Monday, October 19, 2009

Virtual Suffering...


...can almost be as good as the real thing. I’m adding a 24-hour solo race to my things-to-do list. In general I don’t like to race my mountain bike. I find it much more satisfying to just enjoy the wilderness. I’ve done Moab as part of a team. While fun, we all agreed that riding the same laps over and over pales in comparison to exploring new trails together. Watching this video held little interest to me; that is until things started to get ugly. Now I want that experience.

If you've ever wanted to do a 24hr solo event this is required viewing:

24 Hours of Moab

Suffering keeps life in balance. And while I don’t like all the time, I think finding various venues to test your mettle is important. Riding 24 hours never seemed difficult enough to be intriguing. Hard, sure; but nothing that extends you into survival mode. But seeing Josh Tostado as he realizes that he has to go out for another lap is inspiring. He looks absolutely devastated. And you have to consider that this is what he does all the time, and he’s still just shattered. It’s friggin’ awesome, and I am so in.

Thanks for Superhumanmag.com and Reed for sharing. Like me in January, Reed’s got some couch time to search for videos to in order to motivate recovery.

pic: it may not be suffering but riding though the night still must make you loopy. my line through what seems like a simple corner looks pretty tentative, but that guy behind is definitely not where he wants to be.

2 comments:

Andrea Pesce said...

Are you saying other people raced Moab, and you virtually suffered? Was that with a cocktail in hand?

Steve Edwards said...

Well, I was drinking coffee while I virtually suffered watching that video but there were many cocktails in hand when I was actually suffering at Moab.