bit WIP as i upload pictures and polish this proper and nice
It’s been a minute on here. Not that there hasn’t been anything to say. Or that I haven’t been writing. Got more than a couple of drafts sitting in the cloud, wondering when they’ll feel the touch of that Publish button
Visual depiction of the current state of my writing drafts
Who knows when they will feel the light of the sun. I’ll hit it when I’m good to do so, but I haven’t in part because most of what I’ve talked about here is about bike or bike-adjacent. It’ll probably stay that way, because that’s how my brain works. Also because I tend to be a bit shy about the not-bike parts of my life. It’s very easy to feel good about writing and sharing bike racing stuff. Asides from the dozens of pictures from events, it’s a self empowering activity that I’ve officially been doing for over half my life now. A large part of why I keep training and racing is because it’s a convenient theme and lifestyle of keeping everything together; from my day-to-day tasks to grand strategies to getting through the good and really not good days. And who wants to read about all the parts of my life that are not really good and falling apart
About 0.2 seconds later I’d buck over the handlebars at fifteen miles per hour. It was a small and steep downhill on a turn and it wasn’t until the last lap that I figure out going just ten miles per hour would have made this section easier. Live and learn. Photo credit Katie Busick Photography
I mean I do. But that’s journaling and not blogging and that’s probably the biggest part of why here's been quiet is sorting through the ‘journaling’ stuff
But! Feeling less shy about a couple of things! Which are:
Jazz-man and I got engaged!
Doing more ski coaching things! Which will probably start cropping up in the blogging parts!
This has been my busiest year of doing bike-adjacent event work. Got back in the race director saddle with White’s Park (lot of fun announcing that with a dead speaker set), new england criterium championships, I think the biggest hill climb event in America, and six cyclocross races (four down, two to go! Registration link here for the last two
I was genuinely intrigued by a new show and I started (and finished!!!) watching it!
So yeah let’s talk about the point I’m most excited about: Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Like how good was that!?
Some context: I’m a big nerd, sometimes of the weeb kind, and one of my weird passions is literary analysis. I went to summer high school nerd camp for literary analysis and I would genuinely consider going to more. I don’t read nearly as much as I used to or would like to (story of our adult lives amirite ahahaha), and I will protest that some of that is trying to find quality over quantity to gloss over that I’m finding it difficult to authentically be engaged in something that I’m interested in. That sentence is for all of the people that I’ve explained to that I’ll read the summary or watch the trailer and then just read the Wikipedia article and the analysis articles instead of just engaging with the content
But not Edgerunners. It just hits the spot on so many favorite flavors:
It’s a true-to-style anime, which means it follows a narrative formed in whimsical opposition to rigid and demanding cultures such as traditional asian society
It’s cyperpunk, a genre used to demonstrate the moralities of technology
The protagonist is all about physically moving fast but unable to outrun dramatic and traumatic thematics
Questions you ask yourself starting down some big challenge
The quick summary relevant for this blog and for those that haven’t watched it or skimmed the Wikipedia page is in a near-future dystopian Night City a young man with a lot of misfortune embraces a small bit of fortune to escape his circumstances to become a bounty hunter. The ‘small bit of fortune’ is a cybernetic implant; everyone in Night City has one, this one allows him to speed up his perception of time and motion thousands of times faster than baseline human. And as the journey continues, he acquires more implants while struggling with ‘cyberpsychosis,’ a condition derived from overloading the nervous system with too many cyberware
Waiting for the adrenal glands to do their thang
The whole show was great but that bit right there is what hooked me as something new yet familiar to engage with. The theme of cyberpsychosis goes by many names in other pieces of literature. All under a common theme of how it can be a struggle to pilot a great amount of power: how maybe it takes some special talent or setup to drive. And yes, this is the part where I jumped to, “just like in crit or cyclocross racing, when you’re redlining your physical ability while employing racecraft to get an advantage in a race at the risk of injury!”
That is what makes good fucking literature: bringing home a universal feeling or truth. Fiction has the freedom to make shit up but it’s too easy to build something so new and bogged down with details that it won’t resonate with everyone. Edgerunners will certainly appeal to cyberpunk and drama fans, but anyone that’s familiar with the addictive drive to succeed will also gasp at the rise and fall of the characters of Night City. That is good plot and screenwriting and I’m grateful for it. It’s something fresh to enjoy, but it’s also a lens to look at what it’s like to keep “upgrading your gear” and keep pushing your limits at the risk of- oh sure, let’s say “cycle psychosis”
That face when the caffeine and adrenaline and dopamine hits just like, UMPH
One of the beautiful things about cyclocross is while it relies on a large amount of specific knowledge and equipment, it holds a narrow advantage over driver skill and fitness. Obtaining that knowledge or equipment is useful- often times it still comes down to raw ability and spunk. No point in having the latest gear and tricks if you’re not willing to bleed a little
And there’s definitely a point where you can do too much of one or the other and overload yourself. It’s a delicate balance riding the tires’ edge at speed and max heart rate. Do you risk falling over to just to go a little faster, feel a little more?
I love cyclocross racing, even if it is a lot of work for just sixty minutes of pedaling. But that’s a lot like creating and consuming media. Or anything else we do. The time gone will never equal the time enjoyed. Time is a flat circle and there’s no escape so we might as well enjoy the ride and make a story of it
Because of my announcer work I rarely get to race within my race category. This picture means a lot to me because it was one of the few times I wasn’t working an event and was competitive against my peers and myself. Right until I had a mechanical. Photo credit ABW Photography
The average bike racer stays in the sport for three years and does five events a year. This year will wrap up sixteen years and at least four hundred starts for me. I could enumerate the ways how that much training and racing has paid off in the not-bike parts of my life- but, frankly speaking, as long as it stays a somewhat positive habit, I’d still line up, and look forward to every chance to redline on the edge
This year’s story in edgerunning (edgeriding???) is both uninteresting yet exciting, for me: no great results, but this has been a good year of getting in the work while still learning and keeping the body and spirit fresher than ever before. The exciting part is I’m usually too beat to think of racing more, but instead I’m raring to go. Maybe it’s getting engaged, or doing more event work, or ramping up to ski coach. It’s also likely trying to enjoy the now before next year’s story (it will involve buying a house and organizing a wedding!)
The stillness of the moment before Something Happens (tm)
Seven more starts before the racer part of me retires for the calendar to dream of next year (and the excitement of how 2023 will play out)