Strength
“How hard can you push on something. That’s all strength is. If a bricklayer spends all day laying bricks. How strong did he get? Well, it depends on how many bricks.” - Mark Rippetoe
For a while now, I’ve thought very highly of strength.
That meant mainly weightlifting and eating a bit more. It worked. I could push harder on stuff.
Of course, strength translates to other disciplines outside clanging plates on the ground. Recently for me that’s been riding bikes. But again, the same focus. Push harder.
I’ve been doing local bunch rides, where you roll around in a pack of 10-15 cyclists. Since it only takes a single cross of the wheel for disaster, communication and smooth, steady, predictable movements are really important. Gasp! Strength is not important.
I was on the front of the bunch, the person who needs to be the steadiest, best communicator and has the least margin for error, and I made a few sloppy moves.
An older cyclist pulled up to me later. He says, “I’m trying to say this in the nicest possible way. You’re strong. Strong is good. But everything else… You could be so much better.”
A good, simple goal or principle can take you a really long way. It’s a big shiny hammer, you know how it works and it can bash a lot of nails in. But after a while, you’ll need more tools.
Uriarra Roobaix - Race Report
Date: Sunday April 18, 2021 Location: District of Coree, Australian Capital Territory Temp: 14 C Wind Direction: NNW 4.2 km/h Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/5145816740
What is it?
The Uriarra Roobaix is “one of the more interesting races of the Canberra Cycling calendar where in the place of cobbles we introduce dust, ruts and loose sand.” Of course, a reference to the classic (currently postponed) race in France
Pre-Race
The night before I asked to be moved from E Grade to D and decided to make a go of a proper race. I was feeling pretty rested and fueled up. The route is a bit strange. Each lap consists of two ‘out and back’ loops, one on a flat, straight road and the other on a very bumpy gravel road. My grade would need to do 3 laps, roughly 50k. This was also my second proper bike race. I had a bit of experience riding by myself during triathlons but my main goal today was to get some practice sticking to other riders. Hanging in the bunch, or on a wheel.
Lap 1
Road: Not much to see here. Easy pace. Everyone is together chatting. About 8 or 9 riders in my grade.
Gravel: Almost immediately a few guys on the front attacked. For me I knew I had to take it easy on first gravel lap since I had no idea what to expect. It was a fine, white, dusty, sandy gravel with a few tennis ball sized rocks thrown in for goood measure. At the turnaround I latched onto a rider who was going like a demon on the way back.
Lap 2
Road: A leading group forms.. Myself, G and S, who we found powering down the road by himself.
Gravel: S leads, but G & I can stay on his wheel. He cuts a perfect line through the dust and rocks, leaping over potholes.
Final Lap (Bell rings)
Road: We’re all still together. I take a little long pulling out my skittles and I’m nearly dropped. A few kms’s later, just after the turn around, G attacks hard and drops both S & I. It’s a little unexpected but there’s nothing I can do about it, there’s no way I can catch him.
Gravel: G & S disappear up the road, getting about a minute ahead of me. The gravel is even harder when you are ploughing through it by yourself. There’s a few sections where I almost lose control and my grip is getting a bit slack.
Results
I got third! Very happy with that. Sometimes it’s all about the little things you did right. I’m happy I put my dirt tires on, happy I asked to be moved up a grade. Happy I didn’t crash, didn’t lose any water bottles. Happy to pull a bit for my group, and very happy I signed up, it was a lot of fun.
The Small City
I currently live in a small Australian city, far away from the coast. I will not name it. There’s clear air, a clear night sky and often the birds are louder than the cars. If you’re an American, we’re talking a country town. Population-wise, something close to Tampa, Tulsa or Wichita.
COVID-19 drove many people out of big cities, and turned bustling broadways into ghostly corridors, but that was more of a hedging. People upsized from apartment to home, and took advantage of not having to drive into work. But in 2021, offices are already opening, and eventually things will resume.
I’m not sold on my small city, but it has a few strengths. The strengths of a small city are inherently boring, and will always be drowned out by the big city, because that’s what a big city does. The small city can never compete on those things, nor should it.
Very good air quality
Little to no light pollution.
Much less noise pollution
Little to no trash
Easy access to cheap, good quality supermarkets
Easy access to cheap, local produce
Access to interesting ingredients, brands etc
Much less traffic, more parking spaces
Shorter commute times
Safer walking as a pedestrian
Safer as a cyclist
Closer and more accessible to nature
Bigger, cheaper apartments close to city center
More affordable property market
Big cities struggle with this stuff. Take cycling safety for example. In SF, you can find hundreds of click-bait articles, petitions, twitter death matches and horror stories. You can also find innovation, improvements and beauty (maybe not a great example since SF is one of the worlds best cities to cycle, and I rode it daily for about 2 years).
But when you start thinking of these as a stack, and if you take your personal values into account, they are worth considering.
