Bikes Part II

Alright, so the main problem I had with my racing last year was the fact that I made it so important. I was pretty excited about the idea of crossing the finish line in spandexed glory for five weeks. While there were most likely some pride issues going on, I think that God brought me down (literally) to focus my attention on more important matters.

With that in mind, I decided to approach this year heavy on the recreational side and light on the obsessive. I was on my bike five or six times all semester, then a few more as our first race came up. Just enough to wake my legs up and not be miserable in the races.

More importantly, I’d made a much more concerted effort to maintain dialogue with my sister, and keep up to date with her. It was funny, most times that the thought of riding my bike came into my head, it was quickly tailed with “When was the last time you talked to Christa?” Through painful road rash I’d been conditioned to associate bettering myself on the bike with neglect to a relationship.

So our first race this year was again in Corvallis, Oregon. The Kerns of Eugene were gracious enough to open their home to me and fill my belly for the weekend. I drove the eight hours there on Friday night, crashed (haha), and left early Saturday morning for the 9:05 road race in Corvallis. I left with plenty of time to spare, so I wasn’t too worried when traffic started slowing on I-5. I got a little more worried when it stopped. I sat for a good half hour before we started inching forward again to come upon a semi that had slid sideways across all three lanes of northbound traffic. And not just the lanes, but the shoulders as well. Both of them. We had to creep past the truck in the mud of the median in a single line one car at a time.

Once past the wreck at up to highway speed, I wasn’t too worried about making the race. I’d left enough of a cushion to still make it on time. Unfortunately, in all the hubbub with the accident, I missed my exit. And with no map to tell me I’d gone too far, drove almost all the way back to Portland before realizing something was up.

Now not only did I miss the race, but I was bringing a teammate’s bike with me from Moscow. And I had all of the team’s spare wheels, and yes, one guy had a flat tire and couldn’t finish. So three of us were not scoring points because of me. This was my first thought when I realized I wasn’t going to make it. What happened next was interesting, and hard to describe. I was definitely in a funk. Not a frustrated, angry, or necessarily sad funk, but a feeling more like “I should’ve known better than to try this racing thing again.” I can’t draw the direct connection that I could last year, that racing was taking me away from something else I should have been doing. But I was nonetheless consumed with a guilty feeling as I made my way back from the outskirts of Portland toward Corvallis.

I’ve heard a lot in Doug’s sermons lately about “God as an author,” and it’s really had me thinking about why we notice and are focused on certain things over others. The long and short of it is that I feel God brings things to your attention for a reason, that the fact that I immediately felt wrong about racing was God’s nudging. Even if I don’t understand why as clearly as I did last year, the feeling was very similar, even amplified. Not only did I feel that racing was bad news, but the funk part of it was that I felt that I should have known. That’s really interesting to me, because even now I only have a hunch as to what biking could possibly have been taking the place of. Even if there never is a life-changing revelation that comes from this time, I know I was saved from burying myself financially and academically. Every time I opted out of a race weekend, I would realize within a few hours that there was so much that I needed to do in that time that I may not even get it done being here in town. I wasn’t altogether comfortable with the leadership on the team this year, and had my doubts about getting gas money and entry fees reimbursed, which would have ruined me.

There isn’t an obvious good deed left undone because of my cycling. I didn’t stay home one weekend and save a baby carriage from rolling into traffic at the same time my race was starting in another state. Wouldn’t that have been cool? I’m thankful in the end though that I didn’t have this feeling, look around and not see anything immediate to take care of, and shrug it off.