Someone sent me a link to the tweet below from Lawson Craddock. It got me thinking about racing now and 30 years ago and if there was a way to race myself of old, who would win. And I came to the conclusion that I’m better now than I was then.

I’m not sure I’m physically better. Probably not. I’m fairly beat up. But, considering the whole package, I’m a better bike rider. Experience in this sport is key. Learning from observation. Learning from mistakes. Learning in general. And retaining that information. Then applying that knowledge to different circumstances later, to have a better result. That is one thing that attracts me so much to the sport.

I still find the mental aspect of the sport interesting. After riding Redlands, I’m thinking about just using stage races later on in the season as training. I find the racing pretty boring. Free for all bike racing is much more interesting to me.

Like the end of Tour of Flanders last Sunday. I’m still thinking about that last 15 kms. I don’t understand it. Boonen launching Cancellara off the front. Then, Cancellara loosing a 45 second lead on one hill only to split the field right when the field reconnected. And Sylvain Chavanel pulling during the last 2 km, when he has Tom Boonen so close behind. There was a kind of weird hand shake between Chavanel and Cancellara in there somewhere that I didn’t quite understand. Pretty great bike race in general.

Anyway, I don’t remember racing against Lawson’s dad. But he must be a pretty good athlete because his son obviously has pretty good genes.

I heard a story on NPR a few months back about some spiders that were taken up to the International Space Station and proceeded to spin their webs in outer space. I had been meaning to check it out more, in depth, and I did on the way back to Kansas yesterday. It is truly amazing.

Spiders use gravity when they are spinning web on Earth. But, since there isn’t any gravity in space, the spiders had to adapt and “figure” it out. This experiment had been done back in the 70’s with the same results. I never really thought much about a spiders ability to overcome a huge change of environment, in just one day, and be able to go about its business of collecting food. Obviously spiders have a thought process, and that is way beyond anything I’d imagined.

It goes to show you how important adaptation is to survival. In the sport of bicycle racing, that couldn’t be more true. It is an ever changing environment, especially if you’re so lucky to be mixing it up with road, MTB and cyclo-x. I think the key to success in this sport is to be able to adapt quickly, quickly enough that it becomes 2nd nature. Good, quick decisions serve you well in cycling. Getting to the point of making them is the problem. It takes a ton of experience and time.

Calfee Spider frame.