On Change

Why do people change things? Change career paths or jobs is rather obvious. But what about activities? When I started this blog I was an inline skater. Go check out those posts from I think November, 2007. Then around May 2008 I discovered the bike. Here's the thing, from a usefulness standpoint the bike makes sense. I can ride from Toronto to Rochester, I can get to work 10 or 30km from home every day, on the other hand, I'll be completely honest, and maybe this is rose coloured glasses, but in general skaters are a friendlier bunch than riders. (Perhaps having the underdog sport makes them nicer? Or maybe it's just been so long that I don't remember the ugly, just the beautiful? - Who knows!)

I still much prefer to ride my bike to just about any recreation, but that said I think I've come to an important realisation. I don't like to ride in large groups. There are rules, accepted behavioral norms, attitudes, all sorts of reasons to stay home and sleep in. I'm told Mountain Bikers are a lot more flexible this way, which is a shame, for me, because I have so little interest in riding off road. (Nothing against the Mountain Biking set, I just prefer speed, distance and stable solid ground.) It's too bad there isn't some form of road biking where the rules are more or less tossed to the wind, except lets be honest here, a lot of the rules actually, annoyingly, are required and make sense. As long as I have to share the road with cars I'm bound by the Ontario Highway Traffic Act and if I ever find myself in a draft I'm bound by the rules of etiquette for the pelaton.

I guess I'm just tired of all the structure, lord knows I'm not having fun in the group any longer and if I'm not having fun doing what is a recreation, (well riding to work is not a recreation, but I'm talking here about group rides) maybe I should re-evaluate what I do for fun?