Life On Two Wheels

Along the river and toward the mountains a morning shadow shimmers across the road. The rays of the first light jet through the trees and across a figure gliding upon the road. His breath trails in short spurts, petrified as it hits the icy air. All is quiet except the slight sound of the athlete as he summons himself for yet another days work. Soon the rest of the world will bustle with life as well and the brief simplicity of cyclist and nature will disappear into the everyday struggle of life in full motion; the errands and intervals, the appointments and intersections, and the deadlines and finish lines OutPaceTheRace

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Lost in thought at LAX

Lost in thought at LAX
March 27, 2006

I figure that one way or another all paths will eventually lead to the same finale. Have you ever wondered if there’s some extraordinary athlete in some impoverished country that will never have a chance to compete to their potential? Maybe not, but I have. This is essentially the same set of ideas that leads to me or any other athlete with “what it takes” to end up at the sport that suits me/them the best- or even doing any sport at all. For instance, why did Lance choose to ride bikes or Ginobli choose to play basketball. Fate would say Lance would work at the local Texaco & Ginobli deal drugs for the Argentinean mafia. But, I believe that if you have a talent then you are destined to utilize it, and this is why all people end up doing what they do best (capitalism)- in most cases. Seems to work for the Kenyan distance runners too…
Stemming from this, of course, is the whole political issue, why doesn’t the US help their poor people? This is complete nonsense. Both the “disadvantaged” examples previously noted chose sports that the “free-lunchers” would say are impossible to achieve given their respective social classes, and yet they went straight to the top. Are there not a set of controls already set that allow ambitious individuals to achieve to their hearts content? I think there are, and until we all realize this we will continue to corrupt as a society. When “handouts” are given to selfish people with no ambition those handouts are wasted. This is exceptionally apparent when you look at those two previous examples, ambition is the root of capitalism & without it how could society function (except through a control economy, i.e. China & Russia)? The natural “handouts” that Ginobli and Lance receive are generated because “investors” believe that their handouts will lead to something bigger, quite contrary to useless welfare that many worthless, lazy people receive. Of course, in a truly capitalistic economy, the worthless would be forced to exercise ambition in order to compete, but as it is they are allowed to sit around and be lazy while we work to support their lifestyle… This is what I was thinking about the 11th time up the climb on the Redlands circuit this past weekend. Why take money from those who work so hard and give it to the lazy? How can one justify taking my money so that they can give it to those who don’t work (and they don’t)? You’ve no idea how much I had to give to continue competing, it was an all out effort where you focus all your attention on the wheel in front of you through this little grey funnel that was, at the moment, known as vision. Now I ask, why do I need to give my hard earned money to some lazy dude taking advantage of a faulty system?