I just went nine days without getting on a bike, and it felt great. I haven't been off the bike for this many days in a row in two years.

A pompous pronouncement from some 125-pound, leg-shaving, gear geek who rides all the local crits? Maybe so, but my ass is healed up, my legs feel normal again, and I've really enjoyed putting the riding time to other useful pursuits. Trouble is, it's nine days later and now it's time to get back in the saddle.

The Hoo-E	The Blade

The flesh may be willing, but the extended layoff switched the mind to off-season mode. I'm a use-it-or-lose-it guy. If I'm doing something, I can keep doing it pretty much indefinitely, but once I stop doing something, I instantly start to lose all physical and mental energy for it. Once something falls out of my routine, it's doomed.

Knowing this, I still couldn't help it, I needed a break from the bike. Three races in three weeks, including a 24-hour race, and I was burned out. Even yardwork was looking like an attractive alternative. And because Romulus and I don't really have our next race picked out, there's a bit of a void in the motivation department. It's hard to maintain a training regimen when there's nothing really to train for. Also, I'm being distracted by the siren song of golf right now. I played once last week and I'm going to sneak another round in with Romulus on Wednesday.

At first, I was worried about losing my competitive fitness, but I reasoned that I couldn't lose too much in a week and I really didn't have that much to lose, so what the hell. Even so, every day I thought about riding, thought that I should ride, thought that I was losing my legs, thought that I was losing my lungs, thought I'd never get back to the level I was at, nagging thoughts, stressful thoughts, leave me alone thoughts, begone you cycling demons!

Then I was worried that I would put on a couple of pounds and go back into the 170s. Turns out though, during my cycling latency, I actually dropped another couple of pounds to dip below 165 for the first time since 1996! I've been actively trying to get below 165 for about two years now, but never seemed to be able to break the 170 barrier. Suddenly, I've lost 10 pounds since March and 5 pounds in the last couple of weeks.

Time heals all wounds though, and by day seven, I had completely adjusted to a routine without riding.

But eventually, the time came to get back in the saddle, and I wasn't ready. I was totally dragging my feet. I didn't want to do it, but I knew I had to, had to at least get that first ride in, get off the schneid, break the cycle. If I didn't ride within a couple of days, the whole cycling thing could be over. Too long without a ride, and I'd feel there was too far to come back. It would be hopeless.

I've gone through several "it" sports phases in my life. Throughout my grade school years, it was baseball. I lived and breathed it. The walls of my room were covered with it, my shelves were lined with, my time was consumed with it. But after I got too old for Little League and couldn't make the cut on the high school team, it was time to move on. Next up, basketball. As a freshman in college, I became consumed by the sport. Playing pickup ball every day down on the courts, shooting hundreds of shots a days, learning the game. It was my sports passion throughout college and into grad school. In grad school, it was hard to find court time, and in Flagstaff, Arizona, there was no year-round outside pickup games. Running became the game. It was solitary, it was all-weather, it offered opportunities for strength, confidence, and even glory. Then I lucked into a softball league and softball became the game. Later, Krusty and I bought new mountain bikes and mountain biking got its fish in the pot. One day, Krusty took me out for a round of golf, and I was off and running on that hamster wheel. For a while, it was basketball, softball, golf, running, and mountain biking simultaneously. Ah, those were the salad days.

Ultimately, each sport rose to prominence in my life, sometimes to obsession, only to eventually find its way onto the scrap heap of my youth.

Aging gracefully, but aging nonetheless, I now find biking to be the sport that offers the biggest bang for the buck. It gives physical, mental, and emotional release; it gets me into nature; it gives me spiritual sustenance; and it gives me structure without the physical torment on my knees, or the need to round up eight other guys, or the attitude and posturing bullshit of the courts.

So it would seem that biking is that sport that will be there for me for the rest of my life. That's one of the reasons that I originally took up golf at the age of 29. I wanted a sport that I could play for a lifetime, and I didn't want to wait until my basketball and softball years were over to learn how to play it. I'm several years older now and I've got the general hang of golf, but it is not an everyday sport -- not until I win the lottery. Cycling will always be there for me, but I've got to want it -- them pedals ain't gonna turn themselves.

I didn't really want it, but a couple of days ago, I wheeled the Hoo-E (1995 Gary Fisher Hoo-Koo-E-Koo) out and the door and listlessly ticked off 36 mostly asphalt miles. It was something, which was all that I was looking for.

Today, I had to play the whole melodramatic motivational song and dance out all over again to get my ass out the door on The Blade (2004 Airborne Zeppelin). I couldn't even remember the last time I had been out on skinny wheels (See March 31, 2005: There ain't much goin' on, and folks ain't in no hurry to get it done). As familiarity fades, so does the motivation to retake lost ground.

So I pretty much arranged the whole day around getting a ride in on The Blade. I nursed myself through the bike preparation, dawdling, looking for distractions, delaying the inevitable by cleaning an already clean bike. Then there was the gear. Another half an hour getting dressed. Something to eat. Sunscreen. Finally, late in the afternoon, after the evening fog and chill onshores had sapped the warmth out of the air, I pushed out from home.

Evening fog and chill onshores in the afternoon

It was fine. Actually, it was better than fine. The Blade felt surprisingly great, solid and nimble. I had nary a bobble all day, despite the moderately gusting winds. As well, my legs felt encouragingly strong pushing the big gears. I bailed out of doing the full Tunitas climb, but I did spin through a full Lobitos Triangle (EG - coastal bikepath - Hwy 1 south - Tunitas Road - Lobitos Road - Verde Road - Purissima-Higgins Road - coastal bikepath) without too much difficulty. All in all, a very encouraging and energizing ride.

With the biking back on course, I am now free to unleash my worry machine on truly mundane frippery like bills, work, and the state of our society. Like cycling, these things too will always be there for me, whether I want them or not.