Every days a school day

Sitting at the top of the Susten pass, having been overtaken by several riders you do get a bit disheartened. Having ridden for 300 years, and taken much training, you hope to be good, or at least better than this.

The immediate risk is that you start thinking. You can think about how crap you are, how you’re holding up the rider behind, how you cocked up that last bend or any one of a million things. The problem is, when you’re thinking about that, you’re distracted. Tennis players faced with a fast serve do not start weighing up options as the ball leaves the racquet- that’s way too late. Somewhere deep down their mind/body decides the response through endless training. So the point here is to do the same. Which is hard to do, especially if you’re competitive. So my next task is to go down the Susten in learning mode and not thinking. And ignoring the riders with Swiss number plates. They don’t count.