The Cycling Collective

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The sport of cycling is a collective. A collective of individuals from all over this planet that, mostly, have the same thoughts, desires, and visions of the sport.

This is one of the many things that drew me to the sport. I’m a pretty much individual type guy. Subjective or teams sports never attracted me much. But, cycling did and it was/is sort of a team sport. I think that too much emphasis is put on the team aspect now, but that is just because the abuse, that seemed to appear right at the same time as the all for one, one for all bike racing tactics appeared.

Anyway, I was reading Tyler Hamilton’s testimony from the Puerto thing in Spain and what really bothered me was his statement saying “we were all breathing through our noses.” after flying to Spain for a blood bag. I’ve seen way too many people breath out of their noses when I couldn’t get close to enough air through my mouth.

All these guys, these 100’s and 100’s of riders that broke the rules and cheated us all out of life experiences, aren’t part of the collective. They’d like to think that they are, or they might want to get back into the collective, but they, as individuals, thought of themselves first and didn’t take into consideration the consequences of what they were doing or what collective they were joining at the time.

Most of the Americans that have “went down” in all this doping saga, I know personally. And nearly all of them are nice guys. Most cyclists are, there are a few exceptions. I feel badly for these guys when they reminiscence about how they got into the sport and what is so beautiful about the sport to them. They forgot these things when they decided to cheat the collective. They became individuals at that point, or maybe they joined another collective, I’m not sure.

They forgot that cycling is a journey, not a destination. When they decided to fast track their careers, no matter how or why they came by that decision, they derailed themselves from the collective’s path. Their journey was over.

Now the all the individuals, or the members of the newly created collective, want to rejoin the original collective. Better than that, they want to lead our collective back from the edge, saying they have the knowledge and the experience to do just that.

I say the collective isn’t just a bunch of guys that have had the fortunate luxury to be able to race the Tour, the classics, etc., under false pretenses. The collective is much much bigger than that. It is a bunch of guys that get together to ride MTB bikes in 14 inches of snow, just because. It is the guy that commutes to work 20 miles each way, in tennis shoes, because he loves riding his bike and thinks that his actions are good for his children’s future. It is a bunch of old, fat guys that can name every climb in the 1981 edition of Flanders, or any year for that matter. It is all the guys that show up every Spring in Cassody, Kansas, for the Bazaar road race. Where the temperature is hardly ever 50, and the wind is blowing just about that hard. And the fields are burning so that the smoke blows across the road for long periods, racing for virtually nothing, when their form is just about the same. And doing it because they love the sport and are part of the collective.

The collective is much bigger than a bunch of prima dona bike racers, that decided individually (or maybe collectively somewhat), to go it on their own, to get the prize by dumping out all the Crack Jacks. These guys shouldn’t get to led the collective anywhere. They should just open up their little prize and realize what they did it for, a rub-on tattoo or junkie plastic trinket that doesn’t even work.

I think most of us are sick of these guys telling the collective that they were really that good and really didn’t need to do it to start with. That they need us just to give them a 2nd, maybe 3rd chance, and they will show us all how great of riders they really are. What they don’t realize, it is super easy to spot the guys breathing through their noses when the rest of us are gasping for air. They already got to their destination, while the rest of us are still on our journeys.

crackerjackposter

Heading Down to the NAHBS

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We’re heading down to Denver for the Handmade Bike Show this morning. I’m pretty excited about it. I’ve only been to the show once previously, in Austin, and the show is incredible. I’m going to know a ton of people there that I haven’t seen in a long time, so that will most likely be good.

I haven’t been doing all that great, but I realize it is baby steps. I would of thought that this sleep thing at night would have been getting better after a week. I seem to be regressing in that regard. What I’m worried about today is I tend to run out of juice kind of suddenly, and when that occurs, I’m done. Like completely done. It seems to happen mid to late afternoon, so I should try to take that into account down in Denver, but I doubt I will.

My friend Vincent, who I stayed with on the way out and who’s mother’s place I’m staying at in Silverthorne, is coming back late tonight. His father died this past week in Topeka and the funeral was this morning. He’s heading back to Denver right after, so I’ll see him at his house later tonight. He’s going to the show with me on Sunday, which will be super fun. Vincent is an inventor type, who will love the different designs and creations that are common at this show.

My last two days have been routine, but super slow. I can’t believe how much I’m sleeping during the day. Guess I’m trying to make up for lost sleep at night? Whatever the reason, I’m sleeping most of each afternoon away. I would usually feel super guilty about that, but it doesn’t even cross my mind right now. It is so strange how routines can switch so quickly.

My friend, Wayne Stetina, from Shimano, fell last Sunday and shattered his hip. He had to have a complete hip replacement. I texted him a couple days ago and he was already at home, walking. It is amazing. He said that they only cut a 3 inch incision to the front of his leg, cut no leg muscle and replaced his hip. I think it was something like Floyd had done when he broke his. He said today that he was in virtually no pain and super mobile. I told him that I was in a ton of pain, but I’d been riding the erogometer for the past few days.
Anyway, talk about routine changing. One minute your at a bike race and the next minute you have a new hip. Amazing.

I drink a fair amount of hot tea. I like it a lot. I don’t drink coffee before noon on any given day. I haven’t been digging the taste of the tea here in Silverthorne much. I thought it was maybe the pain medication messing with my taste buds. But last night, while I was laying awake, for some inexplicable reason, all of sudden I thought that the tea is tasting so strange because the water isn’t hot enough to steep it properly. I just looked it up and water boils at about 195 degree at 9000 feet, so that is 17 degrees cooler than at sea level. That has to explain it?

Anyway, I’ll post a bunch of pictures of the show later. You can find a bunch here at Velonews.com.
 There are a couple of Kent Eriksen’s new dual suspension 650B MTB bike. It is sweet.

I'm having a hard time finding a position that I can stay in over a few minutes while riding inside.

I’m having a hard time finding a position that I can stay in over a few minutes while riding inside.

This is the other position I'm in most of the rest of the day. Dogs always seem to know when someone doesn't feel good, plus they don't really ever need an excuse to take a nap.

This is the other position I’m in most of the rest of the day. Dogs always seem to know when someone doesn’t feel good, plus they don’t really ever need an excuse to take a nap.