I was just reading a post from a normally indefatigable friend of mine who’s struggling with motivation to keep racing. My guess is that, rather than a surrender, this is a small crisis of conscience that will burn off whatever doubts she has about taking it to the next level, because she’s a bad-ass and everything she’s written about it thus far has been excitement and fire and joy.

But it did get me thinking about my relationship to cycling, and the things I’ve accomplished this year, and where I want it to go from here. I’ve logged about 4000 miles this year, most of them commuting miles, but at least a thousand of them were training for and riding my first century back in August.

As I began training for that ride, I’d thought I might be taking my first step towards getting into serious road riding. I put in pre-dawn miles and went after hills and thought about how heavy my bike was and how thick my tires were. I ate little blocks of gummi caffeine and sugar, occasionally found someone else going fast to trade drafting duties with, and wondered if I should get serious and trade the pedal clips for real cycling shoes and clipless pedals. I thought about joining a club and riding a featherweight bike in a paceline on Saturday mornings, and derided myself for having a triple crank.

Some things have become clear to me since then, most notably that performance road riding’s not my cup of tea. Occasionally I take on something that seems big and challenging out of curiosity or to prove something to myself, or in the case of the Livestrong Challenge because I wanted to do something good and difficult. But the truth is that I just don’t have much of a passion for pushing the envelope, my competitive fire doesn’t burn all that hot, and that anything that starts feeling like Serious Business loses my attention. I’m bliss-driven.

For example, I’ve gone weeks without making it out to a disc golf course, but I’ll still get up at 5:00 a.m. a few times a week to head out to a field with a stack of Rocs or Teebirds for an hour or so before work. There’s a peripheral motivation to become a better disc golfer and a stronger competitor, but that’s not really why I do it. I do it because I love throwing discs, I love shaping lines in the sky and watching the disc follow them. If there were no courses nearby, I’d still get out to a field because I love the snap of the throw and the shape of the flight, and I experience a lot of perfect moments doing it.

The perfect moments I have on bikes are blissful and joyous, very few of them have involved much suffering. The best rides I’ve had this year have been on partly cloudy days in the mid-60’s, flying down brick alleys on 60mm balloon tires with my hands wrapped around a pair of Albatross bars. I love riding my Xtracycle with my daughter to her school. I love wrenching on our bikes and building wheels and tuning drivetrains until they’re quiet and smooth. I love bunny-hopping and off-street bike trails and saying Good Morning to crossing guards on my way to work and cranking and rolling and flowing with traffic and breathing the air and having nothing but the sky above me the whole time. My brass bell is one of the prettiest tones I can think of. Sometimes, I like to go slow.

There’s a hundred things that make me smile about being on a bike, but there’s not a single one of them that a heart-rate monitor would make any better for me. Sometimes I wish that weren’t the case. Sometimes, I think it would be awesome to be driven to achieve peak performance, to measure my effort by my perseverance and endurance, to conquer and win. And I enjoy watching folks with those qualities struggle and grind and endure, I’m amazed by their superhumanity (as well as their humanity) and take delight in their performances. But the only measures of my cycling experience that really motivate me are grins and laughs.

I realized that I wasn’t dissatisfied because my Long Haul Trucker was the wrong bike for how I wanted to ride, but rather that I wasn’t doing the kind of riding I truly love doing (for which the Trucker actually is perfect). I put the fenders back on, the clips came off the pedals (though I may pick up a pair of these or these for traction), and it’s getting mustache bars at the earliest opportunity.

I also picked up a beautiful Paramount Series 3 earlier this year, and had plans to outfit it for road riding. But I think I’m going to put riser bars, platform pedals, and 28’s on it instead. I may not have room for a serious road bike in my stable, but I can make room for a zippy street bike. Especially if it’s fun to ride.

I need a little boost to hit the holiday with a running start. You can have some too.

Have a great holiday!

[UPDATE] I need some more.

KING OF THE ROAD SAYS YOU MOVE TOO SLOW! KING OF THE ROAD SAYS YOU MOVE TOO SLOW!

Of the things I find it hard to believe, despite the fact that I’ve experienced every second of their truth, is the fact that five years and a day ago I was doing my best not to completely lose my shit while my wife nonchalantly managed, after a couple days of Labor, to give birth to my daughter.

It just doesn’t feel like I have to look very far back to see her first roll over, her first all-fours crawl, or her first steps. I can still hear, plain as day, her beautiful gibberish and remember what it was like to lift her feather-light body up into my arms and to have her small arms and small face tuck into my shoulder as she fell asleep. The look of her face as she built up the scream that followed her tumble off the front porch steps is still clear as day. The first day she went to preschool she seemed much too small and much too young to be in a classroom and it brought tears to my eyes to think of her entering an institutional process she wouldn’t see the end of for at least 15 years. If we’re lucky.

The years are feeling like a ball of snow that started out small and light, rolling slowly downhill. It feels much bigger now, faster, and unstoppable. It doesn’t feel like I get to hold on to the days long enough, now, to savor them as much as I’d like to, and their passing is a little sad. But every one is better than the what’s come before, so it’s hard to be too down about today, every day.

What a splendid young lady my daughter is. I’m so goddam lucky I can hardly stand it. Happy birthday, sweetheart, I love you.

21 year-old Nikko Locastro wins the US Disc Golf Championship. Here’s some film of Nikko nailing the drives and putt to earn a birdie 3 on hole 11 on the final day, as well as interviews with Nate Doss, Dave Feldberg, and Nikko. Just outstanding.

If this doesn’t brighten your Thursday… well… I hope something else does. But this really oughta do it.

Don’t thank me, thank Dennis Perrin.

Grampa and Gramma

Tuesday last week, I flew into Quad Cities Airport, located at Rock Island-Moline on the Iowa-Illinois border. I arrived early in the morning, rented a car, and drove the rest of the way to Peoria. My last visit was five years ago, when I’d arrived in time to say goodbye to my Gramma, and then stayed a week until the service. My rental car’s satellite radio meant I had more choices this time than simply browsing through country, latin, and right-wing agitation, but most of the choices were wasted on me. I wasn’t looking for musical stimulation as much as I was comfort, so I settled into a classic rock station and drove. Driving through the cornfields was soothing.

I’d come this time for my Grampa’s funeral and to spend some time with Mom and my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Most of us were born in Peoria, though one cousin was born to my aunt in Germany on the Army’s dime, and another was born and raised in Santa Barbara until she was a teenager. My folks and I left Peoria in the 70’s and migrated to Southern Illinois, where they went to school and worked for years until they split up, and later headed for opposite coasts. Mom’s been in Ventura since ‘85, I’ve been there and half a dozen other cities since then.

The Backyard

By noon I was at Grampa and Gramma’s house, built around 1950 right next door to Great Grampa John and Great Gramma Bea’s house in West Peoria, down the street from the Franciscan Convent. My memories of Great Grampa are fuzzy, Great Great Gramma a little clearer. Great Great Gramma had moved in with John and Bea in her 40’s, claiming to be terminally ill and wanting to be with her daughter and son-in-law for what she was certain were her final months. She lived with them until she died at 99, outliving my Great Grampa John by several years. She was a hypochondriac and loved soap operas. One day she yelled to my Great Gramma, “Bea! Come quick! That’s what I’ve got, just like on TV! I’ve got coma!”

My first night in town, the whole family went to Crusen’s on Farmington Road, a bar and grill with an outdoor deck and gracious wait staff. Several of my cousins are pregnant or carrying infants or both, and seeing them as adults with their critters was both unsettling and delightful, as I tend to think of them all as being about 8 years old. There was something on the menu called a Horseshoe, which is an open-faced two-patty burger smothered in fries and cheese. I opted for the less intimidating cheeseburger, and a couple beers. That night, we sat around the fire pit in the back yard, drank some beer, shared some stories about Gramma and Grampa and things my mom and aunt and uncles did when they were kids.

Grampa and Fish, A Long Time Ago

Wednesday I woke up and realized I’d turned 40 years old, partly because it was my birthday. But also because staying up until after midnight and drinking four beers had left me feeling kinda old. Not hungover, more like my head was cross-threaded on my neck. Preparations were under way for the service, photos and dress clothes were organized and packed into cars. I played some frisbee in Great Gramma’s yard with my uncle and cousin for most of the morning while waiting to pick up my suit.

I’d found a dry cleaner close by, and explained that I’d just flown in and needed the suit for the service the next day. He’d agreed to have it done by 11:30 a.m., which left plenty of time until the service. When I went to pick it up, I saw a man filling five-gallon buckets with water from the neighbor’s garden hose, and taking it into the dry cleaner’s. He turned out to be the owner. He came out to the counter, shook my hand and said, “You’re the one I did the suit for, right? Very sorry to hear about your Grampa.” He told me that the guys doing road construction out front on Western Ave had turned off the water main, but the neighbor had agreed to let him use the hose to fill buckets to fill the boiler, so that he could finish my suit. I was floored, and felt really good about being in the midwest.

The Urn, Springdale Cemetery

The burial service at the cemetery was beautiful. Grampa’s ashes were mixed with Gramma’s, and were buried next to Great Grampa. Two Marines came from Quantico and presented a flag to us, and the local VFW Color Guard fired a 21-gun salute. I found it impossible to have hostile or cynical feelings about America’s military during the service, just as I had at my Grandfather’s funeral 15 years ago. Taps played in the background, every expression and movement was solemn, deliberate, and real. It filled me with pride, sadness, and a profound sense of the honor bestowed upon my Grampa. I held my mother’s hand through the eulogy, and afterwards picked up four shiny buckeyes from the ground around the graves.

We stopped at Schooners for lunch before the memorial service. The grill was down, but the fryer was up, so I ordered a tenderloin. What came out of the kitchen was a pounded piece of battered and deep-fried pork, about a foot square. It was over four times bigger than the bun sitting on top of it, which presumably had a mate trapped underneath. I cut it in half, and into quarters and ate one. Ordinarily I might’ve been game for two of the quarters, and it was good, but I wasn’t very hungry, and it wasn’t good enough to make me hungrier.

That Sucker’s Huge

The memorial service was beautiful. We each told our favorite stories about him, talked about what a wonderful person he was, and how much he’d meant to us. I gave a short eulogy, in which I tried to put into words all the feelings I had about what an amazing, decent, funny, loving, hard-working, and human person he was. It wasn’t possible to convey everything he meant to me, I know I felt like a chump trying to put words together that lived up to how much I loved and revered him. I started to say how much I was going to miss him, when I realized how much I missed him already and my face started failing, so I closed with a thank you and sat down.

That night, we went out to Agatucci’s for thin-crust pizza. One of the bartenders bought me a beer for my birthday. I ordered a side salad, which came out as a handful of iceberg lettuce with a dollop of bleu cheese dressing on top. The pizza and the beer were plentiful and delicious. We went home after, circled around the fire pit, drank beer until late at night and told Peoria stories. My aunt, my mother, and I slept soundly in the Starcraft camper-trailer, set up in the driveway.

The Firepit

Thursday I took my uncle and cousin to Bradley Park and played a few holes of disc golf. Bradley’s not a tremendously long course, and it seems like the flow’s not as good as I remember it after what must’ve been a redesign, but it’s fun to throw on. It was really just a warm-up for heading down to Pekin with my aunt’s boyfriend to play McNaughton Park. He was one of Peoria Frisbee Club’s early members, was involved in designing and building Bradley Park’s original course in 1984 and the championship course at McNaughton Park, and ran tournaments and actively promoted the sport for about 13 years. He and my cousin and I headed to McNaughton and played 18 long, gorgeous holes on a perfect day. I couldn’t have been happier or more grateful. I’m not sure when or how I’m going to make it back to Pekin, but when I do I’ll have my full bag with me.

We headed home after our round to clean up before meeting the family at The Burger Barge. This is where your diet goes to die a swift, violent death. I opted for the outstanding Peacemaker Barge, which is the result of a head-on collision between a fried-catfish sandwich and a fried-oyster po’boy, served with a pile of freshly fried potato chips, and it destroyed me. But the monster of the menu, the challenge I couldn’t even conceive of taking on, was the Red White and Moo:

2 – 9 oz. Burgers smothered w/cheese, our Butterfly pork chop slid in between with lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion and Dock Sauce.
(Now that’s All American!)

The Peacemaker

That night, we got some more beer, gathered around the fire pit, and got into our folklore. I really, really want a fire pit.

I spent Friday with the family, and got to visit with Great Gramma Bea. She’s 102, and though she admits that there’s a lot she doesn’t remember, there’s lots of light left behind her eyes. I drove back to Quad Cities Airport that afternoon and got back to D.C. late. Saturday morning I chased and wrestled my laughing children, and worked the Bike Clinic later on.

We had my birthday party Sunday, which featured hot dogs and ribs and rice tomato salad and baked beans and mac and cheese and plenty of beer and plenty of high-grade socializing. We counted 20 children, mostly between two and six, running laps around the house. It terrifies me that these psychotic ferrets will make decisions about our end-of-life care one day. The Wife made a chocolate cake that had 5 iced layers and one red-cake layer on top in the shape of a sprocket. It was a spectacular and exhausting weekend.

Over the course of the last couple weeks, I’ve gone from a manageable one-ninety-ish to over seven hundred thirty five pounds. You’d think I’d be much bigger, but it’s mostly density, so I wear it pretty well. My first thought Monday morning was that I needed to have my intestines bead-blasted. I’m hoping that a couple months of vigorous bike miles and salads for lunch will bring me back to “reasonable”, maybe even on the way to “fightin’ weight”.

But right now, all I’m fightin’ is the desire to eat two burger patties with a pork chop slid between.

[updated for red-pen offenses and to add a pic]

Via Dennis Perrin, who remains justifiably skeptical that there’s Hope for Change, a perfectly simple solution:

…the market capitalization—the value of all the outstanding stock—of the publicly traded health insurers is about $150 billion. Add a little premium to sweeten the pot and you could nationalize the lot of them for about $200 billion. The total administrative costs of the U.S. healthcare system, which are greatly inflated by all the paperwork and second-guessing of docs’ decisions generated by the insurance industry, are about $400 billion a year. Those administrative costs are about three times what a Canadian-style single payer system would cost. So that means we’d save about $250 billion a year by eliminating the waste caused by our private insurance system.

In other words, the nationalization could pay for itself in well under a year.

Ding! We have a winner!

Oh, and in case you’re wondering what the hell kind of socialist I am: I’m the kind that thinks health care falls ought to fall into the same category of public service as your local fire department, that’s all. I’d also like to be over and done with the way we do health insurance today, and I can’t understand why anyone is defending such a disgusting, avaricious industry. (You think we don’t already have death panels?)

Ever wonder what it would look like if God rode to work on a bike?

(h/t to the Sweeney to the Stevil)