Saturday, August 20, 2016

Dad Biking

The Baby was born about 11 months ago.  Before Baby (BB), I was fit, moderately successful and connected in the bike industry, and rode my bike pretty much daily, even if a ride was to grab eggs at the grocery store down the street.  After Baby (AB), I'm lucky to ride my bike weekly, and the ride is still often to grab eggs.  I've gained eight pounds.  Hills that I used to breeze I now struggle up.  Technical sections I used to clean I often dab.  I love my daughter and my life, but fuck...

I went for a ride the other day, a real ride, on my Surly Stragggler, on real trails with rocks and turns.  The trail in question is an odd one.  It's singletrack and the loop is around six miles long, but it's crammed into an area about the size of a couple football fields.  It's nothing but turns, and you're often only a few feet away from the trail as the crow flies, even if that section is a mile or two away by trail.  The hills are super short and often brutally steep.  In short, it's the opposite of a flow trail.  But, I can ride to it in less than 10 minutes and do a lap and still get home in about an hour.  It's fun, especially if you only get to ride it once a month.

So I do this ride, and it hurts.  I'm so out of shape.  But I still manage to make it up all the hills I used to ride up, albeit a hell of a lot slower, and it feels fantastic.  On the ride home, I think a lot about why this ride seemed to mean so much more than it should've.  I think it's because when The Baby was born, my identity fundamentally changed overnight.  I went from being a semi-successful and respected member of the bike industry to being a stay-at-home-dad who didn't know shit about shit.  The ride connected me back to the old me, convinced me he was still in there somewhere.  I don't want to lose the old me, even if the new me is also pretty rad.