Older but stronger.

Having experienced virtual racing, I can’t believe there are more people who film themselves suffering on a trainer to share on social media than there are people who blog.

I had my second-ever virtual race and the first with “the wolves” on Tuesday. Thankfully, the roomie wasn’t home to witness my thousand faces of agony. My pores opened like floodgates, and within minutes, a small lake had formed underneath my bike. This went on for 72 minutes.

In the videos I mention, riders often forgo the jersey due to comfort. What remains of their attire looks like a futuristic lederhosen, thanks to the cycling bib and chest strap heart rate monitor combo. The willingness to allow people to watch you, in sweat-soaked bibs, make the same faces women make when giving birth, is not the level of exhibitionism I can partake in.

With TikTok and Insta stories, are people just getting lazier about writing? Am I out of touch?

No. It’s the children who are wrong.

Continue reading “Older but stronger.”

UK? Because I am.

Once upon a bright and sunny day in 2018, Yann and I found ourselves before the door of a residential building in Arles-sur-Tech, France. I had the key — previously hidden behind the green shutters of the window to the right —in my hand. I had yet to meet the person to whom this lodging belonged. This stranger had hung the black Reynaud-Bray tote I’d abandoned at the Toulouse-Blagnac airport a few days earlier off the doorknob to make it easy for Yann and me to know which place to rob.

Lucky number 13.
Continue reading “UK? Because I am.”