Black Wednesday

So where were you when the Great Strava Blackout Of '18 hit?

That's right, yesterday afternoon the Fredliverse reeled as the world's foremost digital wank bank was, for a tortuous stretch of time, "temporarily unavailable".  Even if you weren't a Strava user you knew something was amiss, as Freds and Fredericas all over the world suddenly dismounted and stood there like automatons seeking a Wi-Fi signal, uncertain as to what to do next:

(A lone, rudderless cyclist waits by the side of the road.)

Oh sure, they could have continued riding while Strava was down, but to what end?  To the true roadie, the unrecorded pedal stroke is not worth turning, and churning away as potential data vanishes into the void is like pouring fine champagne down the storm drain, or like a prize stallion spilling his thoroughbred seed upon the parched earth instead of into a fertile mare.

I'll never forget where I was: clomping back upstairs after a Fred ride when, to my chagrin, my ride was taking longer to upload than usual.  How I longed to retrace the contours of the ride, to see my feeble output quantified...  But no!  The activity simply failed to materialize, and I wondered if I'd even ridden my bicycle in the first place.

Would I have to do it all over again?  Without digital confirmation that I'd done something, how could I know???

Such is the conundrum of 21st century life.  What's the point of bon mots if we don't tweet them?  Why ingest a delicious meal if you're not going to Instagram it?  Why hoist yourself upon the bowl if you're not going to log the results into a poop tracker?

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It's good to know there are other Stool Freds out there.

Oh sure, there was a time when I eschewed Strava, and when I mocked it for being the cycling equivalent of this:

And now that I'm using it I know this to be true, and that the sad, captive, pud-pulling ape above is me.

Though when you think about it, isn't he all of us?

Given my tendency to eventually succumb to that which I mock, my greatest fear is now that I start using Zwift.  I like to think that this will never happen, for the simple reason that I have no place for a stationary Fred setup like this one:

Is there anything sadder than a half-dressed Fred grinding away on half a bicycle?  I don't know, but the power of Zwift to remove bicycles from the road rattles me to my core:

But here is the somewhat baleful truth about why I wasn’t riding outside: I just didn’t feel like it. (Note: If you’ve read this far without knowing what Zwift is, you need to get inside more.) This is a hard thing to say, one that I fear may see me exiled permanently from the cycling tribe, but there are times when I actually prefer Zwift—when I even hope for some Nor’easter to blow into town so I can maintain a shred of self-respect while crawling into my pain cave. Shame about the weather, heh, guess I’ll have to get on the trainer.

None of this is to say I don't understand.  I totally do.  In an attempt to feed both your cycling addition and your data feed it's easy to see how doing so in this manner may be tempting.  However, I do have one advantage, and that's geography:

But I am beginning to shake these feelings. For one, I enjoy an epic ride as much as the next cyclist, when I have time. Living in Brooklyn, New York, means I have, basically, two major ride options. The best choice is through Manhattan, across the George Washington Bridge, and up toward one of the Hudson River towns. But this is at least a four-hour ride, two hours of which are “junk miles” to get to and from the actual ride (a typically judgmental cyclist opinion—some might fail to see how riding through the world’s greatest city could be junk). This usually leaves laps around Brooklyn’s Prospect Park’s undulating oval. It is a beautiful ride, but one that I have done so many times I no longer actually see it. Since I’m already riding in a simulacrum, why not simply Zwift?

I know what he's talking about.  I used to live here:

And like 90% of the good riding is here:

Now I live here:

And I congratulate myself for my brilliant choice every single day.

Indeed, had I stayed in Brooklyn that very well could have been me toiling away in front of the Zwifting box.  Instead I'm just a Strava-addled doofus on a $10,000 wooden bicycle and deep in the throes of a midlife Fred crisis:

Speaking of which, yes, I'm still riding the Renovo, and yes, I'm still greatly enjoying it.  I haven't even had to charge the Di2 yet.  Indeed, I'm enjoying it so much I've made arrangements to keep it into the summer, which is when the real testing will begin.

Just stay away from me with your damn magnifying glasses.