October 9, 1999: Bike
"Bike lots." - Eddie Merckxx
Within the past year or so I've become a bit of a bicycle nut. My life has transformed completely from being relatively quiet, intellectual, and computerized to being athletic, open-aired, and exciting. Very few things bring me more pleasure than simply riding a bicycle, something every kid does but not many continue into later life. This life has its advantages. I'm healthier, happier, and by spending so much time on my bike, I've learned many things. The majority of these lessons have nothing to do with cycling, but instead pertain to my life as a whole.
I've learned to be more independent. Now I can ride my bike to and fro, back and forth across the city. No longer do I rely on parents or friends for a ride, or depend on public transportation to show up on time. Instead I take myself where I need to be, where I'm going. Often it would be faster and easier to bum a ride, but it would not be worth it, my independence is worth too much now. This sense of independence has helped me move on with my life, move on to college, move on towards being an adult.
You enjoy life more if you enjoy it, quite simply. This lesson was taught to me by many a rainy day spent in the saddle. The best way to deal with the rain is to smile and sing a snappy tune. Personally I find that "It's Raining Men" and "Another One Bites the Dust" works best. To get over the occasional bad day, just smile, and then smile a little more, and a little more, and then after a while the smile will just stay there and no one, including you, will know you're having a bad day.
Take a friend. One of the worst experiences I've ever had in my life, and probably the absolute worst time I've ever had on my bike began one day over the summer when I decided to go on an extraordinarily long trip by myself. It was long, it was boring, it was painful, and it was awful. You need a friend to get you through the low points and to share the highlights, whether you be on a bike, a rollercoaster, or just going through a normal day.
Do something that scares you, it'll spice up your life. There's a large dirt mound in the entrance to a park near my house, and it scares me every time it and I meet. However, I always try to force myself to go over it, no matter how high and how steep my mind says it is. Sometimes I chicken out and just ride by, but when I do give it a whirl I can feel my blood rush and my life pick up as I go over the top. For the rest of the ride I just float on a cloud, high off the excitement of having conquered something I feared.
Float over the little stuff and shake off the big obstacles. If you try to avoid everything you'll avoid nothing. It's better to just ride over non-obstacles than to build a boulder out of a stone. If you hit something unexpected, do your best to get back on track but don't overdo it and put yourself even more off track. At some point you're going to fall and there's nothing you can do about it except be prepared, so wear your helmet, get insurance, and save your money. It also helps to have friends around to pick you up, just be sure to stay around in case they need the favor returned.
Before starting an endeavor, make sure you're good and ready. Don't break away from the pack unless you know you have the strength to stay away for the remainder of the race. By the same token, don't launch that new web site unless you know it's ready for prime time. A far, far, harder task it is to start all over than to plan, prepare, and wait in the first place. And if you're not ready, don't cut in front of others who may be ready, chances are you'll just end up taking everyone down with you.
More rewarding than the achievement of a goal is working towards the goal itself. There is no sense of achievement, of pride, for driving from one place to another. Such joy is reserved for the cyclist and others who travel by their own power. Nothing worth attaining ever came freely. I take more pride in the trivial increase in my speed and endurance garnered by months of training and hard work than I do in all of my more intellectual accomplishments that came much easier.
Perhaps most important of all the things I've learned: you can not truly develop your mind or body while neglecting one or the other. By exercising and developing the body, you unlock new space in which the mind can grow. Conversely, by exercising and developing the mind, you create new ways to fulfill your body's potential. Riding my bike has shown new places to me, both in actuality and in the netherworld where our minds reside. I've become calmer, more centered, less angry, more meditative, more balanced, more wholesome, more focused. As I've seen more of the world around me, the processes of life have become much more apparent and I feel much more a part of this universe of ours. In turn, these newly discovered mental abilities have allowed me to become a better athlete. Thus the cycle continues and I progress as a person.
This last point is key, because it is that which has enabled me to learn all of the other things. It could be any sport, as long as you were dedicated to it and enjoyed it. Cycling just happens to be the sport I am most dedicated to and enjoy the most, hence it is the one which has changed my life in ways I never could have imagined.