Snow Good

There's been some talk going around about "How much is too much" etc. in the wake of 24 hour nationals this year. This picture perhaps says it all. Craig Gordon left that race with kidney failure. I think Eatough needed an IV, but not sure about that.

Over the years I've seen people give up jobs, marriages, schooling, friends, religion, essentially anything and everything for riding. I find it a strange sort of logic that places riding above all these things, and then calls kidney failure "over the top". To be clear, I do think pushing to kidney failure is over top, but I also feel that, in the end, all those other things are what life is really about, and cycling is a nice complement to it all. I would take kidney failure in preference to loosing my family, but frankly (mostly at times of temporary short-sightedness), I've put riding ahead of all those things, including my family, a few times here and there.

I would not be surprised if Gordon would have traded that victory had he known, but he just didn't know that was going to happen. I've been there, pushing so hard it felt like death would be a relief, but you keep pushing. The race ends, and I feel good that I "gave it my all." It is just that this time he almost did. Who could know?

Anyway, did some snow-biking today. It was supposed to be an easier ride for me. I did ride slow, but it was probably harder than ideal. It turns out that a racing bike with a low front end and a high saddle is not really good at going down hill in soft snow. After a while I figured out that lowering my saddle several inches, DH style, really helps. It was really fun to do it once, but I don't think I'll go looking to do that again for a while unless I make some equipment changes. In places where the snow was hard-pack, it was better riding. Had some chain-suck annoyance, but it was only an inconvenience. If we get a little more snow, as forecasted, it will be back to the roads and trainer, I guess.

A little strange to go mountain biking and attend the company Christmas party on the same day!