Cross-Cycling

Topics: community aspect, actual race, what the race tested, personal experience, class meaning

Begin by asking who has ever ridden a bike before, who hasnt

Then ask who has been in a bike race before

Begin personal anecdote: I have actually only recently learned how to ride a bike, in the beginning of freshman year. I bought a bike on facebook for 100$, and told my parents that I just bought it from a friend. I bought the bike and it fit well for the first year, but by that summer, I grew 5 inches and eventually became a 6 foot sophomore with a small bike. (insert funny bike photo). But that didn’t stop me from biking. I used it as my main mode of transportation, to school, sometimes to work, and it eventually became my facet for exploration. Biking helped me understand the environment around me, especially because I am horrible with directions. In fact, biking helped me understand San Francisco, while feeding my appetite for both photography and exploring. (Show some examples of biking photography).

Now that you all have a little background, hopefully I can assume that you all have a similar biking experience to some extent. And maybe you might be able to empathize with me a little bit while i talk about my recent trip with Prof. Hunt and share my story of the first (and probably last time) cross cycling.

Right off the bat, there are three things that I have learned that I wont forget:

1. I have very low endurance
2. Old people are very cool (sometimes too cool)
3. The bike community is awesome

Last in the race, 1st in my heart

So there are three races, A,B, and C, and i was put in “C” which was meant for beginners. I guess they use the term beginners very loosely, because the majority of the racers were just sandbaggers who actually belonged in A and B, and were just using C as a warmup. First of all, I didn’t have the aerodynamic clothes that these other people had, so I was already at a disadvantage. 

Outline:

1. Begin with a question to the class to engage them
2. share personal anecdote with bike experience
3. introduce the three things i learned during cyclo cross racing
4. talk about how physically/mentally challenging, yet rewarding
5. how enlightening old people are and how they made the experience better w/ their wisdom
6. talk about how because you went to the event, it expanded your network and was an overall very fruitful experience

7. say thank you.