Spiritual Matters

When I first started mountain biking seriously in 2006 I made a promise to myself that it would never consume my entire life. I can remember the first big group ride I went on with a bunch of GeoLadders guys. We drove up and did SART and went to get pizza after the ride in some town on the way back home.

I remember one of the guys was divorced with a few kids. My friend and I were talking to him and he said that mountain biking ranked at least as high as his family and kids as far as what he considered important in life.

I swore I would never turn into that guy. I have never wanted mountain biking to be all consuming or to interfere with other important areas of my life.

For the most part I've kept my personal faith out of this blog, but I can't help but bring it up now for two reasons:

1. Spiritual matters are apart of every ride for me
2. I feel like biking is becoming too big as of late

I do my best to remember to pray for my safety and the safety of the guys I'm riding with on every ride. I also find myself praying for various things when I'm climbing for hours and hours on end. Finally when rides get very tough or when I get injured I always find myself singing praise songs to God. This is a part of my ride reports that I always neglect and I figured for once I'd include what is going on in my mind from a spiritual perspective.

The final note however is something I'm still struggling with. I have set Sunday's aside for years as a day for the Lord. Missing church is not a sin. Sunday morning church attendance is not mandatory from a biblical perspective either. However fellowship with my fellow Christians is important to me. So I have always wanted to make that a priority. Hanging out with other Christians has to take priority in general over things like bike riding.

The conflict for me is the racing schedule for this upcoming year. Several of the races are on Sunday mornings and this bothers me. I want to race, but I also want to go to church and I find myself with conflicting interests. I can easily go to a different church on Sunday nights as I did with Bonelli, but I don't want it to turn into a habit.

I take bike riding seriously and invest a lot in it, but I would like to think my faith is more important and that I put considerably more time into that.

So for the time being I'm open to racing this year on Sunday mornings, but I can't let it become a habit. For example there is an STR ride on Easter Sunday in San Diego. There is just no way I could ever miss such an important Sunday just to ride at Noble Canyon. Priorities are priorities.

I feel sorry for any rider that puts riding above everything else in their life. Thank God I don't personally know anyone like this, but when you go to some of these races you can tell that some people worship bikes and everything bike related.

Biking should always be fun and biking should never make me a slave.