Every time I hear of a young healthy athlete tragically falling over dead from some undiagnosed condition it makes me think of my own mortality. Apparently “fit” doesn’t necessarily equate to “healthy”. I spend many hours a day making sure I’m both fit and healthy. It’s a top priority in my life. You can do many things to gauge your fitness (racing, power testing, HR monitoring) but it’s not so easy to gauge your health. There could always be some dormant time bomb ticking away.
Speaking of happy Friday thoughts I thought I’d make a bucket list of all the things I’d like to do in cycling in case I suddenly drop dead one day on Beach Road. You never know. Putting pen to paper really made me think about what’s important to my cycling and why I do this. I bet Steve Larsen isn’t remembered by the people who care about him by his race results. He’ll be remembered for what he was as a father, husband, man and what he gave back to the sports he loved so much.
My cycling bucket list:
- Bike tour through Portugal -> Spain -> France -> Switzerland -> Germany -> Italy for 4 months with my wife. If I didn’t put this at #1 I’d be dead tomorrow ;-)
- Bike tour through England -> Scotland -> Ireland with my wife. 6 weeks would be fine. Definitely in summer
- Spend 3 weeks in July in a campervan with my mates riding parts of the Tour de France stages and watching the race
- Do the bike trip to Vietnam with my mates that we postponed last February because we were all worried about our jobs
- Mountain bike in New Zealand. Rotorua and on the South Island
- Do the Trans Alps mountain bike race
- Go for a ride with Jens Voigt (on one of his easy rest days)
- Ride the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders (will rent a bike and take out insurance for this)
- Go to the Tour de France with a press pass and blog about all the pro’s cycling tips
- Ride the Grand Fondo Sportful in Feltre, Italy. 216km, 17,700 of climbing, and a squillion cyclists
Sure a solo or sprint victory at Sandown kermesse would be nice, but no one will remember by the next Tuesday anyway.
I think every single one of these things is achievable and will get done in my lifetime. I may need a little help convincing Jens to go for a ride with me, but I’m sure I’ll get there.
