Lisa Morgan - Kiwi Mountain Biker

One thing I’m doing differently this year is getting some of my training in on my sort-of-daily commute.  All that means is that I ride on the days that it makes sense to do so, and drive when it doesn’t.  I’m not your hippy-type commuter.  The main reason I’m doing it is to save money, pure and simple.  I’m getting so good at saving now that I even shopped at a supermarket I avoid whenever I can because they had better savings on petrol (and I suppose it’s handy that I’m now stocked up on toothpast and tooth brushes for a good while to come to get to the $80 for the better petrol deal as I kind of exceeded that just a bit).

Anyway, commuting… on nice days it’s downright cool, spinning away, bopping along to the music (gasp! yes I always ride with my iPod - the one time I didn’t I ended up semi-attached to those 2 taxi’s).  And then there is the virtuous feeling one gets when cruising along past all those cars (which will soon enough come back past but much, much closer).  Hey, I’m not a hippy but that doesn’t mean I don’t get to cash in on the virtue thing.  Well, there may be some bright sides to commuting, but they’re more than evened out by the negatives: leaving in the cold and dark, riding a 100K stretch of road with no street lighting, getting soaked on the way in only to put your wet gear on to ride back out again and struggle to dry out helmets and shoes for the ride in again the next day… but the worst of it is the people who seem to want to kill me.

I’m serious!  There are some really angry people out there.  I’m probably only preaching to the converted here, though I’d quite like the opportunity to preach to these ‘angry’ people.  If someone in a car runs a red I don’t see other drivers suddenly change their course to aim for that driver - but I see it with bikes all the time.  No, we shouldn’t be running red lights but as any one knows who’s spent time on a bike in traffic, sometimes it’s safer to do something that’s technically against the law, so we do it - like getting a start on the big queue of traffic up our bums while there’s nothing coming the other way to give ourselves a better chance of making it to the wider shoulder to move further left.  It’s common sense really.

Then there are the people with trailers wider than their cars.  Ok, if you pass within an inch of me and your trailer sticks out by an inch or more… we’ve got a problem!  And I’ve got an increased heart rate, and huge rush of adrenaline, and go stompy-stompy round the house telling my story when I eventually make it home.  I’ve got a 5 month old kitten to look after and I’d like to be around to watch her grow up thank you (and Tempo is doing very well, crafty little food snatcher that she is).

Then when all that’s been going on I tend to think how inconvenient it would be if I really did get hit.  Last time I was lucky to get away with a concussion, bruising, a massive insurance claim and a story to tell but I’ll never forget that that’s just what I was: lucky.  I’ve got another 6 weeks before I go back to being a full time athlete and train when traffic is much lighter - I’m really looking forward to that.  And something else I’m looking forward to is booking my tickets!  This week!!!  Holy cow man - it’s almost like I’m really going! 

And that’s what keeps getting me out there riding, in the wind, rain, cold, dark, traffic etc - at the end of the day it’s all worth it because it’s what I love and it’s all a part of this incredible experience I’m… experiencing.

The UCI World Cup series started yesterday in Belgium on the popular Houffalize course.  I’ve seen footage, I want to race there too.  Judging by the results things might have been a bit wet and muddy but I haven’t found a report yet… I thought it was summer over there?