bicycle (racing)

For a long time I was a bike racer. For me it was the end all be all, the dream and the path, the guts and the glory. Everyone I looked up to was a bike racer, and all of my friends were bike racers. It was, quite literally the life blood that ran through my veins. Then, a little while ago, I stopped bike racing. Instead of another summer of intervals and traveling, bicycle racing was dropped on the side of the road. There wasn't a straw that broke the camel's back, but two summers ago, I lost all motivation to train or race. I went to school, locked my bike in the basement, and there it stayed untouched for the better part of six months. Bike racing was all but dead to me and the thought of riding rollers through the short cold snowy bozeman days - while it might appeal to some folks - was not high on my agenda.

Then I got a job at a bike shop this summer. I was excited to spend time around bikes, learning, working, and sharing these machines that got me so far. I thought that the atmosphere would take me back to a place where I was truly excited about biking: where I could spend hours on mtbr and velonews, geeking out on parts and races and pros. But it didn't. Working in the store a handful of hours a week was, contrary to my expectations, one of the worst blows to my cycling enthusiasm I've ever encountered. As it turns it out, bike shops are not the right place to fall (back) in love with bikes.

I did do a bit of riding this summer. It was not a chore, it was not stressful. It was full of dead-ends, turn-arounds, and hike-a-bikes. Still though, it was not care free and easy going. More of getting lost, high in the hills, served to chase some demons from the rest of the world, a place to be turned around but still comfortable, where the new was really old, really old. It was shit that got rediscovered, redeemed in the most valiant of fashions, but still shit that was there all along, and it just took a while to find it. Like how you can get out of bed in your former house - without living there for years - and still find the light switch in the middle of the night. That was last summer, finding the light switch.

Just over a month ago I again packed my material possessions into the subie and headed north. Things this time around were a little more under control than a year ago the same time, and whoever that wise man is, he's right in saying that you can sleep when you're dead. Or at least when you're done with college. In all seriousness, this fall has been an eye opener. Pushing the boundaries of my riding, my fitness, and my psyche, long rides, short rides, hard rides and easy rides. But all in the name of fun, not stress or goals or anything like that. This weekend in particular, was something of a revolution. I've done a handful of races in the past year and a half, maybe two handfuls, but definitely no more than I have fingers, but there has not a race that - and this may sound stupid - I have really raced. I love to ride my bike, and I won't pass up an opportunity to pedal, but it takes a lot of commitment to suffer through a bike race. Commitment I didn't have any interest in until yesterday. The bangtail ball buster was not a spectacular race in any sense, in fact, for all intensive purposes I got the shit kicked out of me, but darnit if it wasn't fun.

It really is the best place to be right now. Fall is beautiful, trails are rideable for now (knock on wood). And while I am excited for winter (always will be) the riding is stellar. There are not many months of training and stressing ahead of me, only a few short weeks to be savored until the snow starts falling, so until then, the indian summer will be fully embraced, and biking will be fun. And for lack of any better way to put it, I feel blessed that bike riding has returned to that.

Nope, No fun here

None at all

Don't even bother

Fine and Dandy

There is not a moment I could imagine here where I would hesitate to say I have fallen head over heels for the montucky fall. Except when you are at risk of taking a number 4 buck shot through the woods. Where's my hunter's orange?

Whilst meeting some folks this weekend, I was introduced as Sam, he should be an art major, he just doesn't know it yet. I still smiled but it caught me a bit off guard, not going to lie. You see, I really love art. Pretty much all of it actually, but the act of being an art major has never really been an option for me. The one advice everyone says, I mean everyone, is to do what you love. Follow your heart, thats the yellowbrick road. Hand me a paint brush and hand me a science textbook, and its not a hard choice which one will be dropped to the floor. Why then am I charging headstrong towards another 10+ years of studying and working for science. Yes, I suppose I do enjoy learning, and science is captivating, but I feel no deep soul bound connection with it, but I don't think thats it. Somewhere buried deep in my head is the notion that art is frivolous, not to me, no most certainly not, but to the people who brought me up, who worked to put me where I am today, that is not the 'noble' pursuit in life. The noble pursuit is a well paying job with lots of toys and stuff. Thats the life I've lived... indeed it is still the life I am living, but it is the secure life, where with a medical degree I have the security of money and societal superiority. These are things that hold worth, no doubt, but how much is it worth to me? On the other hand, there is the unknown, making a living at something that brings sheer joy. Every minute of it, not a compromise of stress and comfort, but pure joy... hard work yes, but real enjoyment. That is the passion I need to find, sometimes it just looks like a long ways to jump.  

Magnifique

Trés Bon, when you can do ze sport climb in ze scotteesh highlands right out ze back door. when you can camp, soak in water of the gods, and eat the food of gods. Trés Bon i say.

60˚ and partly sunny, 10 mile run up and back bozeman creek in a little over 1:05, now thats what I'm talking about. 

Funny how when my list of things to do looks like this:

     bank

     read

     lab report

     grocery store

     clean room

   

My list of things accomplished looks like:

     coffee

     run

     stretch

     eat

I'd say I've got priorities in line. 

Transition

43˚ and raining. So I guess this is what fall means when you live in someplace other than the colorado rockies, someplace where the sun does not shine 365 days per annum. I wont lie, the last few weeks of montana weather have worn a little heavy. But, it has also been good exercise for staying positive, because fall is, after all, a season of transition.

It seems strange to me that so much can come out of the grey area between two things, I suppose though, that between summer and winter, there is really very little grey. Instead, the changing aspens, the reddening scrub oak, even the grasses and pine trees, are all swept up in the chilled northerly winds in the rush for winter with very little that is left grey (except when its raining). More so than sight, fall is a vast collection of stimulation to the senses, not just colors, but smells, thoughts, sounds. Memories of relaxing after summers of traveling to races, grinding up argentine pass in the snow, with cold soggy feet. The long singlespeed rides with omv after school, up lefthand and fourmile in the afternoon light with dried up leaves clattering in the breeze and pushing down the canyons to make it home before dusk with noses running and eyes bleary from the stinging cold inversions along the creek. The smell, ah the smell, when the yellow leaves reach the ground and begin their decomposition - or is it recomposition, of life, to death, to life again, when the damp earth swallows all, the smell of that is the greatest herald of fun I could ever ask for.

As with life, however, fall can not be seen only in past light, he who dwells in the past... well yeah, you get it. Its about the future too though. The anticipation, the adrenaline rush, every time the clouds clear, and the caps of white donning the high peaks have grown, because winter is right around the corner. The autumnal equinox is in 6 days. and this, this is a victory. For those who live everyday with dreams of snow, the summer solstice is the turning point. When we pass that barrier and turn towards longer nights and cooler temperatures. But for me, living ever in the future is just as much of a waste, because summer has many great things to offer as well, and to spend summer brooding, waiting, is plain stupid. Never the less, all things come to an end, and as with summer, so has my lust for riding. Already, hours in the gym have been checked away with crunches, lunges, leg presses, pull ups, bounding, and running, general fitness is the key hear. A strong body is the necessary solid base for long days in the snowy peaks. For the majik of gliding over carpeted tracks on rails, each huff and puff right now makes the huffing and puffing over skin tracks that much better.

So with a solid grasp on past, present, and future, I say fucking live. Adventure and enjoy, because this world - this life - is damn good.