Reading, writing, riding

It's all I seem to do. I get up, sometimes at ridiculous hours a couple of days of the week, go riding in the cold, come home and have breakfast, get on another bike and ride to work, where I fix, build and sell bikes all day, usually reading about bike news on the internet at lunchtime, ride home, eat, watch a little TV (hopefully something bike-related; hell, I've even been known to watch triathlons, though that's not really cycling, is it?), surf my favourite bike sites, then crawl into bed with a magazine and/or book (and you guessed it, not the Women's Weekly or a spy novel). What the hell is wrong with me? Oh, just a little matter of BIKE ADDICTION! When I've ridden the ride, thought about the ride and read about the ride, I'll write about it, either here or for a magazine. I've found myself kissing girlfriends and looking over their shoulder to admire my road bike sitting in the corner of the room. And I don't think it's abnormal in any way. I've found my passion, well I think it probably found me (at an early age) and damned if I'm gonna let this love die. What's this got to do with this book? Not that much really, but it's been the object of my nightcap readings for the last couple of weeks. I've tried to read it once before, back in Aus, but didn't get through it before I moved to NZ. A friend here loaned me a copy that someone had loaned to them, and now I've finally got to the finish line, along with messrs Krabbe, Reilhan, Lebusque et al. And I feel like I've covered every kilometre of the Tour de Mont Aigoual, a fly on the handlebar, if you will. I'll leave the last word to Donald Antrim.

"To say that the race is the metaphor for life is to miss the point. The race is everything. It obliterates whatever isn't racing. Life is the metaphor for the race."

Another Tim Krabbe gem of writing....