Batman vs The Joker

In anything you do, particularly racing bikes, you can be the Joker or you can be Batman.  Batman has his shit together, the right gear, double checks his PSI, monitors his heart rate, sucks wheels, obsesses about tire selection, shows up with a clean bike, generally behaves like a roadie, and, on most days, he wins.  Preparation and training will do that for you. 


This XX gripshift stuff is my jam. 

Then it rains one day, and the race rolls anyway, and the Joker, who embraces the chaos of that sort of thing, drops Batman up the first steep, dirty climb, laughing the whole way, puts a minute and a half into him on the first downhill, and, cackling,  never looks back. 
Batman DNF's, catches a sag back to the start/finish, only to find the Joker won, and he drank all the beer and ate all the scud fries, then he drank the ketchup, and he left already, probably riding home. 

Batman wins more races.  The Joker has more fun. 
Good vs Evil.  Plastic vs Soul.  Or, if you're a fan of Point Break, Patrick Swayze vs Keanu Reaves.

"he's a searcher, maaaaan, just looking for the ultimate ride."   

Regardless of how you feel about those two character types and which one you think you identify with, it matters very little because you can't be either one of them, you can only be you.  And you, placed on a conitnuum between Batman Anal and Joker Whim, fall somewhere between the two ends.    Thus, self discovery, not self-improvement, will allow you to reach your maximum potential as an amateur. 

If you're going pro, however, it stands to reason that - no matter who you really are as a person - you'd better start dieting, stop having fun, and buy yourself a Batmobile.  That's the safe bet. 

Just don't be surprised when you hear that awful laugh, deep in the rainy mountains one race day, and you've flatted for the third time and you're out of ultra-lite, latex race tubes.  Somewhere in the fog out there, the Joker you suppressed out of yourself is a little tipsy, shirtless, ripping down Kaylor's, or Black Mountain, or Tussey,  or Torrey, or whatever badass ridgeline you don't like subjecting your $2800 race wheels to, and that throaty cackle you're hearing is your own. 

Why so serious?

Be who you are.  It makes the tough decisions easier, like, for example, do I want to ride the Mach 4, or do I want to ride the Firebird. 
The answer is in there. 

Up, up, up.