From: Ian Leitheiser
Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 17:46:30 -0700 (PDT)
To: galacticpilot@hotmail.com
Subject: epiphany

damn. 30 years old. professional - or so say my degrees. rider, road and mountain. almost former expert racer. hitting races less and less, wanting to ride more and more...more climbing, more singletrack, more exploration, more miles, more fun. having an internal crisis, asking myself why i still race, whether i still LIKE racing, and whether i like to racing crowd...especially the team-affiliation road racing crowd that won't look me in the eye when i don't wear a team jersey. asking the big question: who am i?

then i find offcamber. and see other riders, strrrrong as all get-out, riding, exploring, pulling epics, and reveling in the bike, the climb, the story, the experience. read every entry in the space log. remember the time i lived in fruita and rode for the joy of riding, every day, with cold beer at the finish in the truck. i sense validation. i am not alone in the universe. racing is fine...but it is not the end, the only, the consuming focus, the reason i ride or love bikes or sometimes want to fade into bikeworld and exit the day-to-day work universe permanently and totally.

i wake up and realize i can race a bike when and if i feel like it, which might be not at all. and i can ride all i want, not needing to "save it up" for race day. and i can have fun again!!!

praise be. bag the road race on sunday. not gonna drive 7 hours round-trip for a 2.5 hour race. hang out on the couch at my friend's shop. ride hood river singletrack that evening, all alone, on a showery, windy day. buff, tacky from the rain shower, and perfect. i love bikes again. thanks.