I wonder where I fit in the scheme of things. Especially while I am out riding my bike…which I do almost like a religion nowadays. Compelled somehow, but wrapped in a fear and a certainty that this is a fool’s paradise. I am visited day and night with memories, and no good ones, reenactments of days of pain long passed by.
There may never be another super bowl for me. But death calls out, and life refuses to hear. It is all wasted on thirty second commercials, selling things no living man has any need of, only dead men spend their money so stupidly.
– Alexi Grewal
Two weeks ago, Grewal took part in Wheat Ridge Cyclery’s Crooked Roubaix, his first competitive event since his retirement. Despite riding a mountain bike, flat pedals and hiking boots, Grewal finished the 90-mile gran fondo-style high-altitude event on dirt and paved roads in the leading group, crossing the line in fourth place out of a field of some 125 starters.
I had a long post composed in my mind about how last night’s spectacle made me lose all hope for humanity, as the commercials proved we no longer have any compassion for our fellow man and the players (and I assume fans) credited God for their good plays. We believe He has an opinion on the matter of sports performance but not, apparently, on human suffering. I also have planned a long post about cycling and the dark cloud that currently looms over its greatest spectacles. I still might write the latter. In the meantime, I am happy to turn this post about the Super Bowl into a post about cycling.
Maybe this whole doping issue is here to turn us from our own selfishness to see that we have not as yet realized that the bicycle and bicycle racing has a purpose and meaning we have yet to even think about or care to understand. I think we are missing the real reality of what we have in the bicycle and in the racing of it.
– Alexi Grewal (again)