This is just a general message to the masses, to inform whomever might be reading, that I’m done with winning, and the reason why is because it wasn’t working for me, on many levels.

I haven’t been winning races for a long time, as it has probably been noted. This tendency of mine was again questioned earlier in the year, when another cyclist, who also never wins races because he doesn’t even race, asked me if I thought I was going to win the next one coming up.

“Oh, I hadn’t even thought of it,” I said. “Ilike to see what happens.”

“No, no, you’re going about it all wrong. You should be there to win.“

And then for the remainder of the ride, he gave me examples of why it’s so important to have that winning mentality.

I forgot to ask him why he doesn’t race anymore, and actually, when he did race, which races he had even won.

Regardless, I chewed on that thought for the rest of the season as my own personal experiment, because what if, after all these years, I’ve been going about it all wrong. What if I wasn’t winning because I just don’t have that winning attitude. Maybe I need to change my approach.

Well, several races later, I have concluded that it is a waste of time, and can actually turn whatever was fun about racing into a miserable experience. There are so many factors that you cannot control: there are flats, broken spokes, and then the talent and abilities of the rest of the field. The best you can do, as far as I’m concerned, is to keep riding your bike, and focus on all the things you love about it, and to hell with the rest.

Well, according to these “winners”, feeling good about the effort, or just trying to stay on someone’s wheel, or climbing as hard as you can and still getting dropped, but still never giving up because you just never know what will happen, just isn’t good enough. You are complacent. You are settling.

Well, I just want to say this: people who think about winning all the time, who talk like it’s normal, like it’s supposed to happen, like if you’re not winning there is something wrong with you, are boring and probably should upgrade soon anyway, or try a race with real climbs in it and get in touch with their humility and show some respect for those busting their bums week after week, and not winning, and still feeling good about it.

I think a true test of character isn’t how many races you’ve won, but how you treat the world when you lose. Losing with grace and dignity is an acquired art. Not everyone can do it. That’s why some people who don’t win quit.

Well, that’s what I have to say about that.

Hey, that’s what they told me the other day at my local taquería. They said I speak Spanish like a “latina”.

Except that if I spoke like a latina, they wouldn’t have to stop and tell me that I spoke Spanish like a latina. How many gringos do you meet whom you tell that they speak English like gringos?

What it means is that people are nice.

I want to see if this really works. I think it does. You can learn a language this way, too. Anybody can.

I’m learning Italian through this free website called LingQ. Try it yourself, if you want. You’ll either love it or not get it. The whole idea behind it is that there’s a natural way to learn languages, free from textbooks, mean teachers, and boring grammatical instruction.

Instead, all you need to do is read and listen, using the LingQ web interface. It has a vast library in many languages, including most of the major European languages and some Asian languages as well. If you’re a beginner, you can start with simple, yet oddly engaging dialogues, that little by little introduce new vocabulary and grammar constructs, without ever telling you what you’re learning. You learn like a child learns, in essence. You choose the content and your own pace.

It comes with a pop-up dictionary, and built-in flashcards so you can review the vocabulary you save.

There are no grammar lessons whatsoever, so the developer of the site, Steve Kaufman, recommends that you get yourself a small grammar that you can thumb through at your leisure. But rule number one is that whatever you choose to read and listen to, it should be engaging. You should be interested in the subject matter, and not the grammar behind it.

Who wouldn’t enjoy this?

If you decide you need it, for a small monthly fee, you can work with a tutor, and have your writing corrected.

So, according to Kauffman, after you read and listen for a period of time, while gradually increasing your vocabulary and listening comprehension, you will be able to speak the language much better than you would had you started the old-fashioned way, you know, back when you memorized the vocabulary on page 62, and did all the drills on page 65 for homework. Come on, you know that that has not worked for a single living person on the planet. I defy anyone reading this blog to tell me you learned a language from textbooks in high school, and then were able to converse it in. Be honest!

So, Steve Kaufman himself is a living example that this method works. He speaks a buttload of languages. I want to say ten. He’s learned Russian in about two years, which you can see in his videos on YouTube.

My criticism is that his Russian, one of his most recent undertakings, is painful to me. I may be chastised for saying this. His pronunciation is Canadian and not Russian. And this is where I think that despite what anyone says, getting some guidance from a native speaker would help.

But that’s also part of the process, he says. He freely admits he doesn’t speak Russian perfectly. He exposes his flaws to all of us, so we can see that making mistakes isn’t so bad. He says that we can not only learn as children do, but even faster, because we already know so many words in our own language. Kids have to learn all that from scratch!

The process, the daily habit, is much more important. Just keep listening and reading, he says. Speaking should not even be a priority, in fact. In time, the language will settle, and the words will come out on their own. Don’t rush it.

So I’m learning five languages right now, but only Italian in this way. Learning Italian is the most enjoyable. I’m up to dialogue number eight out of fifteen, and we’re getting down to the nitty gritty. It is about a woman who is obsessed with her brother’s girlfriend, which although not quite as gripping as the Sopranos, has enough of a story line to keep me tuning in.

Its one drawback is the one thing that makes it effective: you really have to want to learn the language. If you treat it like a language class, where so-and-so teacher is obligated to make the lessons interesting, and then you do your homework and the threat of a bad grade is motivation enough to make you study, you might get an A in the class, but you’re not going to learn to speak the language.

But if you like reading about things that interest you, and you’re diligent enough to look up and review new vocabulary with the flashcards and listen along to the dialogues, a lot, there’s no reason why anyone can’t learn another language.

It seems too simple, doesn’t it?

I confess, however, that I am not following the instructions completely: I’m copying and pasting the dialogues, sound files, new vocabulary into SuperMemo (flashcard software), because it uses a time-spaced-repetition algorithm that I like. LingQ for some reason also works too slowly on my machine.

I started learning Italian on May 4th of this year. I’m listening and reading, and learning just a few new words every day, and I still can’t say squat, but that’s okay.

1. A second person has confused me with Rachel Lloyd. This time, it happened at a stop light. “Rachel?” said the other cyclist. Ha ha ha ha, I said. This happens all the time. Ha ha ha ha ha. The really weird thing is that this fellow actually knows me from our masters swim team at Marin Academy, so how made this mistake, I have no idea. The first time, a woman — who also knows me  — congratulated me for my 9th at the cyclocross worlds. Is it the braid? The ProMan kit that I stole and only wear when I know they’re out of town? What is it. Notice that it only happens when I’m stopped, and not riding.
2. CycleTo has given me an official title on Facebook: Russian Translator. The beauty of claiming to speak a language written in Cyrillic is even if I didn’t speak Russian, how would they ever know. I mean, really. Nonetheless, I feel honored to be on a panel of such distinguished experts that includes Tim Brennan as the Chief Mechanic, Marvin Zauderer as Mental Coaching Consultant, and Elmo Shropshire as Musical Director, just to name a few.
3. My friend Lesley gave me some extra brownies yesterday, and I ate all of them.

Now even cyclists have one more reason not to leave their homes. Move over Facebook, now there’s something cheesier useful.  It’s called the Cyclist Village, a social networking site just for cyclists.

You know I had to sign up.

If it looks something like The Broad Band Racer, it’s because it’s made by the same folks who bring to you The Broad Band Racer.

It’s got a forum, blogs, classified ads, an event calendar, regular riding groups, just everything that matters to cyclists like you and me.

But most importantly, you get to add to your collection of friends, and display this list to all.

You can even “order” your friends so that the important ones appear on your profile page. I always knew that was something that sets cyclists apart from the rest of the world. We are constantly concerned about our ranking, whether it be results or where we fit on the social hierarchy. Good for the Cycling Village for exploiting our subtle little quirks.

One potentially critical observation I have is that I just received an invitation to become friends with “Bikey Bobblehead”. Well, I don’t know anyone named Bikey Bobblehead. This could be an awkward situation.  I saw his attached photo in his friendship request, and yes, it’s a man on the bike, go figure, but other than that, I have no idea who it is.

On the other hand, hey, at least I know we share the same interests. Sure, let’s be friends!

Check it out and if you sign up, please add me as a friend, because I only have a couple, and that’s including Bikey Bobblehead, and I’m feeling lonely.

Funny I didn’t feel that way when I was just riding my bike outside.

I will say that one thing that I like about McCain is that he says that gas prices won’t be going down any time soon, and that they could actually go higher. He blames this on a finite source controled by a cartel. Read more.

Have you ever noticed that the same people who complain about the cost of this war, in money and in lives, are the same people who feel that gas prices are a rip off?

There’s got to be another way to protest the war. My way is to stop buying gas at all.

Another solution that just came to me is we should use up all our limited supplies as soon as we can. So maybe SUVs and Corvettes aren’t so bad. Yes, they use more gas now, but wouldn’t we run out anyway? Wouldn’t it make sense to run out sooner than later? If we save fuel, aren’t we prolonging the distruction of our planet?

These are things I think about when I ride the bus.

Here is the proof.