It's not about the bike

I've been pretty bummed for the past coupe of weeks, after a really good roll (literally and figuratively), I got interrupted by a double whammy. First, I broke yet another SRAM chain on the way home from a fantastic ride. Then, two days later, the dog ate my really nice cycling shoes because, apparently, she likes me. I'm not sure I fully understand dog psychology, but she's a great dog and so she's been forgiven.

In the interim I've been stuck with one bike with a busted chain and clipless pedals that I have nothing to clip into them, and another bike that's too small for me and still wearing studded Nokian tires. While waiting for economics to be favorable for another set of those shoes, there are two alternatives:

1.) Put one of the two other sets of tires on said spare bike, which also has platform pedals.

2.) Move platform pedals to the LHT and get a new chain for it.

Somewhere along the line both of those options became too difficult, so I haven't done them. I'm not sure how they're difficult, but lots of other things have been occupying my mind and time lately so - well - they have! I'm reluctant to ride the old mountain bike because, well, this winter was horrible. Riding it layered in clothing with the burdensome Nokians aired up to 25 whopping psi through snow and ice was horrible. Every memory I have in my immediate memory.. "banks".. of that bike is horrible. Which is saddening, considering that just several years ago I couldn't stop riding the thing. Before clipless pedals, before steel framed touring bikes, before myriads of handlebar changes, before Brooks saddles and even before cycling shorts - I rode and rode that bike, loving every mile.

Putting things into perspective, I visited Kent's Bike Blog today and caught up on his recent posts. If you've never visited Kent before, let me summarize it for you: he's basically my hero. He lives simply, hasn't owned a car since 1987, works where he feels like (mostly in bike shops), live in the Pacific Northwest, rides bikes, and is about to ride his bike along the Great Divide from Canada to Mexico. Only after he rides his bike from Seattle to the start in Banff, Canada. When he gets to Mexico, it sounds like he's going to be riding his bike back to Seattle. For a minute, do the calculations of that in your head. You've just ridden your bike pretty much nonstop from Canada to Mexico, and now you're going to essentially ride it the whole way back.

Kent isn't going to be riding a high-end custom mountain bike during this journey, he's riding a single speed Redline Monocog 29er - the one indulgence, it seems, is that it's the "flight" model. No high end racing clothing, or even clipless pedals and cycling specific shoes for that matter, Kent is just going to ride his bike. Across the United States. Probably twice. Probably nonstop.

With that, I'm closing my Macbook and taking the toddler outside, where he'll help me put some non-studded tires on my perfectly good heavy and slow, but operational and fun mountain bike.