I Have You Covered

I have a friend that is about two weeks away from a two month cycling trip. He and his wife do a pretty long trip every year it seems. I envy them the experiences they will have in the next couple of months. Not the near misses on the highway or the windy, rain soaked days, or the inevitable arguments that will happen, eating crappy food because you can’t carry anymore weight, mechanical breakdowns and just plain muscle fatigue. However, these seemingly horrible things will also be the most wonderful parts of the trip. Certainly the most memorable.

When I say that I envy them, I do but not enough to go with them. Mars has offered to allow me to come long a few times, but I am pretty sure he knew what my answer would be. I don’t think he or Alex could take the endless whining. The wonderful thing about a trip like this is that if you aren’t in top shape when it begins, you will be by the end of the trip. I look forward to following along on their trip through their journal. I hope that they can somehow find the time to make regular entries because this summer I will be living vicariously through them. I will update the one or two readers of this blog about how the trip is going from time to time.

I am going to put a link to the journal here and I hope that they don’t mind. If you or Alex do happen mind, just let me know and I will take the link down. No one will remember it if they can’t look it up. I suspect that anyone that doesn’t have anything better to read than this drivel have weak minds anyways.

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/search/?query=bentcouple&main_type=all

I can remember the first time I noticed Mars; he was one of the only other guys that rode his bike to work. I watched him change clothes in the change room. Don’t start thinking weird stuff; he was changing from work clothes into cycle clothes as was I. I felt we were kindred spirits. He was the sleek, cool bike guy and I was the slightly (?) overweight wannabe. His bike was worth a king’s ransom and mine wasn’t worth as much as the tools I carry in the seat bag. We both managed to get from A to B, but he did it with panache.

There is one conversation that stands out in my mind that I had with Mars. We were talking about biking (what else) and he was telling me about this guy he knew that was really a hard core cyclist. I had to stop him right there. “Your friend is a hard core cyclist? Didn’t you just cycle 1500 kilometres this summer? YOU are a hard core biker!”

He laughed and said “No, this guy is really into it, I just do it for fun.” I suppose we all have our own ideas about just where we fit into this life. We generally tend to underestimate our impact on others and we also tend to view ourselves with a very critical eye. No, from the viewpoint of a guy that rides 30 to 40 km’s a week, you are a hard core biker Mars. I’m equally sure your buddy is Nuckin’ Futs, if he is as far above you as you are above me.

I won’t be with you physically, but rest assured I will keep an eye on your journal and keep track of where you are. That way, I can search your house (I know where you live) at my leisure and run up the phone bill. I haven’t talked to my buddy in Latvia for a while.

Don’t worry about anything back home, I have you covered!