Category: Quotables

Adventure

“Adventure requires time to grow.”

-Willie Wier

I was about ready to leave the bike expo yesterday when I got pulled into Willie Wier’s presentation about his cycling adventures around the world. I’d heard most of his stories before, but the idea that adventure requires time to grow really resonated.

You can’t plan to have “adventure.” Adventure is something that happens to you along the way when you don’t expect it. If you plan your whole life down to the very last minute, making commitments to yourself and others, you’ll cheat yourself out of adventure.

If instead, you have just a general idea of where you’d like to go and how you might like to get there, the opportunities that arise along the way become viable, interesting parts of the journey. By not committing yourself, you have the freedom to be spontaneous and pursue the unexpected.

What are you on?

“People ask me what I’m on. What am I on? I’m on my bike - busting my ass - six hours a day. What are you on?”

-Lance Armstrong

Well, it’s official! Armstrong is going to ride the tour again this year and attempt a seventh consecutive win. Did anyone think he wouldn’t? I mean, taking a year off, then trying to regain the fitness and mindset of a tour winner, seems much more difficult than going for it right away.

And what am I on? My custom Marinoni Ciclo, of course! It’s be-you-tee-ful.

Joi de vivre

Sunrise over Kirkland

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greather joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”
Chris McCandless in a letter to a friend he’d met on the road

Stumbling

When we stumble, it only moves us forward more quickly.
African proverb

The Mountains Call Your Name

“They say the mountains call your name, and you spend the rest of your life trying to figure out which one called you.”

**anonymous - from Uzbekhistan**