A Transformation – Noob to Cyclist

This page is dedicated to one of my favorite posts.  I’m used to noticing change over decades, at best five year increments… so when I started cycling on May 23rd of 2011 and this blog on December 16th of that same year and documenting my journey I had no idea how it would go.  I had goals, sure, but never in my wildest dreams would I start out so dorky.  Equally funny, at least to me, is that I had absolutely no clue how goofy I looked.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, I broke about every “rule” they have when it comes to cycling “fashion”.  Now here I am three years later and I can look back at those days and celebrate just how funny lookin’ I was.  It’s a beautiful thing.

Why celebrate you may wonder?

Folks, life (and cycling) is about the journey, not the destination.  I started out in a sport that I knew absolutely nothing about, at 41 years old I was completely green…  No instruction manuals, no road map, no nothing – and I went from 4 miles at 15 mph on a mountain bike as my best efforts to one of the better non-racing riders in the local advanced group – and with little more than some cash and a whole lot of “want to”.  I’ll take those dorky first years and laugh.  The journey has been, and continues to be, an utter blast.

Cycling has taken a great life and made it fun – and for that I am grateful.

July 2011:

No shirt…  Nice.  Notice the tennis shoes?  Yeah.  I know.  Just hang on a minute.  It gets better.

2012.  Better, but good God am I skinny!:

Incidentally, there’s a reason for my being so skinny.  This was the first time I’d really started putting in some big miles on the bike…
I dropped down to pro cyclist weight (2.0 pounds per vertical inch) and I hadn’t figured out how to eat to sustain a more reasonable weight yet.
The change came shortly after these photos were taken.

2013  Getting better…

2014 – Now that’s more like it!

2015

2016

It’s amazing to me that I A) survived my initial geeky entry into cycling and B) never knew I was geeky.

Funny how that works, ain’t it?

The point of this post, fellow noobs, is don’t take yourself or “society” too seriously. We all look dorky at first.  Even the cool kids.  It’s a rite of passage.