Another Winter's Come And Gone.

Yep, sun out today, and definite warmth in the air. Spring break is upon us - there's only one day left of the school term, which for you means the shopping malls and skateparks will soon be overwhelmed by pubescent teenagers looking for trouble, but for me means two weeks of laying in bed, late nights, long lunches.

At this point, the plan doesn't involve much bike riding, other than to get around town. This is markedly different from tonight, which involves a lot of bike riding. As I mentioned earlier, Northcote are running a teams race at DISC tonight, and - perhaps in an attempt to inflame old rivalries, I told them that Brunswick were going to enter a team. They seemed nonplussed and I began to like the idea. Hurley liked it too, and scheduled some time away from Shepparton. Ollie didn't really like it, but we convinced him regardless. That wasn't a terrible lineup, but we still needed a fourth.

And this is where the fun started. I called around, facebooked folks, followed leads and asked around for phone numbers. People called me with suggestions, apologies, excuses. Work was pretty relaxed and I had some time to spare. As the calls and the messages and the facebooking continued I started to think about what I doing (which, incidentally, most people do before they start doing it). It's a pretty small world, Melbourne Cycling, even at its best and/or worst. I reckon I'd called up about a tenth of it. It went from being an annoying task to feeling pretty rad - these were folks who I wouldn't have ever known with cycling, who would've never turned up to a punk rock show or a vegan potluck, and here I was, asking them for a favour. And a majority of them seemed genuinely bummed that they couldn't help out.

I don't know if I can turn the act of making phone calls into any more of a post than this. I've written enough about community on this blog already. But it's nice to be reminded, sometimes, that the community is there, and that you're a part of it.