Another Winner Rides The Victory Loop

Yesterday was World Bicycle Day.  I had some business to take care of but I wheeled out Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear bike, for a glorious afternoon ride.

People in my building see me as if I’m an Olympic racer because, as a few have remarked, “You’re always on your bike!” I do ride more than any of them, and most people they know, but I am (and was) hardly a world-class athlete.

But yesterday a world-class athlete took a break from “business” for a bike ride. And he did it in the setting for some of cycling’s most iconic moments.

Novak Djokovic is in Paris for the French Open. Less than 24 hours before he was scheduled for a second-round match, he was pedaling around l’Arc de Triomphe, clearly enjoying himself. Someone called out, “I love you!”  “I love you, too,” he responded.

He was on a joyride, taking in the sights. But, in a way, it made perfect sense that he took his turn around l’Arc:  Just as he has achieved some of his greatest victories in Paris (at Roland Garros stadium, specifically), so did Bernard Hinault, Greg Le Mond and other legends of cycling who culminated their Tour de France wins in one of the City of Light’s most iconic locations.

Quinceañera

 So why, you may be wondering, is this post titled “Quinceañera?”

If you are familiar with Latin American cultures, you have heard of “Quinceañera”—or, perhaps, been part of one. Basically, it’s a “coming of age” party for a girl who’s turned fifteen years old.  I guess you could say it’s a Hispanic version of “Sweet Sixteen,” one year earlier.

Of course, I am not writing this post because I’ve turned fifteen. When I was that age, it never would have occurred to me that I was in midlife, or any other particular stage of life.  I probably was as self-absorbed as (or possibly even more self-absorbed than) other kids of that same age.  Now I realize that it, like much about adolescence that is denigrated (“oh, that’s so adolescent!”) is actually normal: Kids are trying to figure out a lot of things as their bodies are changing in ways for which they’re unprepared. In my case, my solipsism had to do with those things and, ironically, something I was trying to avoid—and wouldn’t make any attempt to resolve until decades later, when I realized that I was in midlife but would soon be at the end if I didn’t resolve it.

The resolution of that conflict became part of the basis of a blog I started two years before this one:  Transwoman Times. Writing it led me to start Midlife Cycling: Someone who read  TT noticed that some of my posts were about cycling and suggested that I start a blog specifically about cycling.

So, on this date in 2010–fifteen years ago—I wrote the first of 4754 posts I’ve  written on this blog. Back then, I had no idea of how long I would keep up this blog: Would I run out of things to say? Do I have undiagnosed ADHD that would distract me from this and cause me to start another blog, or some other project? Or would I stop “fooling myself,” as some might say, with the notion that I’m in the middle of my life as long as I don’t know when I’m going to die and finally admit that I’m old?

The answer to that last question is an emphatic “NO!” As long as I can ride, I am not “too old” for, well, anything—including a Quinceañera, if only for this blog.

So, I thank all of you who have been reading—and following me as I cycle through my midlife and this blog’s Quinceañera!

Alternative Energy Source?

 Is this what they mean by “wind power?”