The Reason We All Should NOT Be So Serious

So, on the morn after Tiger Woods pleads with the world to like him again after humping everything with two holes between it's legs, two days after Scotty Lago gets sent home from the Olympics for taking some quasi-sexual, but not risque pictures with him a couple girls and his bronze medal, on the weekend I find out the French government has issued an arrest warrant for Floyd Landis, I read a lengthy article in Outside about WADA and doping and I realize that we, as a society, have gone completely insane.

We put so much emphasis on sport in this country, and every industrialized country in the world, that we lose our minds when someone cheats. And why do people cheat in these sports? Because we have held them up to such a high place of prominence and esteem in our society that they feel entitled to do all the nefarious things they do AND they want to keep their place of prominence and do so by winning, so they'll do anything to keep winning. If we strip away the money what is left? For most of these athletes, nothing. They'd dry up and go away. But some of them would keep on for the love of the sport. You can tell by how they approach their game. Shaun White, for example. You can tell that he'd still be sending it huge if he were just another 20 something flowing down Terry Peak on the weekend. That is why we should NOT be so serious. I bike because I love it, not because I get paid for it. We need to return the love of the sport.

So, on to something a bit less serious. I actually got out on a ride over the weekend. A true, off-road ride. It was pretty damn cool, both literally and figuratively as it was 22 degrees and snowing lightly at the time I took off and it was a fun ride. I rode the singlespeed and despite the fact that the snow was energy sapping and too deep to clean on a few corners, I rocked up the mountain, which says my indoor roller program is working.

Speaking of the indoor roller program, I was thinking about what my wife sees every morning when she comes downstairs when I am riding my rollers. A big, sweaty, hairy dude on a little road bike riding like some weird hamster on a wheel. My son calls me his "hairy bear" so, I think the picture fits, don't you?