I think that very few sports can be considered “life coach” as cycling can be.

“Coach” in its broadest sense. Bycicle theachs you to suffer, to enjoy the suffering,  to know yourself, your limits and how to go beyond them sometimes. 

Life and the world are all over you… And bycicle makes you know what’s around you, the territory where you live, that usually you see through a car glass, in a very distant and not participative way.

You can discover little villages just seen from a distance, or always ignored because hidden from the main road and only witnessed by a blue road sign. Landscapes that you can’t notice, because you are driving and thinking about more important issues. 

And you can even learn stories. People you can’t chat while you are working: old people, sheperds, farmers, the owner of a little village’s bar that makes a sandwich with salami or a cappuccino, a gas station attendant that helps you with a flat tire when your pump is broken… 

Many people have a story to tell and they seem happy to do it to someone coming by bycicle, on his own strengths and at peace with himself. 

Bike is that for me. A means to know myself and a vehicle to discover the country in which I live… In other words, a means to “travel”.

To do it we need to have time, evidently. If we are involved in training for a competition we will just try to reduce the time of our tour, we will focus on the cyclocomputer and won’t see what’s around us. In this blog Time factor is not considered, in the sense that stopping at a bar to have a cappuccino and to chat is for me more enjoyable and satisfactory than a better average speed.