C = C

Over the past two weeks I’ve been busy with homework. Let me tell you, I love homework. I’m serious. I’ve been out of school for three years. If a few days go by without me creating some sort of homework to tackle I get antsy, shivering hands, flickering eyes, the lot.

Off the front at my first road race of the season, Tour of Murrieta.

With my team recently folding I had to get busy with ideas. I took out my 12ft portable chalkboard and my leather knapsack filled with an assortment of colored chalk (I like working with blue chalk, it looks crisp against the green background) and commenced to derive the grand unified theory of cycling.  Here’s the equation I got:

Cycling = Community.

Now, as complex as this equation may be—I’m still working on the theoretical mathematical framework on which to base the proofs for my theorem—I can’t claim to be the only one who has arrived at a similar conclusion.  The full understanding of this equation’s implications has been developing in my mind for many years.

Last week the flashes of inspiration blasted down around me as phone calls were made, emails sent, and ideas shared. There is a common link I share with the people on the other end of the phone, the people reading my emails, the people listening to my thoughts-storms as I sit down with them sipping coffee and taking notes. Patterns began to emerge. Common variables reappeared with startling frequency.

I began to test out my new equation against real-world scenarios. Sure enough, when I plugged my equation into all the conversations I was having, the robustness of my equation held true. What other explanation could there be for a vagabond biker-racer (me) being able to pick–up the phone and ask business advice from the head-honcho of a huge Capital Management company? What other equation can explicate a stranger letting some-guy who wants to ride his bike all day (me) crash at their cabin for three months? I never thought I’d visit Trinidad and Tobago (or Boone, North Carolina), but my equation is universally applied, so there I went

Unless a gravitational singularity pops up by the moon, I don’t think this equation is going anywhere. This bold equation is why I started working at bike shops as a nerdy 14-year-old, and why I’m still here ten years later racing my bike despite a few hiccups along the way. If this equation can hold true against the foreboding tests my precarious pursuits have thrown at it, then I must simply believe it’s appealing tautology to be true. 

-dan harm