Joe to Pro Cycling

Phrases that we throw out, like “I can’t”, “I could never”, or asserting we weren’t born or made to get a certain thing accomplished is a complete lie. It’s a lie we tell ourselves to keep from what we know to be true. That we actually CAN, that we actually COULD, but we’d have to do more then spend money on bikes - we’d have to change everything to build the engine to ride the way we dream about.

We see others power away with ease and get frustrated we can’t keep up after only being in the sport a year or less. We say we are “struggling” with our weight when the only struggle is which fast food resteraunt we will eat at for lunch. We are in an impulse culture but cycling is not an impulse sport or activity.

Cycling is meditation, it is stillness in effort, it is simple repitition, it demands consistency of years, it rewards patience and laughs at those who tries to take shorcuts.

Cycling gives you both the reigns in your hands and the bridle in your mouth - and asks how hard are you willing to go.

Cycling twists your guts and burns your legs more then any sport - then it asks for more and forbids putting a foot down.

Cycling slows things down on the outside as the storm rages inside.

Cycling frees; from sms, email, phone calls, tweets, updates, breaking news, notifications, red lights, confinded spaces, regulated temperature and the domestic.

It gives all of this - but we can miss it and try to rush in a blindness of comparison. I’m just at the end of my third year of cycling consistently. Often I have people discount themselves when I invite them to go ride, that they couldn’t hang, couldn’t keep up - will never be a rider “like me.” That makes me laugh cause I remember being 240 pounds and only being able to squeeze out 9 miles at a time.

I’m not suggesting we all need to get a coach, nutritionist and put in 20 hours a week. I am suggesting that we need to stop focusing on others or we miss all cycling has for us in our own journey. That we need the kind of patience in our progress that takes the pressure of simply trying to ride our bike everyday. When we don’t have the pressure of making it some pro-level workout - it’s amazing how easy it is to get out and ride.

After we learn to be consistent and to be more interested in our pedaling and not others. Then we have the discipline to do with it what we want, whether racing, grand fondos, or the simple lifestyle of living life in the meditation of cycling instead of the anxiety of the automobile.