They say cyclists are tough guys. Blood, sweat and tears. Blood, such a daily companion of a cyclist. Sometimes you either sleep with bandages on, or you let your wounds heal faster and you stick to the sheet with fresh wounds all night because the next race is waiting and your form cannot suffer. Sweat. Yes, cycling is a superhuman effort. I have always claimed that over 5 hour races are not only boring, but also a superhuman effort, impossible to run on a salad. Tears. A competitive cyclist is able to get out of the comfort zone like almost no other. What could the competition between the fiercest, most hungry for success, the strongest athletes in the world look like? guess.
It is also said that cyclists do not know what fear is. The cyclist knows what fear is. The cyclist knows very well what fear is.
When a few days in a row, or week after week, often at speeds of 60 km / h, you “get fucked up” in the middle of the road accompanied by the sound of breaking frames and wheels of your friends’ bicycles, you have no right not to be afraid. Of course, it doesn’t end with a broken bike. There is such a thing as a spare bike. A coach and a mechanic run up, you jump on a new bike and after a while you are back in the peloton. You’re still in the game. A little different, but you are.
We can pass next and next endlessly. Somehow it comes out so strange that every aspect of life can be experienced, trained in this beautiful sport. Everything.. hope, dreams, disappointment, failure, success, sex, drugs, alcohol, trips, friends, enemies, pain, money, family, .. everything everything.
Friends. This is an interesting topic. Every competitive cyclist (whether current or former) is weird in some way. The ties formed between the athlets are like “to the grave”. It’s hard for me to describe it in words, but someone who “licked” cycling, is like he walks “with his head in the clouds” for the rest of his life.