Tell Me Baby, Where Did I Go Wrong?

I hadn't been into the Revolution for a while, so stopped by on the way home from a ride. Tony was surprised to see me on the bike. Last he'd heard I'd only been riding fifteen minutes at a time, and the store is probably a good twenty minutes from my house. He asked me about my exgirlfriend and I asked about his kids. The sun went down and I claimed some lights, in order to avoid being arrested on the way home. It was a pretty pleasant time.

A couple of days later I was off work, so stopped by the store with Teagan-Jane. Jimmy was at the desk, and while he had to do some running around, serving customers and helping with the orders, he was still up for a chat. He told me I was looking fat and Teagan complimented him on his ridiculous bright pink shoes. We talked about bikes a little, sure, but mostly just talked shit.

DC was floating in and out, looking like he had a million things to do. He's the guy in charge, who the buck stops with, but he still made time to say G'day and ask how I was doing. I ogled his new bike and he asked about my rehab.

About three years ago I was putting on an alleycat, and simply walked into the store and asked if they'd kick in some prizes. DC and I got to chatting, he kicked in a bunch of swag, and I walked out thinking that it was a pretty cool store. A year later I was some noob with a couple of results on the track, no significant results on the road and an obnoxiously wordy blog, but still DC decided that he'd make me one of their supported riders. I've scored some more results since then, worn the jersey in a bunch of important races, worn the hoodie when commentating, flown the flag whenever possible. I don't do it out of any sense of obligation. Like FJ said yesterday, there comes a moment when you realize that you're friends with folks, that you have some sense of your relationship being about more than just cycling. I support the Revolution not just because they support me, but because they're rad folks who I like. And I'm lucky that they seem to think the same way.