Consistency in the Story of Cycling

by rememberingcycling

It is evident to any cycling barb that the story of what happened can vary a great deal from person to person. It can also vary from ride to ride or more pertinently from ride to race. It seems a reasonable conclusion that like any mental habits employed in training, those used to tell yourself or others the story of what happened are the ones you’ll likely employ in a race. This does not mean that you need to conceptualize every ride like a race or embellish its importance or difficulty. The idea behind consistency is rather to highlight what aspects are similar between the story of a ride and the story of a race. There is no problem with forming stories that differ. In fact, I would argue that it is better to understand the multitude of narratives that could be told of the same events. This allows you to create a common thread between a training ride and a race, allowing you to analyze details regarding the decision making process as well as better recreate, and in effect, understand the situation you faced on your bicycle. This common story should not serve as the objective account of what happened. It does not hold any status superior to that of your epic narrative of adventurous exploits on a bicycle or your journal entry of suffering in your diary of pain and “just not feeling it today”. What is suggested here is a compare/contrast of various instances of telling stories in cycling, from recounting what has happened so far in order to calculate how many people are still up the road to deciding how hard to go on an effort the goes out tail wind. In all accounts of what happened, there are noteworthy consistencies and/or inconsistencies that could be modified or emphasized in a beneficial way.