Two regrets about bicycles

I am a naturally regretful person. I regret almost every decision. Simultaneously I have such gratitude for my life, rich in love if not much else, that I wouldn’t do many things differently.

But if I could do one thing differently, it would be: start racing bicycles now. If I woke up tomorrow and it was 1985 or 1997 or 2002 or any other random year before 2010, I would go race whatever season was currently going, and keep racing, and never ever DNF. Every year now my legs are little less capable of laying down fast-twitch fibers, pretty soon they’ll start losing mass. I can always make more money but I can’t make more health.

If I could do one other thing differently, and this is really specific, I wouldn’t have bought a car when I graduated college. I’d have ridden my bike thousands of miles to all my various archaeology jobs. I had more time than I knew what to do with, but I never indulged in the luxury of taking the long way. When I think now of all the beautiful free time I had in my 20s, and how much of it I wasted being in a big damn hurry all the time…oh that hurts worse than the thing about the muscles…

Anyhoo, the best time to plant a tree is thirty years ago. The next best time is now.