Here endeth the bike-related writing. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention two things that I’ve been thinking about since Leadville and SBT: one cycling related, and one unrelated. 

The cycling related:

Equality in cycling has come a long way, for sure. But there is still a very, very long way to go. I feel that I can only speak to gender inequality, but I would preface these thoughts by saying that the racial and socioeconomic inequality in cycling is considerable, and a reflection of the larger inequalities in the US. 

At the Twin Lakes feed zone during Leadville, I could not help but notice that many of the other people supporting individual racers were women, often mothers with younger children. Something about the thought of a husband asking his wife and children to drive to Leadville, get up at 4:30 am on a Saturday, and spend the better part of the day waiting for him to stop by on his bike race really, really bothers me. What bothered me the most is how visibly stressed these mothers and their children were while waiting for their husband/father to arrive- I cannot help but think that these men took advantage of their wives’ selflessness to pursue a selfish accomplishment. Perhaps this is all conjecture, and I’m making up conflicts that don't really exist: I was certainly happy to pit for Yumeto, and maybe everyone else was too. If it is a real problem, I don’t have a solution, either. All I know is that for relationships in life and sport to be fair, you give more than you take and you consider the stress your actions and requests may cause. 

The unrelated:

Driving back to LA, I found myself thinking about the places we had just we rode in, drove through, and marveled at (there’s not much more to do at 1 am on I-70). I thought about the mining that made many of the towns in Colorado, the destruction they caused to the land and miner’s health, and the relative financial security they provided. We passed a coal power plant and mine on our drive back that was slated to be closed in a few years: average wage for a plant employee was placed around $100,000/year, 2.5 times higher than the average of a non-employee. What would happen to the adjacent towns once the plant was closed, I wondered? As a society, we need to move to more renewable sources of energy, and the quicker the better. But how do we support the people who have entered this profession? Again, I don’t have an answer for that. I was embarrassed by my earlier frustration during SBT when I was cold, being pelted by hail, and feeling sick. That sucked, for sure, but I had the financial privilege to attend and the option to call it quits if I really wanted to- that’s something many people right now do not have. 

I thought about the land, too: beautiful ranchland, national parks, and pristine forests. Land that seems serene now, but was fought over, stolen, and repurposed to better suit colonists’ purposes. It’s a very complicated story, but I think it should be remembered, even if no-one alive today is directly responsible for the dark history of the American West. As before, I don’t really have a point to make or a solution to propose, other than that I need to be more cognizant of the privileges I have and match the energy I place into cycling with a dedication to addressing environmental and socio-economic justice.