All cyclists, whether they race or not, seem to obsess over the weight of their bikes. Why do you…:

Is it better in the end to know that we lived to be 97 years and six months and five days and nineteen hours, or that a Super Record derailleur saved us 17 grams? Neither does us much good.  What I look for in a bike: life. How much life does it have, and what kind of life? By which I mean spirit, I guess. Maybe personality or energy. I know when it’s there, I know when it’s not, I know when I like it and when I won’t, and sometimes I can tell if a bike will like me. Or, anyway, I hope that’s how bikes look at me. If they’re obsessing over my weight, I am in trouble.

Source: True BS

My Favorite Enemy:

And, of course, the more pain that comes your way when you race, the ­better you are doing. Whoever has the highest pain threshold is a winner, or is at least guaranteed to have a good race, to play an ­important part. I think often about what Eddy Merckx once said: When a race feels easy everyone can attack, but when you’re in awful pain that’s the moment an attack really matters, because all the others are hurting as much as you. Those are the moments that decide races, Eddy believed—and who am I to not respect the opinion of the greatest cyclist of all time.

There have been many moments in ­races when I have said to myself, “Okay Jensie, you are a good rider and if this hurts you this much then everybody else around you must be close to quitting, too.” That’s when I just refuse to give in, to let myself get intimidated by how much pain the race is raining down on us.

I would not exactly call pain a friend. But it is a constant companion in my life. Sometimes I say that pain is my favorite enemy. We have this love-hate relationship. We keep watching each other and waiting for the other one to show some weakness, to give in. Every morning when I jump on my bike, it takes only seconds for me to think, “Ah—there you are my old enemy, let’s get it on for one more day!” The pain and me, nothing can keep us apart. It keeps me going. It keeps me young.

Source: Hardly Serious with Jens Voigt

I rode away from everyone and everything early in the morning on a hill that leveled to a faintly breezy ridge that opens to a blurry river at the farthest border of useful vision. Shortly, in the shelter of a piney forest, my cadence, such as it was, slacked to a stop. I took a drink, and enjoyed the bird song and quiet as my own breathing fell to less of an uproar. Thankful, I rolled around and nosed into the descent. The thick wall of trees and the piles of fallen needles absorbed the sound of my passing. The enchantment would vanish, the way it always does for riders like me, when the road would turn up again. I’d shatter and fail in a vain attempt to ride the hills with grace and panache. No easy and endless energy. No elegant spin and position.

I found an imperceptible furrow in the wind and gained speed. I traced it for a few more minutes, down that hill and up others and across some brief false flats. I rode like me. And for a brief while that too was good enough.