Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays from Hot and humid Thailand.

Please read rant below:

With space comes the ability to reflect, and I am appreciating my time here in Thailand. I am enjoying the whole family and Damiano, Daniela, Juanny and I have been able to get out as well. In fact there is a very cool mountain bike area just down the street from us that we have all been able to ride. We are so fortunate that the next door neighbor has a perfect bike for Damiano and for me it is totally cross bike able.

With this separation though I of course have been thinking a lot about our team and how to help all of you succeed in this venture. I have been reading a lot of sports psychology as I ask myself the question, Is it possible to inspire a kid? Can you teach a kid to want it more? Can you teach courage?

Most of what I have been reading actually says no. Most of what I read says that you can build a great arena for the person to feel comfortable to make such a decision, but I alone cannot make that decision, or create the answer that I want. The answer must lye in you. You must be the ultimate decision maker.

While I respect the science and study of this question. I have a really hard time excepting that answer. I want to believe that I can truly inspire and change fundamental personal emotions. I am willing to try, and I promise that I will continue to try. I just ask that you all meet me half way. I will put in my end of the bargain. I ask all of you on Christmas to give me the gift of trying your best. And I want all of it too, the good, bad, sad, great, scary and beautiful best.

That is what this time of year is about as well. This “Base” season. Really I should call it The Love Season. This is the time of year when we should reset and reaffirm our love of riding bikes. That is why we turn off the intervals and ramp up the volume and change the destinations. In this love season we should ride all the rides that we can’t the rest of the year because of weather and time constraints. We should come together as a team and ride hard to all the beauty that surrounds us in Tucson.

Forget base season. Its Love season now. Love season should be filled with big, long, beautiful and yet hard rides. Hard rides that inspire us. Hard rides that we wonderfully suffer through with our friends and teammates. Hard rides that at the end of, you are forced to respect the power of the bike and of your teammates. This is the time of year when you  impress upon your teammates what you hope for out of the coming year, when we come together as a unit to love and respect one another.

These should be rides that make us into bulls. Bulls that love their bikes and teammates. That is what I hope to accomplish in this Love season. Because if we come out of this season loving our bikes and our teammates we are then going to be excited to pile speed and intervals on top of our bull power. Each one of these rides should be just hard enough to inspire us for more.

So forget Base season, welcome to Love Season. That said Love is hard. It takes way more work than you would ever think and the more you work the better the pay off.

Enjoy the rest of your break. Enjoy your friends, family, teammates and bikes. I love you all and am excited to hear the stories of your adventures together.