Michael’s Reviews > The Cyclist and His Shadow: A Memoir > Status Update

"Obviously, the peloton cannot be boiled down to its name....It is malleable, and that is an understatement: it is shaped by the wind, the road, and the goals of the individuals who compose it."

I really resonate with the idea of this quote. On the bike, it's me and nature around me. And much of the time, that's just how I want it to be.

“For me, it was all a matter of wind and barren horizon. I wanted to be alone on the brink of the world—nothing else mattered.”

Riding is a release and painful shelter from a stormy world. I feel this.

“Every rider learns by pedaling to locate that wound inside and to tear it open fearlessly. Pedaling brings consistency to the thick and genuine void binding the skin to the world. […] From that day, like all riders, I did my best to spend as much time as possible away from the world, sheltered by that sweet rampart of familiar pain.”

More bedtime reading for the kids. This book, admittedly, doesn't really lend itself to reading aloud. But, I'm enjoying the opportunity all the same... if only because of how metaphysical and esoteric the prose is about something so enjoyable as cycling. It is certainly above their age range, but I appreciate the opportunity to process that with the kids.

"But too colorful a style often blurred the shades and ignored the absolute, limitless way to ride that turns training into asceticism and performance into a kind of gnosis. Too often, champions were celebrated only in the naïve light of their pure achievements—or worse, of their success—without recognizing how they were motivated by their unhappiness, their taedium vitae." —Olivier Haralambon