The Silent Wind of Doom

"Clear your mind of whimsy. Learn to sway like the ginkgo flower." - The Angry Beavers (episode: The Silent Wind of Doom)
The wind is teaching me patience. A cold front was slated to come through around noon with wind gusts from 30 to 40 miles an hour. I hate riding in the wind (and cold) so I got ready and left the house at 9:30 hoping to avoid the whole thing. No such luck. It started to rain and then 4 miles into the ride the front came through much earlier than predicted. The wind picked up and literally blew me all over the place. My normal reaction is to stand up and power up the hills, but the wind was making it impossible. Finally I had to give in, sit back down on the saddle and dump a bunch of gears. As I sat there spinning, slowly winding my way uphill, I began to relearn that sometimes finesse is better than brute force; patience is better than instant gratification. I said "relearn" because this lesson is first thing mountain bikers discover. Brute force doesn't work in the rocks and dirt, you have to use finesse or you will simply spin out. Maybe the biggest lesson in all of this is that I haven't spent enough time in the dirt lately (both figuratively and literally). A little humility goes a long way, but needs to be experienced every now and then for us to remember what it is.