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Friday, June 16, 2006

why i fell in love with cross

when i first hopped on a bike ... oh, that'd be somewhere in the late ninetys ... i could barely hold that thing straight. I crashed on lips of driveways, slid out in corners, and couldn't have hopped a stink bug's skypointed butt if my tread depended on it.

At first, and it's tough to admit, I was ~ gulp ~ a rather fanatical tri-geek. I mean, if you do a gawdamn 112 mile bike ride in a frickin' speedo? ... you need help.

I needed help.

As the tri-ness faded like an artificial shell, the pure mad art of cyclery began to blossom in and around me. Terms like souplesse, vitesse, vengavengavenga ... images of gracely power floating over cobbles and hills ... dreams of a seamless unification between legs and lungs, wheels and earth ~ consumed my imagination, my desires, my waking moments.

i needed help again.

In cross ~ there is the insanity of the crowd to burst you out of your imagined constraints of what can and cannot be done. In cross ~ there is the g-spot fusion of deep raw power and finely tuned flexibility. In cross ~ you have to live in the moment, sucking in all the minutae of your blurring world ... every second, every spec of dirt, every shift of bike, body, and spirit.

In cross ~ worlds blend and sparks fly.

10 comments:

Dan Cleary said...

CX is simply beautiful and its good in any weather.

Thats it, I'm gonna get off my bike somewhere this weekend and shoulder it up a hill. Just cause its there.

jAndy donka-donk said...

I have too much white in my kit, or I might consider rolling around in the mud this winter.....

that and with a midget bike the triangle if too small to fit my arm through and hoist my bike on my shoulder......

Anonymous said...

My poor CX bike is all dusty and full of spider webs from months of neglect.

It may try and 'hatefuk' me once I get it down come cross season.

Hope not, that bike is mean

Unknown said...

now this is some sweet poetry.

Ron Castia said...

Damn you! I was really trying to opt out of Cross this year. Now thanks to you and this adictive blog the images of hunting a line a carving a turn are haunting me sweet.
That and I haven't been on the Single Speed in a while.

Anybody know how the new categories are going to work?

Dr. Xeno said...

we all need help; now that I'm missing a wad of the road season, I'm scheming how to break into 'cross in the Fall. Anydude sellin' a used bike in the 56 range? Can I convert my oldest road bike? Help! (semi-rhetorical rant from the couch).

Velo Bella said...

We're probably going to do our categories like this:

Cat A - Cat 1-4
Cat B - Cat 2-4
Cat C - Cat 3-4 (or just 4)

Or something similar where we use the category system to defray some sandbagging, but it doesn't preclude someone from riding up in category.

I think Pilarcitos will be doing something similar.

Nate Rogers said...

good thing i got my first cross bike today...gonna give me some pointers this winter?

X Bunny said...

what day of the week am i going to fit this into my lame but tight training schedule?

oh who the hell cares
it's in there one way or the other
yeah!

Lothar Glerbny said...

I can't wait...don't tell Leigh cycling season doesn't end in September, she'll kill me!

At least the races are local.