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.