I have known Damian for a long time now.
Maybe 10 years. He was a student at OSU when I met him. Now he has two jobs. He is the owner of Westside Video and he works as the Western Tech Rep for Pedros. Pedros is a bicycle tool and lubricant manufacturer.
He is 30, I am 57. Old enough to be he father. I am not, I am his friend. We hit it off early and he has raced for Sunnyside most of those 10 years. But we are not friends because of that. We are friends because we love cycling, we like Battlestar Galactica, we are passionate about Cyclo cross and we like to joke. We don't have everything in common though. On Sunday we started our ride at 9, he went to bed when I woke up, 4AM. His ride was longer than his sleep. But he was there anyway. Why? Because he promised and because he wanted a riding partner who would ride with him and not drop him.
It is fun to ride with a group, or a friend who have a certain etiquette about riding. This means you finish with whom you start with. This means you are not pushing constantly while your companions are suffering. It means your Sunday rides are not races, they are for endurance fitness. So Damian and I ride together. We just needed a 4 hour ride. Not a race. Damian is stronger than I, but I never noticed that once in 4 hours. It is amazing but I can ride with people stronger and weaker than I. It has to do with following the basic rules. Don't half wheel, don't attack every little rise, if you are weaker don't take some really hard pull and then be so tired you can't keep up any more.
I have ridden in Europe with some amazingly strong riders. We go up the long climbs at our own pace. We wait at the top, ride down together, the flats together, eat together. Have a meal together after the ride. Always finish together. . If you ride like this you will have an amazing amount of friends all over the world. They will be women, young dudes, old guys, all walks of cycling life. Do your intervals by yourself, do your Sunday ride with a friend or two. The world needs more friends and less competition. Leave that for the races.
One more thing, isn't that a great view of the mountains behind Damian.. Bend is just a great place to live and ride. I must be blessed.
Don
1 comment:
Uh...I was up till 5:30. If I would have known you were up, maybe you could have come over and hung out with V, Emily and me. Good times.
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