the tao of cycling: the new toy

Friday, November 16, 2012

the new toy

preface: this is not about cycling. (well, only a little, and only at the end.)

prologue: I hate making coffee. measuring grounds, filling the reservoir, all of it. hate it. but I like drinking coffee. there you go.

chapter one:
2 years ago I visited my brother and his family in texas. they had a keurig coffee machine, and I fell in love with it. I popped a pod in, pushed a button, and voila, had a cup of coffee. sigh. bliss. I decided then and there that when I hit my stride, had enough money coming in to feel secure and comfortable, I would treat myself and buy such a machine. it would be an indulgence, a luxury, a goal to shoot for and one day reward myself with.

chapter two:
I got married. john drinks regular coffee, and I drink primarily decaf. for the first 3 months of our married life we had 2 coffee pots on the counter . . . his and hers, regular and decaf. in planning a kitchen remodel we considered a built-in, cup-at-a-time coffee maker (that housed both regular and decaf beans) to eliminate those 2 cumbersome machines. boy are those things expensive.

chapter three:
someone suggested we try a keurig.

chapter four:
we bought a keurig, some decaf pods and some regular pods. john brewed the first cup, sipped, smiled, and sighed in contentment. I brewed a cup of decaf, sipped, smiled, and sighed in contentment.
we no longer had to fill our coffee machines the night before, we no longer had to guess how much coffee we wanted to drink before we drank it, we no longer needed two separate machines in the morning. we learned we could have a cup of fresh, hot coffee in about 30 seconds. we glowed.

chapter five:
I am now a happy camper, with one small not-too-expensive, neat machine on my counter, a happily caffeinated John and a happily not-too-caffeinated me. we and our keurig plan to live harmoniously for the rest of our days. or at least until they invent a new coffee-making method that improves upon the one-cup-at-a-time keurig.

epilogue:
some toys are worth every penny you pay for them. my bike and my keurig top that list.

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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.