It's rare that while reading a book I stumble upon a passage that makes me stop, read it again, and then read it a third time. I'm especially fascinated with the topic of pain and competitive cycling. Tim krabbe provided a brilliant summary for me the other day while reading "The Rider." Here's the passage ... tell me you're not moved.

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"How can that be: suffering is suffering, isn't it?

In 1910, Milano-San Remo was won be a rider who spent half an hour in a mountain hut, hiding from a snowstorm. Man, did he suffer!

In 1919, Brussels-Amiens was won by a rider who rode the last 40Km with a flat front tire. Talk about suffering! he arrived at 11:30 at night, with a ninety-minute lead on the only other two riders who finished the race. That day had been like night, trees had whipped back and forth, farmers were blown back into their barns, there were hailstones, bomb craters from the war, crossroads where the gendarmes had run away and riders had to climb onto one another's shoulders to wipe clean the muddied road signs.

Oh to have been a rider then. Because after the finish, all the suffering turns to memories of pleasure, and the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. This is Nature's payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses: people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. 'Good for you.' Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lady with few suitors these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms she rewards passionately.
That's why there are riders.
Suffering you need; literature is baloney."

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Read it again.

Mark