TV tough vs. old world tough, cyclists in spandex say #fire@mrmichael_smith

Big Tex always sounds defensive about cycling shorts and shaving his legs, in his books. All the affluent Amercians who have dived into cycling, joining recreational rides and racing clubs following the success of Armstrong and that other American guy who won the Tour de France 3x, all the big recreational bucks on bikes, have made it a rich man’s sport in the U.S. Its the same in Australia and New Zealand. Spandex, money…. What a mix! While ‘real sports’ in the U.S. are encased in stadiums, purpose built arenas, all padding and prat falls. TV sport commentators roll out their top ten falls / hits nightly. ‘Big hits in padding’ clips are to sport what funniest home video shows are to The 6pm News.

As sport viewing, the padding and tripping over and leaping barriers and blousy ‘hits’, it all looks really faked-up to New Zealanders. We are used to our full contact football without padding. Our commentators don’t cheer when the testical is ripped out or ankle smashed. But then our football is old world tough. And so is cycle racing. Its not an American ‘arena’ sport. Its not the WWW wrestling.

Percussion fractures (a broken spine), deep lacerations through the epidermis, compound fractures and endemic use of drugs for endurance purposes have been part of cycling sport for 120 years. 30% of pr0-peleton riders will have significant time out for recovery in any year  (season ending injuries), as a result of high speed, unprotected, smashes into the tarmac.

When the original large cycling tours started, farm boys used it as a way to get out of their miserable lives. They were ‘expendable’, accustomed to appalling work safety conditions and prepared to undergo the extreme misery that made the spectacle of the Tour de France.

Cycling is a sport that may well be considered too dangerous to continue in the kind of safety conscious future being developed around citizens in the U.S. There are padded barriers in the new sports. No cyclist makes a calculated judgement to leap over the barrier to win, because this sport happens in the real world. There is a long list of fatalities.

Ironically, commentators fail to spot the difference between the costume / equipment of the sport and the reality of the risks involved. So today, U.S. cyclists are pushing for @mrmichael_smith from ESPN to be fired, for treating a TdF cycling accident like a sport prat-fall or ‘big hit’. A car clipped Hoogerland and sent him and his bike cartwheeling into a barbed wire fence. Its the real world, not padded stadium barriers and the results are dire. In the same race, Vinokourov crashed off a narrow road, hurtling over a bank on his bike at 40 mph into bolders and trees, smashing his pelvis.  What would it be like if you added a fastmoving car to a football game? The sport of cycling has had a resurgence amongst 30-60 yr old, highly motivated, professionally successful men. People looking for something beyond comic book style, loud-mouth, junk sport. Interesting.

Choked as I drive past the cyclists commuting to work

There is no two ways about it, I’d rather be cycling, but it is a tainted surprise to me how happy I am, to be out of the cast, that ball and chain that has trapped my leg for the last 8/9 weeks. To be back on the road, in control, in any shape or form is a rush. I am not a fan of cars (in general, as a transportation solution). It seems that motorways are like baseball fields – “if you build them, they will come.” Meaning that new motorways, flyovers, tarseal additions to the roading network, always achieve capacity immediately. The new interchange built closest to my home has achieved this.

This morning, driving a car is empowerment. Its a step up, an improvement towards the goal of getting back to the bike, slowly getting mobility from the stiff-as-steel-band ankle. Its like the rights of adulthood come flooding back to me.  Japan’s nuclear issues, quake devastation, death tolls, the world takes a back seat. Which is really odd if you think about it.

Its great bike commuting weather here in Wellington New Zealand. Soft mist, not cold. The traffic is not too fast. I’m idling beside a rider at 30km/hr in slow traffic, he is in Discovery Channel team kit. And riding an older Trek. As we say in New Zealand “Distance Looks Our Way.”

Mr. Discovery Channel and I are moving at the same pace. And that says it all really. What causes a choke anyway? I am going to file this under ‘Bike Zen’ and get back to work.

The repairs to my bike cost more than my car.

BMC SLT01

BMC SLT01

BMC SLT01

New selle italia SLR Team saddle, new Easton ec90 slx fork, fully rebuilt Ksyrium SL rear wheel, new shimano ultegra rear derailler and STI shifter, new cables, bar tape, testing of polar power meter sensors – it all adds up to more than I paid for my Subaru Outback wagon.
I am still limping around in a cast- walking in it, at least, now. One more week in plaster and then the comeback trail really starts.

Counting The Beat…or Consuming Education

A bike ride from central Wellington, capital of New Zealand with pin striped shiny-ness, to the lower socio economic blocks up state highway 1, takes you down a shallow gorge that shines with ice in winter. The train track runs along the other side of the river that meanders down through the gulley. For three or so kilometers there is barely a house, only golden grass and deep olive bush in summer and deep freezing fog in winter. One lane each way, this was the 19th century road into Wellington. 500 metres away on the top of the ridge and completely out of earshot is the ‘new’ motorway.
The road kicks up and turns left, you’re at the womens’ prison and the start of a broad suburban valley called Tawa. The christian party holds this parliamentary seat in government. Its boundaries run like a collar around the capital. The valley of weatherboard 1960s homes is known as ‘nappy valley’. Founded with state assistance, young families benefitted from the social conscience of New Zealand policy. The houses are mostly 3 bedroom, government architect design – big windows, tongue and groove ”Tawa’ floors(a tree with dark coloured hardwood). Now these properties are ‘the last buffer’ for families who don’t wish to be 100m north in another city. The Tawa College is large and prosperous with students from both cities in the valley. Schools are funded by student numbers. Critical is senior school size – providing the money to resource expensive technical or scientific subjects. The magic number is 200 senior students. Irrespective of other funding options to schools, without this, schools wither. Crumple under high-need students and nation-wide policy brush strokes.
Tawa gets poor in the last 100m before Porirua City. Tidy-ish exteriors, but squalid on green or gold, large, mowed sections, almost treeless. Cycle across the invisible city border, to Porirua City, immediately there is a large research institute, around the corrner, government computing facilities, then a multicultural 1970s small city centre. Its the city next door, schools are encouraged to strengthen technologies teaching. The range of senior school subjects also reflects smaller, poorer schools scattered across this city. The rationale is also that this flows directly into labour force needs, just as the little river flows from the gorge, through god zone and out into the harbour here in Porirua.
The thought must be that if you live here, this must be the path for you. Like a person out of a mould. A strangely reductive way to consider a culturally diverse city.
At the next level, its tertiary training needs have been considered on a regional basis. X number of plumbers are needed, the same number of places will be funded. But, if you ask five people in the same job how they trained to be there, you would get five different pathways. Also people move… overseas. And people gain different outcomes from tertiary training.
The range of outcomes and the richness of interaction between education, people and communities happens around the edges of educational vision. The funding models look for direct, measureable correllations. Its a winner and loser way of thinking about what education gives people. I think students can be lawyers and in addition from a culturally diverse background in Porirua. These economic models are one or the other – why not both?

The state houses in Porirua are still weatherboard, but flashes of colour – bright light blue and orange – change the tone. On the Sunday ride, the streets overflow outside the large churches. Pacific prints, bright frocks, formal black pants and shining black hair. Big smiles wave you through the conjestion on the road.

Motorway Driving is not a metaphor for life

There is no network of professional or social accountability on the road, only the here and now; the cost of petrol, lanes, the road code, vehicle fumes and a large group of individuals jostling to get to point b.

 The road is not a philosophy, “I’m fast, I’m getting ahead, I’m a winning driver”. Thats not it. Its a whole lot of industries making dough of tax payer funded strips of tarseal. Its just a layer over the land, a place tht used to be trees and trails.  Most roads were made possible by the purchase of houses from poor suburbs, to build a city vision, or  a hacked up graveyard (the only available space in the middle of town) or a cart trail up a hill, avoiding boulders and puddles and eventually becoming a sealed, named route. Some roads predate European settlement. Riding my bike, the shape of some roads is unnatural, crap camber – forced. And some are comfortable – its a feeling I can barely describe, a flicker of pleasure in a long ride.

People drive in isolation, inside tin cans. Imagining I can’t see them picking their nose, yelling at their kids, believing they are inside somewhere. Or maybe a driver is stoking him or herself with a speedy manoevre.

Ambitious or successful people may drive slowly. Perhaps identity might not pushed out to the limits of the car’s metal skin. The car may just be an imperfect tool.

Other than glancing market demographic data, there is nothing I know about a person from driving behind them.

Hard ride – the craving for chocolate!

I think we are becoming more and more emotional.
[Current mood:   breezy emoticon…. ]

Real hunger is a physical  feeling, you know it by the tightness of your stomach.  Your stomach complains, it makes noises,  feels light and a little tight. Its a sensation that grows, it doesn’t appear immediately and any kind of food can satisfy it. It feels really satisfying to eat when you are hungry.

Cravings pop up in an instant – triggered by familiar or repeated patterns or moments. Psychological need to eat is quite different from hunger, it comes on in a rush and tends to be strongly fixated at one kind of food. A chocolate fix. A caffeine fix. A pizza fix…. And eating it doesn’t feel richly satisfying.

I have so much of everything (in the middle class world), I find it a struggle to remember the real and the physical. All those things that are ‘needs’. Got to haves – is it just a great big psychological pyramid, built on the head of a pin? On the push bike my aching knees are calling for some tenderness and for some distraction from the effort…. Chocolate or espresso?