The Grey Panther

She cocked her head to the side flashed a blazing a baby blue topped by the white cloud above her iris and it was her check where we were in our Sunday ride with The Blue Sapphire. Resplendent in grey form fitting attire the athlete of Carolyn shone just like it does every Sunday, complete with a full house and our sense of knowing that we would be having great fun, but by rides end our collective asses would be kicked. And kicked they were.

A lightning bolt hit me during today’s ride and it came from two places. The first was the variable I was searching for; what is the salient difference between riding indoors and the outdoor version. Yes, we all know that the elements play the largest role, and the fact that we are moving over ground rather than staying on the same ceramic tile was the main difference, but there was something more I was so sure about it, but until today it was escaping my hard drive. I saw it in Stacie, yes the newlywed Stacie who has one of the brightest smiles this side of heaven and her nonchalant attitude about what she may look like when she is in the saddle of her stationary bike. She is not self-conscious. Not a speck exists in her, and she was not worried if some of her epidermis was showing as the rider next to her was clearly very concerned. This self-consciousness does not exist on the outside ride. And it was the clue I was searching for and Stacie showed me for the first time that the reason we don’t communicate as well as we could in the CS is because we are worried about what we look like. It’s not just the women that are concerned with what sweat apparently does to our good looks it’s the men as well.  Can we lose the “skin” that when we don’t look like magnifying mirror beautiful, we can get closer like our outside rider counterparts do? Just a question and I am not sure this is the singular reason but it happened in the usual way, it was nascent. 

The other major revelation came from The Blue Sapphire herself. As I noticed to my left, a young man was clenching his face for virtually the whole ride and I also knew that this doesn’t happen outside either. Tightly clenched hand grips have no place for us in the CS as well. Carolyn said, as she alluded to me about the Minnewaska ride that when biking outside we are loose not only in the hand grips and our face but how we plant ourselves in the saddle as well. It harkened back to my earlier in the week ride with The Corso Zone, that a tight physiology does not give us the results we are seeking.  Loose and flexible rather than tight and clenched. 

Thank you Carolyn it was indeed a memorable Sunday.