Sooo... I may or may not have totally overlooked the new Chit Chat when I made my last post so here is ANOTHER cycling post, this is quite the reflection of my life lately because even my wife tells me all I do and talk about is... about cycling 😇 I have to keep this in mind to not annoy my fellow house members, at least the dog doesn't mind. 🙂

First of all, thanks everyone for the support on my new project - my very own YouTube channel and even though it was only my first real video I posted accompanied by 5 shorts I expected only some views from my Hive friends and the people living in the same house as me because I have told no one else about this just yet, first let's see where this all leads to which may very well be to nowhere at all, and even then I'm OK with it because I started doing this is the first place to make my Hive cycling posts more fun and then I started liking the creativity I can put in to video editing. As for now, my new baby channel got 370 views of which most were from the shorts and since today the almighty algorithm is totally ignoring my content so I guess this was it... 😆

I'm not giving up, and two more video's with some shorts to accompany them are scheduled to be launched every Sunday morning for the long video's and the shorts will follow in the evening, if you haven't yet here's the link to my channel if you enjoy cycling content with some good music. 🙂

Relaxing ride

Because only three days have passed since my last cycling post, I only did one new ride so far and it wasn't a really long one. On Sunday I ride together with my daughter and she's quite fond of the MTB Trail the closest to where we live so once again we went there which is fine with me, it's a relaxing ride with easy miles to count towards my yearly total.

When we arrived at the start of the trail another mountainbiker warned us about a tree that has fallen over at the end of the first part, completely blocking the trail and the path next to it, it's been only four days after my last visit and it wasn't there then, which makes me think about the hazards riding in a forest compared to road cyclists on roads, but I still think the idiots in cards are much more of a hazard than a tree can ever be. 😏

Because we didn't knew exactly where the tree was we rode too far and indeed, our path was blocked and we had to double back to get to the path on our left but then still had to climb over the trunk and get the bikes over it, on YouTube I see people jumping over obstacles like these 😵 that will probably never happen with my bike. 🤣

Paris - Roubaix

@nanixxx mentioned she was going to watch the race in France I think it was on Sunday, and I had never ever watched a cycling race before, I'm not much of a sports watching guy - I'll rather do it myself 😌 but I was curious anyway so I decided to watch the last 33 kilometers, I came up with the idea at 50 kilometers but I never watch normal television so I had to find out where I could watch the live stream and these guys ride FAST so by the time I found out, they we're already 20 kilometers further. Crazy to see the speeds they're able to reach on the cobblestones, around 40 km/h and when Wout van Aart started pushing I saw 57km/h. 😵

I really enjoyed watching, which wouldn't have happened without this community and it won't be the last time so nanixxx please let me know the next time something cool will happen! 👌

Cycling Talk!

All of the above was cycling talk as well of course but let's proceed with this weeks Chit Chat post, I can't call it a Sunday Chit Chat anymore when it's far away from Sunday already...

Why is the favorite the favorite, in your view? What sets him apart from the rest? Do you love him, hate him, or couldn’t care less? Why do people say Pogačar has changed cycling forever?

I'm the last person to have an opinion about the cycling pro's since I never watch these races and to be honest, I only knew the names of Pogačar and van der Poel but I think in general, every sport has it's own superstar(s) in every generation, helped with the advancement of technology, new insights and science and better ways to boost performance. Personally I like van der Poel more because he's older and is very skilled on his bike because he also rides cyclocross and even MTB on the top levels.

Nanixxx came up with some pretty good questions again for this round of Chit Chat, here they are:

What advice would you give someone who wants to strengthen their willpower to start cycling?

I think willpower is a trade you do or do not have and can't be trained for the most part, isn't it? I like to think I have a lot of will power which sounds like a good thing but it's that strong that sometimes I ask too much from my body in not so favorable conditions and I just push through when sometimes it would be better to take things easy, so more is not always better...

How does your mindset change when riding solo compared to riding in a group?

Again I'm the last person for this question because I don't like other people 😇 I'm the einzelganger, the lone wolf - or sheep 😆 and I don't like it to deal with other people's needs of wanting to stop somewhere, go faster or go slower... Riding for me is just to enjoy nature, adventure and relax.

The only exception with this is riding with my daughter which I very much enjoy and I really start rides with her with a completely different mind set to just have a good time, spend one on one time with her, give her advice and have a laugh together rather than eating miles and concentrating on performance.

What lesson about willpower and mindset has cycling given you that you apply in everyday life?

What I can say is that cycling has completely changed my life, but nothing changed about willpower or mindset. The things that changed are of course my overall fitness and the fact I'm now stronger then 11 months ago which are inspiring to continue and improve the things I'm already doing.

Well, time to wrap it up - I'll see you on the next post!