point of clarification
posted by kobayashi on July 23, 2001
just for my own piece of mind, let me set the record straight. not that you'll care. but i do.
i was kidding about racing a xooter in that first post. then was all gungho in the next... back there. but as a point of clarification... the thing i'm loving most about riding lately is... i'm not really all caught up in how fast i go. while i do want to be able to go fast and far, and ride tough hills, more than that i want it to stay fun. not turn into a big biking gruelfest. the whole reason i love my new cruiser and its lack of speeds is that i can - and do - relax when i ride. i don't think about shifting and how i could have set up this hill better or o-no-my-cadence-has-fallen-off or whatever. i just ride around. so all my attempts to become a better rider are focused on maximizing my fun. in the effort to have maximum fun... i want to be able to go anywhere i want, including singletrack. i want to be able to climb any hill i want. more than speed i want endurance, i suppose. but more than endurance i want fun. more fun. not 'winning.'
likewise, in the same spirit of maxfun... i want to learn to wheel and powerslide. i want to bunnyhop and jump. but i want this because my bike is so much fun to be on, not because i'm trying to prove anything. and if i fail to learn to do these things as well as i'd like, my bike will still be a pure simple solid blast to ride around.
by the way... i pulled my first real wheelie since i was a kid the other day. by accident. i was trying to beat some traffic off a stoplight, and was kind of doing a trackstand at the light... and standing on my pedals. i powered down with my left foot and i guess i was pulling up on the bars cuz up it came. totally unlike my spastic efforts to muscle it up in the past, which always get miniscule air and then crunch hard immediately. it was natural and easy the way it floated up. still didn't last long (thank god, i was, after all, in traffic), but was nice and smooth. suddenly i know how they're supposed to FEEL. now i want to wheelie well more than ever, to feel it floating up like that.
it was fun.
anyway, i hope the xooter turns out to be fun for mike. and i hope the crossroads is fun. it has that nice curve in the top tube... and its a bike. so i'm for it. especially if its even a fraction as fun as mine is for me. i hope everybody gets (or has) a bike - or something - that is as much fun for them as my bike is for me right now.
i haven't had so much fun in years.