing dare devil stunts over them.  They’re slices of bike bread.  I’m sure you have a fave like the Sink Shower, Ault Park Mary, or the Competitive Couple.  Sadly my creative bottle has been a bit empty since February when I puked in my hat at Worlds.  Perhaps I peaked.

When Gumbo boy occasionally writes a guest blog I always remind him to look for the unusual, the details that raise an eyebrow, something that makes you smile.  A week or so ago Corey explained the relationship between a lazy eyed llama and motivating junior cyclists.  It was a good example and reminder of the reason you read, like us on Facebook, and follow on Twitter and Strava.  Cycling is just as much of who we are as our relationships, our professions, and our homes.

If your racing, doing a charity ride or planning a bike vacation this summer chances are your car is painted in bird crap, the cats are licking the dirty dishes in your sink, and you have a family of baby bunnies in the tall grass that used to be your backyard.  I completely understand.

I’ve been doing the opposite.  For the past four months, since racing Masters Worlds I’ve put my focus on some things that took a back seat to training.  My buddy Frank calls them “domestics.”  I planted daisies and an Azalea bush, had great conversations on neighborhood walks with my wife,  and used a toothbrush to get the last bit of Louisville mud out of the shifter box in my 4-Runner.  I ran the beach in the Dominican Republic, hiked down the White Rock Trail to the Colorado River in Arizona and visited Booger Hollow in Georgia.  As a result, I haven’t really had an interest in writing for a while. 

It’s not that I don’t love writing or racing anymore.  I do.  I also like pulling weeds out of the garden.  I like reading good books like “The Art of Racing in the Rain.”  Producing radio commercials for a living, I also like freelance money.

The beauty of cycling is that our lives aren’t on schedule.  We don’t eat dinner at six o’clock every night, get the oil changed every 5000 miles or put the trash on the curb the night before pickup.  A cyclist’s time is fluid.  What a shame to arrange your life’s activities by minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years. 

We save laundry for rainy days; cut coupons on the couch at night, only make the bed when company is coming over and hide unopened mail in the pantry.  You discover how to live among a thriving population of dust bunnies, how to romanticize a drippy faucet, and smile at peeling paint. 

I was going to apologize for not writing a whole lot in the four months since cyclocross worlds.  However, I know you get it.  To do so would be apologizing for living the wonderful life we share with bicycles.