Over the years, human life has been compared to a river, an onion, an operetta, a dance, a roller coaster ride etc. And all of those analogies make sense for most of us in one way or another. As some or most of you may know that I am a huge sports buff and over the past few years I got into the sport of cycling as well. It all started from the major tours like Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España to the minor tours like Tour de Suisse and even the most recent ones like Tour of Colorado. It might be boring to watch the cyclists just ride with nothing happening for long periods of time. But after following a few races closely, I started to draw parallels between a pro cycling tour and our life. So I thought, why not write about it for the ones of my blog followers to read.
Since Tour de France is the holy grail of pro-cycling world, I will be comparing life to that particular race. For those who don't know much about Tour de France, It is an annual multi-stage bike race held in and around France in the month of July every year. It covers about 2000 miles consisting of 21 stages over a period of 23 days. The stages vary from pure flat ones to grueling mountain climbs, including individual time trials and also team time trials once every few years.
The Goal: As in any race, the rider who finishes all the stages in the minimum possible time wins the tour and the most coveted maillot jaune (Yellow Jersey, also called general classification). Same goes in life, everyone wants to earn more money or become more famous or do more work or something in the least amount of time.
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| Maillot Jaune |
The Jerseys: Not all humans try and do the same thing in their lives. Everyone has their own goals, either based on their talents or their dreams or their needs etc. The tour is no different, there are various other categorical races within the general classification. They are the Green Jersey for the Sprinters, the Polka-dot Jersey for the Climbers and the White Jersey for the best young rider(under age 26) categories. No rider tries to win all the jerseys, because that would be quite improbable. But sometimes as in life, some people are just so good that they can do 3-4 things at the same time and do it really well, there are riders who do end up winning couple of jerseys.
The Team: It may not seem that way, but pro-cycling is as much a team sport as Football or Basketball. No one rider how ever exceptional he may be, can win a race all by himself. He does need the help of his teammates as in life we need the help of family and friends. Each team consists of 9 riders and each rider has a set duty for every stage. Not everyone in a team attempts to win the race, because that would not be a logical idea. The sole purpose of some team members is to help their leader win, like how some parents or even some cases siblings make sacrifices for their kids or brother or sisters. The comes the non riding team, the managers, the technicians, the handy boys etc, these are like the colleagues, neighbors and well wishers.
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| Riders going up Mt.Ventoux |
The Stages: Not all humans are the same, some of us thrive under pressure and some like pleasant and peaceful situations to perform at their best. In the same way, the riders in the tour have various challenges thrown at them in the form of different stages. Some stages are flat which is like Christmas for the sprinters and some are mountain stages with average gradients upto 10%. These mountain stages is where the climbers get their turn to show what they are made of, gain the edge over others. There is a winner in every stage and similarly there is a winner at every phase of life, someone is ahead at one point and might not be ahead at a different point.To win the tour, you don't have to win ALL the stages, you just have to do exceptionally well in the stages that are your strengths and do about average in the stages in which you are not so good at. Same goes for life, you don't to do very well every single day, there will be days when you are on the top of the world and there will be days on which you may just be in the gutters. You just have to make sure that there are more of the former kind of days than the later ones.
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| Peloton |
Peloton: "Man is a social animal", I've learnt that in 4th grade(i think) Social Studies class. We live in a society and we need each other to progress in day to day life, kind of like the riders need each other in the Peloton. Peloton means the main group. Traveling in a peloton helps all the riders. The riders save quite a lot of energy while riding in the peloton and it could also provide the necessary entertainment or amusement or distraction necessary to get through the monotonous pedaling.
Dropouts: The tour not only requires a very high physical ability, it also required the riders to be mentally and psychologically strong. Unable to cope up with the demands of the tour, some riders drop out either due to injuries or exhaustion etc, in the same way how some people tend to give up on life either because, they have failed too many times, or sometimes because they can't take it anymore.
Doping: Life is not easy, there are many obstacles and some people just cannot cut it out. So to get ahead, they cheat, which could be cheating in an exam or bribing or blackmailing and the likes. The tour is no piece of cake either, its the ultimate test for riders' endurance and not everyone can handle it and those who can't keep up, dope. Over the recent years, this doping thing has brought a very bad name for the sport kind of like how corruption, oppression, exploitation etc has brought bad name to the world.
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| Rainy day at the office |
Nature: Mother nature can be as cruel as she is kind. There will be days when the riders have nice sunny 50 degree Fahrenheit weather and some days when the temperatures are in 90s or as low as 35 degrees Fahrenheit with rain pounding on their faces and slippery roads. One wrong move and you hit the concrete at 30MPH. There is nothing the riders can do about it, like there is nothing any of us can do when we get hit by cyclones, droughts, famines, tsunamies, earth quakes etc. All we can do, is proceed cautiously and wait out the "storm". The riders so the same thing, they get through the extreme conditions, never stopping to move forward. Even in pleasant weather conditions, there are situations where the riders have to climb up the mountains which is like trying to get through a economic recession and then they come down the mountain zooming at 50MPH which is like a boom.
There are more comparisons that I thought about, like the fans who line up beside the roads on the race are like the strangers who help us out, accident that are caused by say a tv telecast car is like the mysterious disease which you pick up without any fault of yours, etc
I have been meaning about writing this blog for about an year and over this year and more recently have been thinking about this alot. I probably should have jot down all the points that came to my mind as soon as they did and then tried to write this piece taking my time, instead of writing it in 2 hours like I did now. But well, we will see, this is kind of a long one. If any of you have made it so far, I would really like to hear your feedback.
