What I loved about bike racing was that it was not a mainstream sport. My heroes were self-made. There were no coaches, no training centers, and only a handful of sponsors. Training rides were not totally devoted to bike talk. I got to know a lot of riders this way, not just as good sprinters or good climbers, but as people who had ideas different from mine, jobs different from mine, and dreams different from mine.

Life, it seems, is not meaningless but, rather, so full of meaning that its meaning must be constantly murdered for the sake of cohesion and comprehension. For the sake of the storyline.

No birth certificate is issued when friendship is born. There is nothing tangible. There is just a feeling that your life is different and that your capacity to love and care has miraculously been enlarged without any effort on your part. It's like having a tiny apartment and somebody moves in with you. But instead of becoming cramped and crowded, the space expands, and you discover rooms you never knew you had until your friend moved in with you.

What I loved about bike racing was that it was not a mainstream sport. My heroes were self-made. There were no coaches, no training centers, and only a handful of sponsors. Training rides were not totally devoted to bike talk. I got to know a lot of riders this way, not just as good sprinters or good climbers, but as people who had ideas different from mine, jobs different from mine, and dreams different from mine.

So I made an outline. Well, you know, days are going by, and I am not writing anything because this thing is laid out in front of me. It's as if you get every brochure for a trip you are going to go on and you get the minutest details of every step along the way. Well, I really doubt you're going to then get in the car and go. You know, it's like, why bother if it's all laid out in front of you?