You know, most of the time, when you ride, you learn something. Sometimes you eat it major in a crit, and you figure, maybe I won't pull that stunt again. Sometimes you don't eat during a cold as balls race, and bonk so hard you almost cry, and you learn to do the nom nom nom more during races. But sometimes, you just remember something that you forgot for a while. That's what happened to me today.
For me, it's been the summertime blues. I'm workin and workin to make that money so I can give it to Whitman. With all the working, and the racing, I'm pooped. Heck, I played bump at my workplace (the beach) with a group of 10-year-old kids, and my calves were sore for four days. FOUR!! And so the last couple weeks, I've been slumping on the bike. I'd look at my fire engine red maching, and I wouldn't want anything to do with it. No yearning to clean it's shiny gears, no itching to thrash it out on the roads, no stokage to race it. Noo!
So after a couple weeks of barely riding, I begin to look at the bike, and it starts to look attractive again. Am I wearing beer goggles? Is the 9 of a bike I'm looking at now really a 4 that I'm going to regret riding the morning after? Nope. It is only the bike that I really knew. The bike as it has been the last couple weeks has been a poisoned bike that needed nothing more than some rest to be cured.
And so today, I remembered the exhilarating flow into my legs. My riding company helped my memory. There was the Whitman Team founder:
And our own kendi thomas. You all know how she looks, but for our dear audience outside of Whitman...
And this one:
So we rode like the wind for a couple hours. After, I tried to figure what was so terrific about the ride, and I think the thing was, I had rose-colored glasses on, instead of beer-goggles.
I hope everyone's Rudy's are tinting the world well while they ride their bikes.
