The crappiest generation of spoiled idiots

I bought a new bike.

It's beautiful. It's so Italian it smells like garlic. And it rides like a dream.

But that's not the purpose for this post. No, it's a little more complicated than that. While I love my new bike, I could have survived just fine with my old bike, or the one before that, or the one before that. There's no true need for the string of bikes I've owned in my lifetime.

But lately I started to think I'm becoming part of what I consider a younger generation who seems to have a sense of entitlement from the outset. They want a bike, so they jump straight to the lightest, stiffest, most expensive racing bike they can find...the latest cool frame maker or material (Ti, Carbon, stainless steel, etc).

As I've raced over the past few years, I've noticed that the least experienced racers seem to always have the newest and most expensive bikes of all the groups (Cat. 1/2 aside since they often get their bikes for cheap/free or are paid to ride something).

And so I present to all of you this:



Two wheels for life.

New girl in town

Someone's sleeping on the couch, and it isn't me.

--Two wheels for life

Can you feel this?

Or this?


Or maybe even this?


There's something about February for me. I know it's still winter, but once the month is over, March is spring in my mind. The time for the European Classics where the toughest athletes on the planet slog through mud and shit and pain and rain and snow and fatigue and end up gritting their teeth to get over one last col to battle it out in a sprint.

I've always loved a race, but ever since Greg Lemond beat Laurent Fignon in a time trial duel that may never be repeated, I've been a sucker for bike racing. There's no judges or officials or timeouts or any of that crap. You line up, ride for several hundred kilometers and the first man across the line wins. Simple. Elegant. Beautiful.

There aren't very many things that will keep me up at night, but thinking about racing my bike is one of them. I'll probably never win a race, but just knowing that I'm going to feel that surge of pre-race anxiety where my senses are heightened and I feel more alive....that's worth the entry fee and the masochism.

Even if I end up baked and cross-eyed, there's always something to love about racing. It's you and the bike. Caked in dirt and sweat and someone elses spit and you don't know if you'll make the selection but you know if you do you're going to hang on 'til the end. That energy and emotion makes everything more poignant.

Two wheels for life.