lessons

i’m well over halfway to LA on my cycling adventure. i somehow made it through san francisco yesterday without getting lost... more evidence to add to the ‘God is real’ file... but every day is hard. really hard. like harder than the hardest thing i’d ever done before this trip hard. crawling out of my tent every morning, popping on some lycra and getting on my bike day after day has nearly broken my spirit on more than one occasion. 2 nights ago, at midnight, a tree fell down in the state park i was staying in. the sound it made was truly terrifying and then for 2 hours the melodic buzzing of chainsaws filled the air as workers cut up the tree to clear the road. i spent the whole night frozen in my tent wondering if a 55 tonne redwood was about to fall on my head. the question still remains... why on earth am i doing this? i haven’t reached cycling nirvana, where my body loves being on the bike and i feel strong and invincible. it’s quite the opposite. i know i’m strong because i keep cycling mile after mile after mile, but i feel anything but. i feel small and vulnerable and confused most of the time.

conquering the golden gate bridge in all its foggy goodness

sometimes i go to bed at night and don’t lock my bike up. i make it look really pretty and accessible, hoping that someone will steal it and i won’t have to ride anymore. i could have given up about 10 days ago when a case of bike-short chafing got a little out-of-control. but something inside me wasn’t willing to quit over what was essentially just a nasty adult nappy-rash. so i’ve diligently powdered and moisturised and prayed that my bike would be stolen instead. but that doesn’t seem to be my destiny. maybe i’ll tape some money to it tonight and see what happens.

surely there is stuff to be learned in this undertaking. i’m racking my brains every day and not coming up with a lot, but here is one thing i’ve been thinking about this past week or so.

when i’m riding on flat ground or going downhill, it doesn’t really matter that i’m carrying about 20kg of extra gear strapped to the back of my bike. but when the day gets tough – when i’m faced with a series of 1000ft climbs – the extra baggage matters a lot. the extra baggage mocks me and makes it impossible for me to enjoy the scenery.  i hate the extra baggage in those moments... those moments where i’m forced to deal with every painful consequence of its existence. dragging the baggage up a hill for hours on end is hard. really hard. like harder than stopping myself from eating a fifth donut was yesterday.

the load i carry

sometimes we don’t know what garbage we’re carrying around with us until life gets a bit hard... until life goes uphill for a period of time. i’m wondering if maybe we all need to do challenging things a little more often to get a feel for our garbage, to see more clearly what it feels like to carry it in the hard times. maybe being forced to deal with the consequences of our excess baggage (emotional, physical or spiritual) is what makes it easier to put it down and choose some peace instead. if we just keep rolling along the flats and downhills of life making ‘easy’ choices, perhaps we’ll never realise the things we are needlessly carrying that will inevitably hold us back one day.

i’d like to think i could have learned this lesson wearing less lycra and spending much less money on baby powder and vaseline... but apparently not.