Wind+ Hill + Yoghurt + Rain + Rain Stops+ Downhill = Awesome

We had our first epic headwind day a few days back. I mean, it was flat, like downhill flat, and we were only going eight or nine miles an hour when we should have been going 13 or 15 no problem. There’s no question that it’s frustrating. You fight against it all the way up a hill, and instead of the beautiful swoop down the other side, you find  yourself still pedaling. Downhill. Oh yeah, and it was raining. Steadily.

[I realise that most of my reflections so far have been about adverse weather. This is not because a) the weather is constantly adverse, because it's not. I got a sunburn the other day. or b) that I am a complainer. Rather, I have found that it is in the moments of greatest weather adversity that I come to some of the more important conclusions re: biking and life]

As we faced up to our first big climb of the day, all we could really do was laugh. What with the wind and the rain, a moderately inclining five or six mile climb seemed to fit right in.

We didn’t make it very far that day. To be totally honest, we procrastinated for approximately three hours in the Crescent City public library, trying to avoid the inevitable (the climb, the rain, the wind). But that night, as we sat high on a bluff overlooking crashing surf with our bellies full of tortilla soup and our tent set up and ready behind us, the day in retrospect didn’t seem like a failure at all.

In that moment, we realised that there are at least two kinds of adversity.

First, there is the kind as described above. The rain pouring, wind howling, mountain climbing, legs screaming, ipod broken kind of adversity. When you persevere through something like this, the sense of accomplishment makes it all worth while. The moment when you get to pump your fist and whoop your way down the other side completely outweighs the initial discomfort and struggle.

The second kind of adversity is a little harder to pin down, and is without a doubt infinitely less satisfying (or impressive). These moments, for us at least, tend to happen in grocery stores. Mostly, we’re both hungry, which makes both decision making and communication more difficult, if not impossible. Usually, it’s crowded, the wrong temperature, there’s no wireless, the computer is dead, I’m not wearing my favourite underwear, I can’t find the mustard/knife/hair elastic and it’s not a safeway (we really like safeway). To top it off, when the moment is over, there’s no real sense of accomplishment. No call for a fist pump. No one would ever watch us struggle through a situation like that and then come over to pat us on the back or give us a free donut. Even further, there is always a niggling sense during one of these hangry moments that it all could have been avoided. That maybe it’s all our fault (unlike the hill, the wind and the rain).

What’s the lesson here? It’s probably practical, like charge the computer, eat more clif bars and make better underwear choices. But I don’t really know. At the end of the day, as long as we get to change out of our bike shorts and eat some yoghurt, I’ll call it a success. Fist pump definitely called for.

mer/eureka