Enough is enough. Perpetual novices, listen up. Or better yet, don’t listen to me, watch this:
Yul Brenner (played by Malik Yoba) makes a perfect statement in the middle this dialogue. He says “But it’s not about what I see. It’s about what you see.”
Most of the novice riders I know aren’t just humble. We’re humble to a fault. Straight up San Adreas- sized fault. We diminish our own accomplishments. We belittle our own abilities. And we portray worry and fear in the face of new challenges.
But when it comes time to face those challenges, we take them head-on. We climb that hill we said we couldn’t. We ride that distance and we hit those speeds. We tear ourselves apart and leave our anxieties and our iniquitous judgement of our own selves behind while we rise to the challenge.
Yes, we fail. But more often than not, we succeed. And we must – must – take pride in that. A power meter does not measure will. A cadence sensor does not detect tenacity. We must draw strength and power from within.
The world is all too ready to diminish us. To minimize our accomplishments against the grindstone of history and analysis. We don’t need to help it along.
So the next time we’re about to say something like, “I can’t do that” or “I’m just not that good” or “You’re a lot better,” repeat after Yul:
I see pride.
I see power.
I see a badass mudda, who don’t take no crap off of nobody.