Reflections on a Stationary Bicycle

Last Monday the instructor of my spinning class showed a video of a bike race in the Netherlands (Amstel Gold Race 2015) as we rode our stationary bikes hard enough to reach our maximum heart-rate zone.

In no other circumstance would I watch a bike race for forty minutes. But pedaling and perspiring along with my fellow exercisers, I was exhilarated by the energy and grace of the cyclists and the beauty of the countryside on the screen. Sometimes we got an aerial view of farmland with fields looking like pieces of a patchwork quilt in various shades of green. Then down one of these country roads snaked a row of bicyclists racing to the finish line. I suppose I could feel those racers a pathetic contrast to my stationary machine, but I didn't. I felt motivated and moved by their perfection.

And for some reason, I stared thinking of the layers of human life present in that moment on my bicycle, connection present in every other moment as well.

This connective web contained the instructor and cyclists; our bikes and everything involved in

making them and having them ready for us when we arrived for class; and the technology involved in making it possible for me to watch men riding bicycles in he Netherlands whiled I exercised in South Bend, Indiana. Then, there's everything that went in to making the bike race happen. There seems no end to the actions of others that made that moment possible. It is always like that I think.