the tao of cycling: cinderella story

Friday, October 29, 2010

cinderella story

I am having a cinderella moment.

in the past few days a deer has run in front of my bike, and a weasel has popped his little head and body in my path. teeny little fruit flies keep swirling around me, and today while I rode, little birds followed me and chirped and sang the entire time.

I feel like cinderella in her pretty blue dress, surrounded by adoring critters.

another way to look at things:

I live in utah and it's fall, I ride in a canyon where I often see critters.

the other day I threw out a rotting red onion that was hanging out in my kitchen.

and it's just possible that my bike has a little squeak.

sigh.

I would love it if I could ride my bike and look like a princess while doing it. you know, perfect makeup, clean and sweat-free hair, a beautiful dress that flatters instead of those abhorrent bike shorts, soft lighting and gentle music instead of squint-inducing sunlight and car horns.

I wouldn't even mind being surrounded by adoring critters.

but my reality, I fear, lies in the third paragraph above.

now I have a plan for the fruit flies, but the bike squeak has me stumped. it's one of those "now you hear it now you don't" utterances, and since it was chilly this morning and I had my headband on, all sounds were muffled and I don't really know where it was coming from.

and here is one of susan's little secrets: I don't really like to work too hard at anything.

for me to figure out what's wrong with my bike will take time, patience, and effort. I'll have to ride it around, trying to replicate today's situation, hoping the same sound will be produced. then I'll have to focus my hearing and determine where the squeak is coming from. then I'll have to use what little I know, and try to connect a moving part with the sound.

all of this just so I can take it in to my bike boy and say,

"it's making this squeaky sound sometimes, but not always, and I think it's coming from this little place but I can't really tell and can you figure it out because I can't?"

sounds a bit like a cinderella might, doesn't it?

all I need now are a few little mice to run around and help me do the sewing, and I'll have it made.

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the Male Ego

The other day I was coming down a canyon in my drop bars (two years ago I would have said, 'what's a drop bar?'), working hard, when I came up on two guys who were also heading downhill but at a more leisurely pace. I passed them, said hello as I did so, and pulled back into the bike lane. a few minutes later they went flying past me, faces looking dead ahead, not a single bit of acknowledgment that I even existed on this planet let alone was involved in and enjoying the same sport they were.
I have to attribute this to the male ego. what else can it be? now I know we all have egos, myself included. and mine even shows its ridiculous little head once in a while, or perhaps more often. but the difference between mine and say, those of certain men on bicycles, is that I KNOW mine exists and I can LAUGH at mine. I know my ego was quite excited to pass those guys, and I could also smile because I knew if the men had really been working like I was, they would have kicked my butt down the hill.
I think I pissed them off.
and I'm sure I will be sharing with you much more of my thoughts about the male ego . . .

a little history

I was married, and I had a mountain bike which I rarely rode. we separated, I moved out, and four months later someone stole my bike. the next spring, 2005, I bought myself a new mountain bike. I rode occasionally, and in april 2006 I rode in my first century, the Cactus Hugger in St. George, Utah. I made it 54 miles on that mountain bike, and it took me about 6 hours. I think that included the rest stops where I prayed that someone would steal my bike again . . .
in june 2006 I started riding my mountain bike five mornings a week, a 45-55 minute loop that was intended to be all about exercise. and what I found was that I loved the quiet, peaceful morning full of bird chatter and barely breaking sunrises. by that fall I was hooked, and began considering the purchase of a road bike. I rode up emigration canyon for the first time that Labor Day of 2006, panting and plowing along on my trusty (heavy) bike, and a month later I was the proud owner of my own road bike: I had become a two-bike girl!
a 17-week-long "power camp" over the winter and a handful of new friends kept bicycling front and center in my life, and when spring of 2007 rolled around I was ready to hit the pavement. I rode my first century the end of april, when I again went to St. George and completed that Cactus Hugger. it took me about 7 hours, but this time I rode the entire 100 miles with about 9300 feet of vertical gain. woo hoo!
I started riding canyons around our area, emigration and millcreek, city creek, big cottonwood, little mountain and big mountain, and once--yes, only once--little cottonwood.
then in september of 2007, I rode from Logan, Utah, to Jackson, Wyoming, in the slightly infamous LOTOJA race. I rode, I did not race. and I completed the thing, crediting my good training buddies, the incredibly perfect weather, my support team, and an amazing convergence of all things positive in the universe.
I put in about 3500 miles last season, and as of today, july 19, 2008, I have about 1700 in, adding to it every day.
I have again signed on to ride the LOTOJA race, and my goal is to have just somewhere near as great a ride as I did last year. oh, and to have someone fun to talk with along the way as I got incredibly bored last year . . . star valley is still a nightmare scene in my biking memories . . .
and here is a picture of the machine that has helped me reclaim my life.