Zen on two wheels.

There are a couple of neato inspirational pieces on the interweb today, both pertaining to bicycling. 

The first story, "Remember This," comes from The Everyday Athlete blog. If you've ever seen a pack of road bikes struggling up a mountain road in 90 degree heat and wondered why the hell anyone would do that, this is your answer. Here's the opener:

My face was smeared with chocolate covered Gu and my hair was matted to my head.  I’d just been nursed home into a howling headwind by three men who were kind enough to rescue me and my shattered legs.

Remember this.

Remember it.

Remember the finish.  What it feels like to be done.  What it feels like when the oxygen returns and the blood flows normally and your thoughts come in streams instead of fits and starts and you realize that you’ve killed it.  Your self doubt.  Your perceived limitations.  They’re all dead.

Remember that part.

Nice piece of prose. I mean, I think road racers are insane, largely because I have the attention span of a newt and can't really fathom the idea of peddling forward for hours on end without so much as the rumble of loose gravel under my tires to distract me. I'm more of a mountain biker, where the philosophy is, "If you're not bleeding by the end of the ride, you did something wrong."

With that in mind, there's a great article in Spotlight: Living called "5 Life Lessons on Success from the Mountain Bike Trail." Here's lesson #1:

Lesson #1: Going too cautiously out of fear will actually make you crash more

Everyone when they first start something usually will take it slow and careful. Same applies in biking, as I would go slow down the hills while clamping on the brakes because I didn’t want to get out of control. But the real reason was because I was afraid of not being able to take a turn or bump and landing on my butt (or head). I look back now and realize that I crashed more because I went too slow. It made it harder to get over the obstacles and I didn’t have confidence that I needed. Nowadays, I go faster downhill and just hold on knowing the bike can overcome anything (it’s just me that can mess it all up).

Take home point: You don’t want to always go too slow because of having no confidence or fear of failing. On the flip side you don’t also want to cut the brakes and never be able to slow down when needed. The balance is in finding how to embrace your fears, overcome and turn it into confidence. It may be that same fear daily that is holding you back or causing you to make the ride (life) harder than it needs to be.

Good stuff.