Et there are more things between heaven and earth than your professional sport can dream of. Let’s take a quick look into the prejudice drawer and pull out a Bundesliga kicker who trains two hours a day, otherwise sits in front of the Playstation and plays football for an hour and a half at the weekend – what an effort. Many a recreational athlete does more sport before breakfast. Or at night. At night? Yes, in the night.
I can tell you that because some time ago an acquaintance was sitting with our regular Italian and told with amazement about a recreational racing cyclist he had met. My friend, the one on the edge, was once one of the best triathletes on the long distance, and even today he rides little things on his racing bike like the “Saarland pig”, a trip over 320 kilometers that is popular in certain circles and consumes meatballs after 80 kilometers and a grilled suckling pig at the finish.
He drives twice as much as the professionals
My acquaintance can hardly be surprising, but the recreational cyclist he met could do that. In mid-August he had reeled 52,143 kilometers on his racing bike, rode 553,840 meters uphill and had been on the road for around 2000 hours, documented on the Strava bike app . Until August, he drove an average of around 230 kilometers – per day. 52,143 kilometers in around seven months, that is far more than twice the workload of the world’s best professional cyclists.
All of this is amazing, but what makes it unbelievable is the fact that, firstly, the frequent hobby driver makes no fuss about what he is doing and, secondly, works full-time and therefore mainly drives at night. When my friend suggested that he could certainly win the famous Race Across America, he replied by asking what sense it made to win the Race Across America. He is not interested in such things. He just wants to ride a bike a little.
I have had a little contact with him in the meantime and have heard some of his views. Why not get the glory for all the effort? He doesn’t need it, just bring false friends. How can you drive hundreds of kilometers at night? With a lupine. In any weather? In any weather. How about sleeping? Two to four hours during the week at night, five at the weekend, one at work during the break, he can sleep anywhere, that comes from the chronic lack of sleep.
Why not do an Ironman or something like that? A friend of his did the Ironman on Sundays in Frankfurt and paid 650 euros for a certificate, on Mondays he said to him: If I had better driven 500 kilometers with you, it would have been more ingenious and cheaper. So why should he do an Ironman? Yes, why actually?
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