It's a Small World

I am sure that most of you will at some point or another have thought that the world of bike riding/racing is small, well imagine my surprise when I headed downstairs this afternoon to fit some new cleats for the weekend, when a Swiss car arrived in the car park driven by one of the guys from the BMC Gran Canaria camp!

That is all.

We are all Mental

‘True perfection has to be imperfect I know that sounds foolish but it’s true’

(Noel Gallagher, 2007)

Why, you may ask, am I starting my latest blog post with an Oasis lyric? Let me begin…

On a recent training ride with my Aussie teammate, Ben, the conversation, as usual, turned onto the topic of the race at the weekend and how hard it would inevitably turn out to be. After debating how the race was likely to go and such intricate details as to which way the wind would be blowing during the ‘course en ligne’ section and who the likely winner would be and slowly beginning to realise that by about 3:30pm on Sunday afternoon we would be massacring our bodies sat in the gutted at some obscene speed I blurted out ‘we are f**king mental doing this’, the conversation continued further until we both came to the conclusion that all half decent bike riders are ‘mental’, a statement which requires some explanation.

To become a ‘half decent bike rider’ you have to be one of two things, either extremely talented and arguably lazy as if you had this much talent and applied it you would be a ‘good bike rider’ or even a ‘great bike rider’, or a dedicated, hard working, to some extent single minded perfectionist who strives to get the last drop out of everything from their diet to their bike and time available to train, unfortunately yours truly fits, like the majority of the ‘half decent bike riders’ into the latter category.

So as a ‘half decent bike rider’ you are likely to be a perfectionist whether you realise it or not, I mean how many of you out there have bought a set of better wheels as they will make you ‘x percent faster’ on race day, and said ‘I’m sorry I can’t I have to go training/racing/rest up for the weekend’ or invested in the latest in training technology such as powertaps and srm’s? Beginning to get the picture yet?

Ok so you have admitted you are a perfectionist, well you haven’t really I have just told you that you are, and with this level of dedication I would hope, for your sake after investing this much time and energy into yourself and the sport, you start to see an improvement in results, at which point you move up a category whether it be from 4^th cat to 3^rd cat or from a top amateur rider to a continental professional, the effort you have made has paid off…or has it. You now find yourself at a higher level and all of a sudden you have gone from the front in the races to the middle or even worse sat last wheel in the gutter or worse still blown out the back. Never mind surely that extra training session a week, or new set of wheels or dam bloody mindedness will allow you to cope at the new level you reach and the process starts all over again.

One day however disaster will strike when you realise, ‘this is it’, there are no more hours in the week for you to train in, new wheels to buy, fat to loose off your body or new diets out there that claim to improve performance and at this point you have reached ‘your level’, but wait you are only in the middle of the pack, you are not the ‘great climber’ you once were or unbeatable in the sprints you are just mediocre, average a no body. In your aim to reach perfection you have become average, all those hours on the bike, wet winter training rides and new shiny bits for your bike and you will not progress, the only ones who truly ‘make it’ are the household names of the sport how many riders are there in the Tour de France every year and how many can you actually name, how many win a stage or even finish in the top 20 of a stage?

Oh and as if that wasn’t enough, every time we go out training, we end up where we started…As I said, we are all mental.

Just a post for you to ponder on your next training ride with your buddies!