Moon Shadows are Evil
- Thread starter stb222
- Start date
nice write ups, yo.
i didn't know you were from York. we used to go there and hit the McDonalds - Taco Bell - Sonic trifecta (across from the mall) and then try to make it back to Gettysburg. good times.
i know nothing of the girls from york.
re. Gettysburg, i went to school there so i'm familiar with all those things. while attending that fine institution, riding was allowed on trails in the Battlefield but by the time i was a senior it was banned. horses, a-ok, bikes, not so much. turned out to be fine though since my coach banned me from riding after a dude on my team told him i was crazy and he'd never seen anyone get up from some of the crashes i had.
at least it wasn't LM and norm didn't run me over. 😀
i didn't know you were from York. we used to go there and hit the McDonalds - Taco Bell - Sonic trifecta (across from the mall) and then try to make it back to Gettysburg. good times.
i know nothing of the girls from york.
re. Gettysburg, i went to school there so i'm familiar with all those things. while attending that fine institution, riding was allowed on trails in the Battlefield but by the time i was a senior it was banned. horses, a-ok, bikes, not so much. turned out to be fine though since my coach banned me from riding after a dude on my team told him i was crazy and he'd never seen anyone get up from some of the crashes i had.
at least it wasn't LM and norm didn't run me over. 😀
To Race or Not To Race, This is Not the Question
To Race or Not To Race, This is Not the Question
OK, maybe it is, at least for some, but at some point this seems to always come up. I was thinking about this the a little bit lately and decided to write a post after seeing that our furry leader is in something of a low point in his racing career. Relating to me, I feel like I am in good form this year and managed to reach a few milestones this year including reaching a 22mph average on the road bike, succeeding in riding some strava segments faster than I thought I was capable (multiple times at that, not one time jobbies) and doing my longest ride to date and at a respectable pace for myself. I would be lying to you if I didn’t think about what I could do in a race, but it rarely goes any further than that.
Lettuce step back a few years. Many of you know I skated in my early years and this is where my current tendencies started. I used to follow my brother around, who was 6 years older starting in around 5th grade circa late eighties. Full on launch ramp sessions that I was just there cruising around, doing my own thing because I was too small to do much other than a pivot grind on the ramp. In the presence of, but doing my own thing. Move forward to middle school and I skated everyday more or less regardless of if I had someone to skate with or not. Move forward to high school and this trend continued, if I was skating a spot and you were there, awesome. If I was skating a spot and no one was there, awesome. I was skating. If other people were around and hanging out, I chilled for a min and then skated (In the presence of, but doing my own thing). My obsessive personality just worked that way. I was always stoked to skate with other people but I skated regardless of who was around. Many other people were not like this.
Move on to college years when I picked up BMX. Same thing, I went to the trails and built and rode regardless of who was around. This became sketchy as the jumps got bigger, but it was still the case. If you were there, awesome, if it was just me awesome (minus a brief period where I was too scared to go there because someone put up a Blair Witch stick figure and I wasn’t gonna be the one to remove it in fear of all they would find is my teeth). One of my good friends at the time told me I was soul rider #1, which I know I have said before and repeating sounds self-righteous, but something keeps me going and I don’t have many other explanations for it.
Trails were always busy on Sunday after the local BMX races were done. There wasn’t much pressure to race, but many of the racers would complain that they couldn’t pedal as fast as than could and still hit the jumps. This always sounded incredibly stupid as the trails were not the race track and it would be perfectly fine if I never pedaled once at the trails. In hindsight, based on how trails have evolved, these statements actually were incredibly stupid. Anyways, a few of the racers rode the trails all the time while some of them never showed up unless they raced (some because they were in the area but other were locals). The attitude that some of these racer had was such a turn off to me especially when they would make comments like “Why don’t you come show us your stuff on the track?”. Many of these guys I related to nothing more than jocks on bikes, they didn’t “get” me and I didn’t “get” them.
Fast forward closer to today. I post How to Clean Log Gnar Gnar Style a few years ago and MTBTyler asks why I don’t race? What does cleaning logs have anything to do with racing? Sure I can go over them fastly, but that because I want to, not because I need to. More relative to today, Capers and Iggy mention I should race b-kill. Sure I would love to, but can it be moved to the HOH start? If so, I am in. It becomes really hard to justify taking a whole weekend for a 3 hour race. I raced the six pack because it was six hours of riding and mooch madness because it was four. I raced two USGP races because they were a 10 min drive from my house. If there was some kind of local race series in my county, I would probably do them. I don’t dislike racing, I following racing and enjoy watching it but when it comes to taking a whole day to ride 1-2 hours, it just doesn’t make sense to me. Sure, there is the social aspect of it, but my social ways(In the presence of, but doing my own thing) is an entire series of posts in itself. However, similar to the BMX racers at the trails, when I hear some peps riding to train and once that goes away the riding means nothing, I can’t help to think it is incredibly stupid. But to each his own, unless your views don’t align with mine.
Anyways, I can’t fully explain why I like to ride so much, but I like to do it everyday, even if it is for a little bit. I'm happy on my bike, I am sad on my bike, I think on my bike, I zone out on my bike, I laugh on my bike, I cry on my bike, I just don’t train on my bike for any single purpose and thats that. On the bike, the only person I have to answer to at that particular moment is myself and I hope that doesn’t change anytime soon.
PAUSE as I climb down from my soul riding high horse
Yesterday
So I rode my mountain bike, big deal. There is no way I could leave my last ride at 6 mile stand as it was straight up embarrassing. This ride was better. 6 mile is always a hoot and the rollers and such are just fun. BTW, I think my garmin 500 is getting worse in the woods. What is the entire loop mileage now anyways? 13.9? Drop so much on the 27 side…Anyways, this ride reminded me I can go fastly on MTB style bike machines and I also have some skillz to back it up. Maybe I should ride it more…sure was fun yesterday.
That Felt Better but Garmin 500 Really Blows in the Woods
Today
Super clear, in the 30’s and I saw a shooting star, which was the first in recent memory. I have far too many wishes for a single star, so I only used one and it as not that I wish Norm to win a race. Sorry dude.
Too Many Wishes for That One Shooting Star
To Race or Not To Race, This is Not the Question
OK, maybe it is, at least for some, but at some point this seems to always come up. I was thinking about this the a little bit lately and decided to write a post after seeing that our furry leader is in something of a low point in his racing career. Relating to me, I feel like I am in good form this year and managed to reach a few milestones this year including reaching a 22mph average on the road bike, succeeding in riding some strava segments faster than I thought I was capable (multiple times at that, not one time jobbies) and doing my longest ride to date and at a respectable pace for myself. I would be lying to you if I didn’t think about what I could do in a race, but it rarely goes any further than that.
Lettuce step back a few years. Many of you know I skated in my early years and this is where my current tendencies started. I used to follow my brother around, who was 6 years older starting in around 5th grade circa late eighties. Full on launch ramp sessions that I was just there cruising around, doing my own thing because I was too small to do much other than a pivot grind on the ramp. In the presence of, but doing my own thing. Move forward to middle school and I skated everyday more or less regardless of if I had someone to skate with or not. Move forward to high school and this trend continued, if I was skating a spot and you were there, awesome. If I was skating a spot and no one was there, awesome. I was skating. If other people were around and hanging out, I chilled for a min and then skated (In the presence of, but doing my own thing). My obsessive personality just worked that way. I was always stoked to skate with other people but I skated regardless of who was around. Many other people were not like this.
Move on to college years when I picked up BMX. Same thing, I went to the trails and built and rode regardless of who was around. This became sketchy as the jumps got bigger, but it was still the case. If you were there, awesome, if it was just me awesome (minus a brief period where I was too scared to go there because someone put up a Blair Witch stick figure and I wasn’t gonna be the one to remove it in fear of all they would find is my teeth). One of my good friends at the time told me I was soul rider #1, which I know I have said before and repeating sounds self-righteous, but something keeps me going and I don’t have many other explanations for it.
Trails were always busy on Sunday after the local BMX races were done. There wasn’t much pressure to race, but many of the racers would complain that they couldn’t pedal as fast as than could and still hit the jumps. This always sounded incredibly stupid as the trails were not the race track and it would be perfectly fine if I never pedaled once at the trails. In hindsight, based on how trails have evolved, these statements actually were incredibly stupid. Anyways, a few of the racers rode the trails all the time while some of them never showed up unless they raced (some because they were in the area but other were locals). The attitude that some of these racer had was such a turn off to me especially when they would make comments like “Why don’t you come show us your stuff on the track?”. Many of these guys I related to nothing more than jocks on bikes, they didn’t “get” me and I didn’t “get” them.
Fast forward closer to today. I post How to Clean Log Gnar Gnar Style a few years ago and MTBTyler asks why I don’t race? What does cleaning logs have anything to do with racing? Sure I can go over them fastly, but that because I want to, not because I need to. More relative to today, Capers and Iggy mention I should race b-kill. Sure I would love to, but can it be moved to the HOH start? If so, I am in. It becomes really hard to justify taking a whole weekend for a 3 hour race. I raced the six pack because it was six hours of riding and mooch madness because it was four. I raced two USGP races because they were a 10 min drive from my house. If there was some kind of local race series in my county, I would probably do them. I don’t dislike racing, I following racing and enjoy watching it but when it comes to taking a whole day to ride 1-2 hours, it just doesn’t make sense to me. Sure, there is the social aspect of it, but my social ways(In the presence of, but doing my own thing) is an entire series of posts in itself. However, similar to the BMX racers at the trails, when I hear some peps riding to train and once that goes away the riding means nothing, I can’t help to think it is incredibly stupid. But to each his own, unless your views don’t align with mine.
Anyways, I can’t fully explain why I like to ride so much, but I like to do it everyday, even if it is for a little bit. I'm happy on my bike, I am sad on my bike, I think on my bike, I zone out on my bike, I laugh on my bike, I cry on my bike, I just don’t train on my bike for any single purpose and thats that. On the bike, the only person I have to answer to at that particular moment is myself and I hope that doesn’t change anytime soon.
PAUSE as I climb down from my soul riding high horse
Yesterday
So I rode my mountain bike, big deal. There is no way I could leave my last ride at 6 mile stand as it was straight up embarrassing. This ride was better. 6 mile is always a hoot and the rollers and such are just fun. BTW, I think my garmin 500 is getting worse in the woods. What is the entire loop mileage now anyways? 13.9? Drop so much on the 27 side…Anyways, this ride reminded me I can go fastly on MTB style bike machines and I also have some skillz to back it up. Maybe I should ride it more…sure was fun yesterday.
That Felt Better but Garmin 500 Really Blows in the Woods
Today
Super clear, in the 30’s and I saw a shooting star, which was the first in recent memory. I have far too many wishes for a single star, so I only used one and it as not that I wish Norm to win a race. Sorry dude.
Too Many Wishes for That One Shooting Star
I do agree that training can take all the fun out of cycling. Its easy to loose sight of the fun aspect when always trying to hit a power number. I also don't like strava for this reason, people getting on a bike for the soul purpose of going faster then someone else...virtually. SaD
Before I got into racing I was much like you, I would push myself on solo rides but never really knew how I stacked up with other cyclists. I got into racing because I wanted to see how i compared with others. While I'll never be able to earn a living racing a bike, I do enjoy the competition and pushing myself. Personal accomplishment is good enough for me, rarely do I end up on the podium.
Before I got into racing I was much like you, I would push myself on solo rides but never really knew how I stacked up with other cyclists. I got into racing because I wanted to see how i compared with others. While I'll never be able to earn a living racing a bike, I do enjoy the competition and pushing myself. Personal accomplishment is good enough for me, rarely do I end up on the podium.
Pearl
THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
I was happy until you said this:
I know you joking doe. Because that is really what it all comes down to... Everyone is wired differently and everyone wants to try to get everyone to view their world of cycling the way they do; it's just part of the human mind I guess. Anyone that is asking you to race is just trying to get you to try and see cycling the way they do. The same way when people try and get me to ride for 125 miles; That shit sounds like hell to me. Some people it makes them happy, some could be mind numbing. I think I would rather SMOD.
I know you joking doe. Because that is really what it all comes down to... Everyone is wired differently and everyone wants to try to get everyone to view their world of cycling the way they do; it's just part of the human mind I guess. Anyone that is asking you to race is just trying to get you to try and see cycling the way they do. The same way when people try and get me to ride for 125 miles; That shit sounds like hell to me. Some people it makes them happy, some could be mind numbing. I think I would rather SMOD.
rick81721
Lothar
I saw a shooting star this morning as I was just leaving the house to go to work - around 7 am. The sky was pretty bright by that time and I was stunned to see one so bright - was heading due south from directly overhead.
gtluke
The Moped
I agree with a lot here, shocking because Kevin is such a tool 😉
Personally, I've come to terms with a lot of "other people do other shit" and I don't need to convince them to do my shit, directly or indirectly. So I quit all the LOOK WHAT I DID social media forums for the most part. Quit facebook last year, and this year I stopped uploading my rides to garmin or strava. I don't know why humans like to be patted on the back with the like button, but we do. I should upload and comment them to garmin connect because I do use that a lot to find new rides. Shame that everyone has gotten off of garmin connect to get onto strava where it's useless to find rides. Now it's a bunch of Fred's ruining trails and shit. Whatever, other people's shit.
You saw me get dragged into a conversation on Twitter about the waste of the most epic weather sitting in the car for 5 hours to ride your bike in a soccer field parking lot for 45 minutes and then drive home with a broken $5,000 bike. Other people's shit, but holy hell this one is hard to let go.
I'm still shocked that I agree so much with Kevin.
Turn off the garmin, saddle up, ride till your done.
Personally, I've come to terms with a lot of "other people do other shit" and I don't need to convince them to do my shit, directly or indirectly. So I quit all the LOOK WHAT I DID social media forums for the most part. Quit facebook last year, and this year I stopped uploading my rides to garmin or strava. I don't know why humans like to be patted on the back with the like button, but we do. I should upload and comment them to garmin connect because I do use that a lot to find new rides. Shame that everyone has gotten off of garmin connect to get onto strava where it's useless to find rides. Now it's a bunch of Fred's ruining trails and shit. Whatever, other people's shit.
You saw me get dragged into a conversation on Twitter about the waste of the most epic weather sitting in the car for 5 hours to ride your bike in a soccer field parking lot for 45 minutes and then drive home with a broken $5,000 bike. Other people's shit, but holy hell this one is hard to let go.
I'm still shocked that I agree so much with Kevin.
Turn off the garmin, saddle up, ride till your done.
You got me here, I do enjoy strava, but I'll be damned to wear the shirt Norm bought.
Something of human nature, hell, countries have been destroyed and created from people worshiping a different being in the sky. Our beings are just 29er/26ers.
I think we just had amoment, man. If you only saw yours in the 5am hour...
I agree with most of the things you say, other than fat bikes, them shits are ghey*
*unless it snows a bizillion inches one year, then you will have your day
There is no way Capers had the foresight to make this happen.
Kids don't say anything these days, they just hit buttons to say such.
You want to JRA aimlessly (JRAA?) all day...go for it. Sometimes I like to JRAA, sometimes I like to ride with a purpose, sometimes race, train, or explore on the road, on a trail, soccer field, etc..
There's no right or wrong discipline. It doesn't matter what you ride or where you ride. Or what you wear when you ride. Or what size wheels you ride. Or if you ride a HT or a FS. Just as long as you are riding.
PS People need to stop acting the "the rules" are real.
There's no right or wrong discipline. It doesn't matter what you ride or where you ride. Or what you wear when you ride. Or what size wheels you ride. Or if you ride a HT or a FS. Just as long as you are riding.
PS People need to stop acting the "the rules" are real.
Luke is shocked? You two are incredibly similar. Probably the #1 and #2 most competitive people on this board...I wont say which one is #1 & #2 as it might spark a competition 🙂
anonymously....4 square and online video games. My point exactly. To find bike racing enjoyable, you have to let go of that NEED to win all the time.....since its dam near impossible to do so. Not sure either if you could ever do that. Maybe Kevin, no way Luke can.
gtluke
The Moped
I have a desire to complete difficult things, I haven't played a competitive video game in 5+ years. I enjoy good collaborative games that have a difficult goal, and even those I haven't played since moving 2 years ago. 4sq is long dead. I had to reinstall it while in newport because I find it more accurate than yelp.
But if I did a race, it would be one of those difficult distance goals with a high mortality rate. But I'm not interested in paying to do it.
But if I did a race, it would be one of those difficult distance goals with a high mortality rate. But I'm not interested in paying to do it.
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I may agree....