Measured by Men

5-8 inches of snow.
2.4 inch tire.
6 inches of travel.
19 inch seat tube.
A fast 30 mile loop.
A quick nap.
A bite to eat.
A 12 percentage point lead in the polls.
A 10 minute climb.
All downhill from here.

One could write a book filled with lists of all the things that men can't accurately measure.  And of all the things that we, as a gender, can't quite add, I would estimate that snowfall is perhaps our most inaccurate.

But, of course, that's my estimation, which I am gender-prone to missing by an enormous margin, so pay no mind to it.

It's a good thing truth doesn't matter anymore, given our propensity to stretch it.  Otherwise, we might do something wild and crazy, like elect a woman.  

If you go deep into our current and massive discord as a culture, you'll find exactly this: two people who see the same thing two different ways.  It's easy to look at the world how you look at it, see it the way you see it, and call the other side wrong.

I don't think we'll get any better at measuring until we, on this side, look at that quarter-inch of snow and at least wonder a little if it's actually maybe 6 inches and we're the ones who can't see it accurately.  At least be open to it.

Maybe bikes DON'T belong there.
Maybe the EPA does need scrapped.
Maybe we are the ones who can't measure.
Not that any of those things needs to be true.  I'm talking about a mindset that yields the possibility that you might be wrong.  You're not wrong.  But you MIGHT be.



In my memory, I did the SM100 in 8:40 back in 2010, the year before my kids were born.
I dug through the bowels of the internet and pulled up the actual result just the other day, and in fact, I did the SM100 in 8:47.  But it was only 92 miles back then.  And that was in 2009, not 2010, and I raced for Bike Factory.

The transportation of the mind from belief to reality - that millisecond where the truth sets in - like politics, feels terrible.  We don't quite understand, and we never have.  It turns out WE are the asshole.

There's snow in the forecast for Saturday.  6 inches?  The truth is that no one actually knows.
We can only keep trying if, first, we listen.

Up, up, up.