Op-Ed

A spontaneous bike ride is a nice thing. Get a wild hair, grab your bike, head out the door. It's amazing how few of my rides are spontaneous. Is that because being an adult…

The fitter I get, the grosser I tend to be, and the greater my tolerance for being gross becomes. Before I go further, let me suggest that our modern standards for hygiene…

As four-letter words go, "work" is one that can make people grimace without ever being considered rude. It's a funny space to occupy—a word with largely negative connotations…

I'm not sure I ever learned anything from watching pro cycling, at least nothing I could apply to my own riding. The race tactics the pros employ to put pressure on their…

Last fall I returned to Memphis to look after my mom following surgery to repair her tricuspid heart valve. Aging, I can say, is not for the faint of heart. And because…

On the Paceline yesterday, Patrick and I talked about how the people in our lives either encouraged or discouraged us from riding our bikes. I'm fortunate in that I've almost…

Chunder is a Bro term that describes loose rocky, technical terrain. A trail might have a lot of chunder on it or even be 'chunderous.' The etymology may include the words…

The human mind loves contrasts, light and dark, left and right, here and there. Digital. We deal far less well with shades of gray, despite the world we live being little…

I’m just back from Seattle, which is having a proper winter, by any measure. The nights are below freezing, there’s frost in the shade even into the afternoon, and above…

Churchill (might have) said, "History is written by the victors." I doubt sincerely he had bike races in mind, but I think the truism holds. Most American people understand…