A Partial Philosophy of Cycling, In Three Chaotic Acts
(You know, they say Disorganized Writing is an indicator of Alzheimer’s. Bummer for me, huh?)
Retro ambivalence
Saw a letter to editor in latest Bicycle Trader from Maynard Hershon. It looks like just an excerpt.
“…Cycling retro looks wacko to me…I don’t get it. What’s with guys in their 20’s and 30’s, in the prime of life, lost in nostalgia?”
The BT editor replies: “Lighten up and read some of the things you’ve been glorifying for years.”
…Interesting exchange. The retort refers the complainer back to a good chunk of his own work. Looks like some serious misunderstanding on someone’s part.
Maybe I’m even reading this remark wrong–I don’t mean it as any slam against Maynard–I believe he’s recanted an anti-grouch stand in the past–but who cares, I just want to see if I can’t get something from it anyway. All that follows is my rambling. No one get cranked at Maynard!
A little background: One of the hugest urges in life is for people to want to lose themselves. Traditionally this feeling was seen to be a desire for a young person to let a babyish literal identity die and to take up the bravery of adulthood, which in most cultures meant to face living without ego (in my view). Ritual let this shift take place smoothly. –Adults in real cultures realize that survival of both body and soul is very tenuous and that clinging to a fixed therefore shallow view of oneself can be illusory and dangerous in many ways.
Our society has both forgotten and in some ways made teaching the above illegal, so all we’re stuck with is the desire to lose ourself. It doesn’t work, but our repeated tries keep the consumer world moving. Obviously, it’s easy for such a society to get in a state where neither culture nor adulthood is encouraged.
All this fits somehow in with the postmodern tendency of history to compress. So we get people reminiscing about what the old days were like 5 years ago.
People are trying to lose themselves in ever smaller places.
But, duh, sorry, I’m sure you all know about this. I hope this all isn’t just insanely boring for everyone. (Altho boredom itself is very much worth looking at and is a sign that things as well as identities want to die. …Coz identities are things, after all, and every thing dies.)
Fast-forward to a fragment of an actual point: I think the above relates to what Maynard was saying and what I’ve seen Grant say. They’re not into old for old’s sake. I guess Maynard thinks he’s seeing some youngsters behaving like what he imagines old people do: remember the good old days while building little ships in bottles. I.e., what am I doing spending a lot of time and $ trying to find an old lime-colored Schwinn SuperSport?
But I think all these things we do are suspect. I see necessity as the only solid ground, anything else could easily get me into hot water. So to me even beautiful, elegant $2500 roadbikes with older, uncomplicated, wellmade parts aren’t innocent. I like em, but I keep an eye on my lust for them. I watch how easily the lust has me doing silly things like spending my savings or money I could give to the poor or something. Watch some rainy day come along and strip me of my house while I stand there, wet, with my bikes.
Man, I sure know how to make a mess o things. Here’s another to say it: Maynard’s remark reminds me how our culture doesn’t know what to let die and how to live thereby. So we get into bikes… But Maynard splits the hair finer: 20 year olds getting into Stingray collecting, what’s the world coming to. JP
Another touch of ambivalence
Marshall M. wrote a little email to me, an excerpt of which follows.
- “Perhaps this guidance I’ve received on bicycles and bicycling will be helpful:
- “Bicycles and bicycle riding are but expressions of a deeper longing for happiness. In themselves, they are nothing, for they do not offer the happiness you seek. Yet, when used for holy purposes they are most useful, for they serve as constant reminders of your real goal.”
Wow! Thanks. It sounds like your guide *might* not have been too happy with people collecting dozens of bikes, spending all their cash on bike stuff and a lot of their time thinking about bikes. Perhaps it only takes one bike to serve as the reminder mentioned above!
In fact, as I work to make my rides smoother, my rolling resistance lower, etc.–which often results in my spending quite a bit of dough, funny enough–I get the suspicion that maybe I’m taking the Lesson of Bike the wrong way. If I really wanted to get somewhere fast, I’d drive; if I really wanted smoothness, I’d, hmm, I dunno, but basically the *point* of the bike is to remind us that…we make do? …that life is work/suffering and joyful at the same time? …that accidents happen?
The Lesson of Fate: it occured to me the other day that that’s the main lesson of racing. You do your best and despite it all your foot unclips from the pedal in the final sprint; the great weather all the way up to the Nationals turns to heavy sleet that morning. It’s easy to get angry and frustrated when these things happen, instead of realizing that such things are perhaps the entire point! All some people seem to learn from fate/accidents is that they have to redouble their efforts to take care of every last detail…but the details are endless. (And so are the ads for products that will solve those endless little problems.) Luck matters. –After a few races many realize that at least, but what do they do in response? They enter as many events as they can coz they know someday they’ll get lucky, and they do, and they think they’re smart! JP
The Grand Bike Wa Finale
If it’s in a person to be a bike collector and that’s good for them, fine. Lots of bikes aren’t by definition a bad addiction. What would the bike world do without bike whizes to help those with questions? People who are more into it can help others.
If these same people become aware that they’ve been fixating on bikes or putting energy into bikes that they should put into pure life, then they might find that their desire for bike collections goes away. If it wasn’t truly for them, this might happen. (One sign that perhaps too much is vested in an activity is the response you feel when someone questions it. The more angry you get, the more trouble you’re in!)
At the same time everyone sometimes doubts what they do. I don’t want to drop everything I do as soon as I realize that it’s not perfect, either.
Right now perhaps I’m being overly afraid of hobbies. Trying hard to avoid hobbies might be just as bad as having them!
I had a whole community of friends in bike racing and we all worked hard on values like honor. Strategy in racing often amounts to ‘What’s the right thing to do now?’ –For your winning and for your teammates and for the sport. Some people take it stone-dead simple. Others realize that no matter what position you cross the line in, there may be something more you can do to make it better for everyone involved. –If someone pulled you a lot, you can push them across the line ahead of you (if it’s not for a vicious win, that is!). If you’re OTB anyway, you can push people up hills or help a group stick together to the end. You can (and usually are obliged to) reward someone who helped you finish high. You can thank volunteers. If you crash, you can help others up. Morality comes into play a lot.
People learn about themselves in the sport. They get in trouble, get wigged out. Those who’ve been there can help them. It’s not all just get, it’s a lot of give. I was in close contact with a lot of people *thru* cycling, ski racing and other sports. I learned from elders, helped newbies. But I dropped these activities partly because I decided that racing *separated* us. But in truth no contact is perfect. There’s always separation. Now all I do is work alone and ride and ski alone, mainly. Sometimes the trickiness of all this comes thru to me.
(I also dropped them coz I think of sports as a tool for development of adolescent psyche and that now I need training suited for an adult. …Also coz of time/$. I have addiction/boring sportsgripes, too, but now see that those temptations come into play in any area of life.)
(I also dropped them coz I saw that the stone-dead approach is the ideal one for results…that and a family-ruinous amount of time and money. Coaches encourage the stone-dead style. –With all the talk about filtering, routine, not being too disappointed with a bad finish, nor too happy with a win…think of the big picture, map it all out. See your career as a careful progression. I saw the robot addicts moving up, up, up. Yikes! An oldtimer in XC ski racing said in two, three years I’d be on top. When it occured to me that it was a matter of science, I gave up. Sure enuf, I now see my peers on top. If you have the foundation and the right trajectory all you need is time. Avoid those accidents, careful, careful. Ugh. Maybe I also got tired of being the mostly-ignored contrary influence. –But that’s how it is everywhere in life for me!) JP
