Not Giving Up


Ability and achievement are disjointed entities, a frustrating reality.

It is difficult to accept that we often can attain more than we have yet to seize. For me, this is manifest in Kalamazoo’s local Criterium race. A small and silly example, but a relevant one in my own experience.  

This race venue is composed of wide roads and gentle turns, making it an easy race tactically. For years, I have watched the category 1/2 race and envisioned the different ways I would win it someday. Last year I positioned poorly in the final corner and fell out of contention during the sprint finish. This year I did everything right, and just had very awful, terrible, no good, rotten, inexplicably foul, and annoyingly inconvenient luck.

It started with a flat tire on the back side of the course 30 minutes into the race. I ran straight back across the 1.1 mile loop to the start finish line to find myself out of breath and in a neutral service tent without any spare wheels. Bummer.

The mechanic and I begin a rapid tire change. Then, with the crack that sounded like a  gunshot, the tire exploded in our hands. “This is not going well” I thought to myself as the field swept through behind us.  
My friend Graham rolled up and offered me his wheel, we rapidly slotted it into my bike and threw me back into the race. But it was no good. The width of new wheel was rubbing my brakes, hard. I was barely able to get my bike moving. I finished the lap and pulled off into the service tent again, fully expecting to be pulled from the race with a DNF to my name.

To my surprise, the mechanic had seated a tire back on my original wheel and the race official waved me over and let me re-enter the race for the second time.  

For the next 20 minutes, I bounced on my saddle as I pedaled around in the field. I was suspicious of my wheel losing pressure, and was waiting in dread for it to begin feeling soft. But, it seemed to be holding. At least, it seemed to hold until I needed it most.

With three laps left, I saw a break getting ready to launch. I put my head down and got into what I thought would be the winning move. Minutes later, we were 10 seconds off the front of the race with a lap to go. I was the strongest sprinter in the three-man breakaway, and I was ready to pedal like never before.

Then, bad luck struck again. My tire started going soft. There were 200 meters left in the race, the main group was now a few bike lengths behind us.

I went all in.

With everything I had left, I pedaled furiously towards the finish only to be caught within a hundred feet of the line. In less than a second, I went from 1st place to 9th. That sucked. Disappointment coursed through my body.

I have no doubt in my mind, I could have won that race. However, as I said at the beginning, ability and achievement are disjointed entities. The only way to bring them together is to keep trying. Success belongs to the relentless.


This was not my year to win my hometown race. But, it will never be “my year” if I give up now. So, I will keep trying, keep improving, and keep working my way towards the objectives before me. The options are failure or forward; I will keep pedaling.
A picture from earlier this year at the Tour of Somerville in NJ

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