FIT THIRTY SIX

I haven't posted a ton of bikes on my Instagram lately. So much so that when I posted a video to my stories of my handlebars on the road, someone responded saying they were stoked to see road bike content coming from me again, they thought I'd given up, or was ‘just’ a mountain biker now.

There's a bit too unpack in that. One: I'm flattered a friend thinks my road bike adventures is interesting, I was pretty sure everyone in cycling only rides gravel bikes now. Two: I definitely like to think I am more than just a road racing cyclist. Having been a messenger, commuter and really generally a rider of bicycles since my youth. Three: I'm not the only one that feels frustrated with Instagram right?

I hope that it's noticeable, but I rarely use my camera phone for the photos on my Instagram feed. I started figuring out uploading photos from scans of my digital camera pretty early on, I wanted to try and make great cycling content, knowing full well it should be valuable to potential sponsors for bike racing and could add value to my portfolio for potential photo work.

I used to get such nice feedback from my work shared on Instagram. If not actual comments, I hate admitting that seeing ‘likes ‘ stack up was really very gratifying. It turns out often people who shoot photographs want to have people see them. And early, pre-algorithms Instagram felt like people actually saw things I was making.

Now, half the time I don't feel picking up my camera. I don't know if the algorithm thinks I'm cool on any given day or week and seeing ads telling me I can buy their secrets to cracking the patterns is depressing.

Then there's also bikes. That old chesnut. I was talking to my coworkers on set about how many KMs racers and keen roadies do. I looked up my Strava stats to see almost 125,000 KM over the last ten years or so. But really, that's more like the last ~8, I only get to squeeze in one or two rides a week now. I miss it. I'm grateful for every single ride I squeeze in now. Now that we've finished moving I'm finding my groove again for riding in between painting the house, dog walks and laundry.

That's a weird preamble to say, I'm stoked that I'm doing workouts again. Most of my friends cringe when I say I'm going to go do intervals, but I don't care anymore. I like being fast and right now. I sure don't feel fast. And honestly, after returning a tiny bit of structure to my riding I remember just how much I love training. I'm sure a few people cringed again at me but fuck it. I'm good at training, it makes me feel fast and that makes me feel good (even if I'm way, way slower than I was). Weirdly also it makes me feel more purposeful when I'm leaving some other chores open for another weekend.

I'm trying to figure out how to apply my workout restoration to sharing photos again. This blog is sortof part of that. But again, who actually sees this without playing the pay-to-play game of advertising via the algorithm. Can I buy cool? Can I make it work by chasing trends or trying to bring back teal and orange? I don't know. I'll figure it out.