03.21.2016 | 9:47 am
I’ve started work on writing Fight Like Susan, and have been making a lot of decisions: what will go in the book, and what won’t. How far back in time will I reach, and where is its finish line.
I’m happy to say that so far, the answers to these questions have been pretty clear to me. My vision for this book is very clear, maybe because I have been thinking about it for close to a decade.
It will be Susan’s and my story, and it will incorporate much of my best writing from this blog during her fight. This means that about half of the writing exists, and I’ll be writing the other half.
A story, interspersed with essays.
An Outlet
As I go back and read what I wrote during Susan’s fight, I’m struck by how my time for riding was so clearly a pressure release valve. I remember how my friends noted that when I rode with them, I would attack. Riding angry.
When I rode alone, I’d attack anyway. Or sometimes break down.
Then I’d come home and could be the stable presence again. For my kids. For my wife.
This time was the defining test of my life. I know, that sounds hyperbolic, but I think it’s true: it fixed the “me at my best” in my mind, and it is who I continue to try to be.
But without the balance the bike provided me — a time and a way to empty out all the frustration and rage and sense of unfairness I felt — I don’t know if I could have been the person I’m so glad I managed to be.
A Respite
Now I’m dealing with some new stuff. This stuff is maybe more ordinary, less life-and-death; it’s just looking for work. But as I’m pouring myself into this task and into the work of writing a very emotional book, I find myself…mentally and emotionally cooked. Exhausted.
And once again, the bike is there to give me balance. But this time in a different way. I find that I look forward to my time on the bike not as an outlet for excess energy and emotion, but as a time to recharge, to relax.
I’m not riding with the intensity I’ve felt in recent years, not even when I race. After I finished the True Grit Epic a couple weekends ago, I was incredibly happy for how fast The Hammer and Swimmer had gone…and felt like I had raced a good race too, in spite of the fact that I had gone slower than the previous year.
Why? Because I had enjoyed myself, and had ridden and talked with other guys who were also enjoying themselves. I had gotten a much-needed break from the things that were weighing me down.
I’ve been riding, as often as I can, for at least twenty years now. And once in a while, this simple act can still surprise me with how much it affects me and means to me.
Somehow, no matter what I’m going through, the bike gives me balance.
Comments (19)
03.18.2016 | 9:12 am
A “Something to Listen To During the Weekend” Note from Fatty: The new episode of the Paceline is out! Find and subscribe on iTunes, or listen to it here:
We talk about How to Ride the Correct Speed, about a cyclist who got bullied by a cop, stayed cool, and won in the end, fought the law and oh-so-much more. It’s a fun episode. More details at Red Kite Prayer.
A Note About Today’s Guest 100 Miles of Nowhere Post: This fantastic story of someone who took the idea of 100 Miles of Nowhere and made it into a fantastic, fun, fundraising group ride comes to you courtesy of Lorie of the Care Free blog, where this was originally published. It’s awesome. Enjoy!
When I signed up this year, I never intended to ride. I’ve only been riding for 3 years. I can’t ride a century or even half a century. I just thought Camp Kesem was a fun cause to support.
But I started thinking that I could ride part of it, or maybe I could get a couple of friends to ride 33.3 miles so our combined miles would total the 100 mile. But if I could do that, maybe I could be brave enough to ask the bike club I ride with to join me. So 33 miles of nowhere event was born…
To my amazement when I posted the event, people actually signed up. Even more surprising, people showed up. and then rode. Up and down, then up and down a path for a great cause. It seems cyclist are by nature really attracted to free stuff and great causes.
We chose a really intense route. Okay, maybe more casual – ride north then south, then north again then little a south to the end.
The city of Peoria has been kind enough to build a great canal bike path. Almost 20 miles of cement trail without a single car. The only problem is that it does not actually go anywhere. The northern end just drops into the desert and southern end turns into gravel – maybe not the most impressive route but perfect for what we needed.
The riders did amazing, working their way through the route’s challenges. long bridges, sharp hairpin turns…
…and those steep climbs were no match for our cyclists.
Our expert cyclist took advantage of the long stretches to show off their mad drafting skills
While others just needed a few moment to figure out life. How many cyclist does it take to … sort of thing
North End of Nowhere
These fierce ladies did amazing reaching their personal goals for the day. Neither had ridden 33 miles before the event. I hear one celebrated her birthday by exceeding the required 33 miles and actually rode 50! Woot Woot!
To add a little fun to the day . We created a very high tech 100 MON raffle – come back with pictures of local celebrities to receive a chance at winning cool 100 MON stuff…. Not very fancy but it worked.
Our celebrity sightings included Swiss royalty, she came in her finest attire to cheer on the riders!
Lots of riders enjoyed getting a pic with the less famous but notorious Flat Al and our great sponsors!
At the south end of the route the riders were treated to a day at Al’s Flat tire and bike shop. Where anyone could learn to change a tire, ask questions about their bike, or get a chance to ride a fat bike…. Good times good times, Although I think there may have been a few donations made to the homeless guy…..
The words of wisdom and encouragement left along the way…
… was just what we needed to finish the day!!
West Valley Casual Bike Group is just a Meetup group. But it has provided lots of people with a shame free way to start cycling, heaps of rides that challenge and increase skills. And has produced a community for people who just like to ride bikes.
I am so proud of our event results: 500+ miles were ridden, 2 very large boxes of pastries were consumed, 15 item including 100MON items were raffled off, and many cyclist donated directly to Camp Kesem!!! Great job!!!
33.3 miles to Nowhere 2015!!!!
Comments (15)
03.16.2016 | 2:03 pm
A Fair Warning From Fatty: This post is going to be really dry for most of you, though hopefully pretty interesting for a few of you. It’s going to seriously blur my blog life and my career life. There will be links to my résumé (and to my LinkedIn page), and there will be pie charts illustrating my analysis of the Fight Like Susan crowdfunding survey I conducted a few days ago.
What’s Going On And How You Can Maybe Help
I’ve been working at a startup company for the past two-plus years. Unfortunately, they’ve had to cut me back to very part-time hours and pay. Without getting too deep into it, I’ll now be making 15% of what my salary was.
We can’t live on that. Not even close.
I need to find a job, and if you have connections to a company that could use a very experienced Storyteller (sometimes called a “content marketer”), or very experienced Product Manager / Product Marketing Manager, or just a remarkably disciplined and creative — yet almost ridiculously technically-gifted — content guy in general, please: introduce us.
If you have something you think I’d be interested in, don’t be shy. You can use email (I’m fatty@fatcyclist.com, as you probably know), text messaging (my phone number is in the PDF of my résumé), or LinkedIn messaging.
How I’m Using My Time Right Now
Meanwhile, I have time, and I intend to use it fully. Starting next week, I’m going to launch a friends-of-fatty crowdfund / pre-order of the book I’ve intended to write for several years: Fight Like Susan.
I will give you more details about the content of the book next week, but for now, here’s what I’ve learned from you about how this pre-order ought to work.
First, it looks like a large enough percentage of you want to buy a copy that this is not a completely insane idea.
Between last Friday and Monday (a four-day period), 420 of you answered my survey. The first question was the most critical: how likely are you to buy a copy?
Your response was overwhelmingly encouraging:
74% of the survey respondents said they definitely plan to, with another 14% at least willing to consider it. Now, I understand that this group is self-selecting, but I choose to still see it as a really hopeful sign.
Second, you told me how I ought to price the book.
To be honest, I didn’t expect to get such clear direction on what the price ought to be for the book, but you were very helpful:
$19.95 is the most popular option, but $14.95 and $12.95 were up there, too. As of this moment, I plan to make $14.95 the default price. If you want a signed version, that will cost $19.95 (58% of you indicated you’d be willing to pay $5 – $10 extra for the signed version, so this works out nicely for you).
And if you are in a tough financial spot (which I completely understand) but want to read or gift it to someone, then you can pay $12.95…and if the math works out, I may also include a $9.95 version.
Third, I need to have a Kindle plan.
I guess I shouldn’t be at all surprised by this next chart, since I do about 90% of my own reading on the Kindle app for iOS devices. Still, I admit it, this does surprise me:
Yep, more of you want this book in Kindle format than you do in paperback. We live in the future, folks.
How much will I charge for the Kindle version? $9.95, I believe.
Fourth, I need to rethink my “Podcast and Letter” incentive.
One idea I had as an upsell incentive was to provide an exclusive ongoing podcast and newsletter for people who pay a certain amount. Here’s what you all thought of that idea, in terms of how much you’d pay:
Just about a quarter of you were interested in paying for this, which isn’t bad. If 2000 of you buy a book and a quarter of you paid $10 for a weekly podcast / letter from me saying how the is going, that’s $5000, which is a good amount of money.
But one person left a comment saying:
I don’t think i’d pay more for the podcast, etc on the book process. But I think it’s a good idea to do that anyway…blog the entire thing, basically give it away for free. This will bring in more people who are willing to buy it when it’s done.
When I read that, I realized it made so much sense. So that’s what I’m going to do: have Fight Like Susan Progress episodes on the FattyCast, and talk about (and excerpt parts of it) as I write.
Fifth, you have several good ideas for me.
I was really glad I left a place in the survey for comments; many of you left some really thoughtful, useful insights I’m considering making part of this project:
- Kindle + Paperback Option: Several people noted they’d like to have both Kindle and paperback versions of the book. I think that makes perfect sense and plan to have a bundle with both at a good price.
- T-Shirt, Jersey, Socks, Bottles: This was the single most frequently-made comment: where are the incentive levels for these items? I’m working on design now and will have them as part of this project.
- Audio Option: I was surprised how many of you want an audiobook option for this book. It’s a daunting idea, but I’m intrigued by it. I think I might make it a “stretch goal” target. I’ll have to figure out how that might work (and I’m open to suggestions).
- A “Just Donate” Option: A number of very generous folks said they’d like to just be able to kick in some money, either as thanks for a lot of years of bloggage, or because they’re just really nice.
- An Outrageous Option: I’m not sure what this should be, but I’m certainly open to suggestions.
I’ll be launching this pre-order next week, and I’ll begin writing the book itself next week. Be on the lookout for that.
this is a weird, scary, intense, very educational time for me right now. Whether you help by pre-ordering a book or by pointing my résumé out to someone who might have work for me, I appreciate it.
Comments (34)
03.15.2016 | 11:05 am
A Note from Fatty: If you took the time to fill out the survey I was talking about in my recent posts, thank you. Your feedback has been incredibly helpful, and now I’m working on incorporating it into my plan. I’ll let you know what I’ve learned and plan to do soon.
Doug Ulman is the president and CEO of Pelotonia, an Ohio-based charity that can make the unusual claim that 100% of its rider-raised funds go toward high-risk, high-reward cancer research.
But Doug’s history with cancer goes way back, including having his own foundation, being the president of Livestrong during the good and bad times.
Doug was one of the many great people who inspired me to fundraise for important causes, and he’s the one who introduced me to Camp Kesem.
Doug doesn’t talk from an abstract place when he talks about cancer. He was diagnosed with cancer about twenty years ago. Or make that diagnoses — Doug was diagnosed with cancer three times in a one-year period.
It’s been a while since he and I have talked, and I was looking forward to catching up.
In this FattyCast, Doug and I talk about the differences in fundraising for cancer awareness, treatment, and research.
We talk about why fundraisers so frequently center around cycling events.
We talk about things we hate people saying about cancer.
And we talk about regrets and lessons learned at Livestrong after Lance Armstrong was found to be a cheater.
This is a thoughtful, enlightening episode of the FattyCast. I think you’re going to enjoy it.
on iTunes, Stitcher, FattyCast.com, or on my fattycast.com/rss feed.
Or just listen / download it here:
Comments (8)
03.13.2016 | 3:49 pm
A Take This Survey Note from Fatty: Late this week or early next week, I’ll be launching a crowdfunding project, to help me make ends meet while I work on the book I’ve been wanting to complete for several years: Fight Like Susan. (Check last Friday’s post for details.)
Between now and then, do me a favor and (if you haven’t already): click here and take this survey to help me understand which of my incentive ideas are good, and which I should forget about. I’ll let you know the results soon.
How to Ride the Correct Speed
From time to time, I get email from my readers. I treasure each and every one of these letters, and take care to read each message, consider it carefully, then to answer fully and thoughtfully. In the order received.
Unfortunately, I receive email at a rate that exceeds my ability to respond, which means I am desperately behind in my email responses; I am currently answering email I received in May of 2005 (i.e., the month after I started this blog).
As you may expect, some people are quite perplexed to be receiving responses to questions they no longer even remember asking.
This, however, does not mean the questions are not worth answering. It just means that, frequently, my responses are returned because — more often than not — the person I’m writing to no longer has their AOL or Compuserve email address.
Which means I need to reply to the question in this public forum, in the hope that my response will reach its intended audience.
Such is the case in the letter I am replying to today.
Dear Mr. Cyclist,
I like riding with other cyclists, but I worry that I’m holding my faster friends up. How can I let them know that it’s OK with me for them to ride on ahead, that I don’t mind if they drop me and then rendezvous later?
Thanks,
Rick Sunderlage
(not my real name)
Dear Rick,
Your heart is in the right place, but you have weak mind. If you were capable of thinking clearly, you would realize that you are not asking the right question. In which case instead of wondering how to properly communicate that you are OK with other people going faster than you are, you would be asking this much more important question:
What is the correct speed to ride my bicycle?
This is the question I choose to answer, with the intention of ignoring the question you actually asked.
You’re welcome.
The Wrong Speeds
When it comes down to it, there are really only three speeds a cyclist can ride: too slow, too fast, and just right. As you may have just realized, the correct speed to ride your bicycle is at the just right speed.
But how can you tell if you’re riding at just the right speed? Well, that’s not as difficult to figure out as you might think.
All you have to do is go on a ride with me.
If, as we ride together, I start half-wheeling you, that’s a pretty good indicator that you are riding too slowly.
If I push the pace up by a mile per hour each time I start my pull, that means you are probably going too slow.
If I say, “Hey, how come you’re going so slow?” you are almost certainly going too slow.
The remedy for this problem is for you to go faster.
But be careful when you do this. Because if you start half-wheeling me, you are obviously going too fast. And that’s not cool. Not cool at all.
Or suppose, as we ride together, you start slowly pulling away, and I jump to catch your wheel, but then find I can’t quite do it and you build a gap I just can’t bridge, and you drop me.
When that happens, you’re going too fast, and that’s a character flaw you may want to address, because it means you’re being selfish and not taking my needs into account. As if this ride is all about you, when in fact I think we can both agree it is actually about me.
Try to remember that in the future. You think you can do that? Thanks.
The Correct Speed
Allow me, then, to make a recommendation. Instead of riding faster than I do, or slower than I do, ride at precisely the same speed I’m riding at the moment. By doing this, you’ll avoid the twin problems of making me wait for you, and of making me go faster than I want to (or am capable of, I suppose).
For example, I have noticed many times that practically everyone goes too fast on technical mountain bike descents. I am so disappointed in these people; they should have the courtesy and common sense to go the correct speed (mine).
Then these same people will go an entirely other wrong kind of speed during climbs, forcing me to drop them. It’s not that I’m trying to put the hurt on them or anything; I’m just going the correct speed for the climb.
Please bear in mind that this, the correct speed, is subject to change without notice, and may in fact change multiple times during a given ride. For example, if I’m feeling good that day, the right speed for the ride can be surprisingly rapid.
If, on the other hand, it turns out a little later in that ride that maybe I’m not feeling as great as I originally thought, the correct speed may drop precipitously.
How is it possible that no matter the speed I am going, it is the right speed for the occasion? I’m as mystified by this as you no doubt are.
And yet, it’s manifestly true. No matter what speed I ride, it always feels like I’m going the right speed, and that any other speed would be either recklessly aggressive, or dilly-dallying.
All you need to do, then, is just imagine we’re riding together, and just go the speed I would go if I were really there with you.
Just don’t half-wheel the imaginary me you’re riding with. Even my imaginary self thinks that is not cool.
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