Why do we do it?

My cousin's husband and daughter are in town.  Cuz gets here tomorrow, for a good weekend of visiting and catching up.

They took the Chinatown bus from NYC, and met me at my office by closing time, so I was able to give them a ride home.  Karl is a great writer, musician, and overall good guy.  He's also quite fond of the two wheeled variety of transportation and is active in the Alternative Transportation movement up in Brooklyn.  Not quite Critical Mass, but close.  He uses his bike to commute and tour, but does not dabble in the racing scene.

Which made for good conversation tonight, especially as we watched the Tour of California.  We talked about the commitment that these guys have as pros, and how much training one has to commit to, etc.  I mentioned that the ironic attraction about bike racing is that you have to work really hard just to suck, unless you're a freak of nature.

This was on my mind because Fat Marc posted a similar thought earlier today, quite eloquently in fact.  This was then reinforced by Mr. Gamjams himself, who stated it in less colloquial terms than I did.  I think we all try to make sense of why we train and rationalize it as required, as the long road season has started.  In some cases this is just the preseason for 'cross.  Karl then connected the analogy to his efforts to become a better jazz guitarist...work hard, though no matter what you do, there's always someone out there that makes you feel like a rank amateur.

Regardless, I found it interesting that we all came to similar conclusions at about the time the lunar eclipse occurred.  Coincidence?  I think not.