Pretty cool stuff you've been able to read about here on Veloquent. Riding stories from the tropics to the arctic, beloved bikes chosen from lust or reason, epic tours forging relationships, adversities (pain!) overcome, great achievements and experiences from exceptional people. It makes you want to, want to ... well ahem, maybe, um admire those superhumans!
Or maybe even be one of them by riding your bike, kinda like they do.
First though you have a huge obstacle to overcome. It's an obstacle shared by the vast majority of the people you encounter on a daily basis. That obstacle is just getting started. You've got to go out and ride your next (or is it your first?) ride and pedal closer to making that ride.
Getting started really is the hard part. Keeping going is so much easier. Even if you've already ridden, today!, further than you've ever ridden before riding the little bit further is easier than starting for the first time. When you read the Veloquent stories of travel and pedaling and adventure and you think about you'd like to, how you wish you could, ride like that ask yourself "can I go out and ride my bike now?" and answer the question not with wistful words but with physical action. When you make that physical answer, you've done the hard part, you've started.
I first formed this thought to share with you about three blocks from my house as I puffed up the broken Boise street pavement between 42nd and 45th streets. I hadn't wanted to get on my bike to commute to work. It took about an hour to jolly myself into getting dressed and getting on the bike. Yet here, four blocks from my house, after just a very few minutes of pedaling I was feeling the spreading glow of enjoyment. The temperature was close to freezing, but I was warm. Well, warm enough. I almost turned around when I opened the garage door and felt the morning air. Now, just three blocks later there was no way I was going to turn around and go home and not ride to work. I'd already done the hard part.
A daily commute or an epic journey have only one real impediment to being accomplished: getting started.
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1 comment:
You're right! The hardest part is the first four to six blocks away from the house. After that your body sort of resigns itself to the reality and then warms to the task, literally and figuratively.
We MUST go for a ride together soon. (Passover's coming and I will have a TON of matzoh to work off.)
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