Why religion doesn’t matter

It’s still cycling season, but today’s post is about religion. I don’t usually get into religion. I don’t really try to hide mine, but I don’t dwell on it either. Because, as the title states, I don’t think it should matter. If you’re interested in knowing more about why I feel this way, read on.

Although I’m “from” Utah, I’ve spent a lot of time in other places, too. Washington, Maryland, California (twice), Hawaii, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Idaho to be exact. I don’t exactly struggle to make friends, so I’ve known a lot of people with a lot of different attitudes about religion over the years. The one thing I’ve learned from this is that someone’s professed religion has absolutely no bearing on the kind of person they are.

Before I moved to Utah, there were Lutheran or Jewish moms who didn’t want their kids to play with me because they thought I had horns or my dad had more than one wife. When I moved to Utah, there were certain moms in the neighborhood who wouldn’t let their kids play with non-Mormon kids for fear of the negative influences these non-Mormon kids would bring. This is utterly ridiculous. I learned to swear from Mormon kids (and my Mormon mother—hi mom!) and was first exposed to alcohol, drugs, and pornography by Mormon kids. If anything, the non-Mormon kids respected my beliefs and tried to keep me away from that stuff.

Mormon or not, civilized, reasonable people recognize that there’s a difference between right and wrong and that people should act a certain way for no other reason than it’s the right thing to do. We don’t need religious texts or leaders to tell us these things—we just know them. In fact, religion as often as not is used as a crutch or to justify questionable behavior. “My religion doesn’t forbid it, therefore it’s OK.”

Never has this been more apparent than when I lived in Indiana. We lived near an Amish community. In general, the Amish are honest, hard-working people who help their neighbors and do the right things. Their religion, however, requires them to eschew certain modern conveniences such as cars, phones, and electricity.

Which is not to say they don’t use cars, phones, or electricity. If you travel through an Amish community, you’ll notice that it’s dotted with little shacks—phone booths. Lately these have fallen out of fashion, but cell phone sales are brisk. The homes don’t have electricity, but if there’s a carpenter’s shop adjacent to the home, you can bet it does. And my father-in-law has a pickup truck titled in his name that he paid a dollar for and never drives. His Amish friend paid the balance and has one of his employees drive it for him.

Mormons are no better. Coffee and alcohol are forbidden, but you should see the rate at which we (inclusive) consume Diet Coke. Utah has the highest per-capita consumption of ice cream in the nation. As one of my B-school friends put it when I wanted to stop for ice cream while following him to the bar, “we all have our vices, they’re just different vices.”

The LDS church teaches that there are certain ordinances or sacraments that one must receive in order to obtain certain rewards in the afterlife. Wikipedia goes into way more detail than I have time to here. Suffice it to say I believe in these ordinances and their necessity.

But even more than I believe in these ordinances, I believe in a just, merciful God. A God who loves his children and is anxious to reward them for a life well-lived. A God who will sooner glorify an agnostic who does the right things for the right reasons than exalt a believer who never did anything “forbidden” but never bothered to discern right from wrong, let alone act accordingly.

I’ve had the pleasure of being friends with several people who were agnostic or atheistic. The thing that strikes me most about these friends is the moral code that they live by. For many religious people, the motivation to do what’s right is the promise of a reward or fear of a punishment in the hereafter. But for one who claims no such belief, from whence comes the drive to do what’s right?

And yet, it’s there. And it’s unshakable. Perhaps it’s because they don’t believe in repentance. Or they believe that as human beings we’ve evolved to a higher order than other life forms and as a result we’re supposed to exhibit certain behaviors. Or they believe in Karma. Or they know that all we take with us from this life is the legacy of how we’ve treated other people. Regardless, on more than one occasion, how to respond in a morally ambiguous situation has been made perfectly clear to me by a friend who believes what’s after this life is nothing more than organic matter rotting in a box.

The third horseman

Of all the yummy things Rachel makes, her pies have to be her crowning achievement. She's been perfecting her crust recipe for ten years and takes a leave-nothing-wanting approach to the fillings. They are divine.

And so last night I took it as a sure sign of the apocalypse that offers of pie were turned down by neighbors not once, but twice. Some drivel about "just hit my target weight" or whatever. This is not normal. If Leadville weren't on Saturday, I'd be very concerned.

Not wanting a third strike, we gave it to some friends that don't ride bikes.

In order to defeat a monster

In summer 2007, I was on my way home from a long, hot training ride. With about 15 miles left to get home, I was suffering--dehydrated, hungry, exhausted. I wanted to quit.

I was listening to my ipod shuffle on this ride, and as I was suffering along, barely moving, the song Miss Sarajevo came on. Listening to the lyrics, I couldn't help but be inspired. Miss Sarajevo is a song about the Miss Sarajevo beauty contest held in 1993 during the siege of Sarajevo, Bosnia. The contest was held in a basement because of the threat of sniper fire above ground. The contestants carried a banner onstage reading "don't let them kill us."

Amidst all the pain and ugliness and suffering of the war, the pageant organizers and participants found time to celebrate beauty. To have the courage to go on living their lives despite the destruction and violence and pain around them.

The version I listened to that day was a live performance from Milan in which Bono introduces the song by saying, "We'd like to turn our song into a prayer. And the prayer is that we don't become a monster, in order to defeat a monster. That's our prayer tonight."

As I heard these words, I was energized as I thought of Susan and her struggle--the pain she was going through with chemotherapy and radiation and surgery and everything else. The words echoed in my head: that we don't become a monster, in order to defeat a monster.

Since then, I have thought of Susan whenever I hear this song, which is often, as it's one of my favorites. I thought of the beauty she brought to her fight against this monster. I thought of the courage of her family and those around her. I think now of the beauty of team Fatty, fighting like Susan to raise over a half million dollars in this fight. That to me is the embodiment of beauty and courage and hope. After all, why would we give, why would we put energy towards this fight, if we had no hope?

Last night as my youngest daughter's bedtime approached, she began to cry for her mommy. Rachel was gone shopping, so I tried to comfort her, telling her mommy would be home soon. I held her and hugged her and rocked her and tried to calm her, but she continued to cry. I began to sing to her "Sleep, sleep tonight. And may your dreams be realized. If the thundercloud passes rain, so let it rain, rain down on me..."

As I sang to her, and she began to calm, I realized she was not the only one in need of comfort.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold

Her hardest hue to hold

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

-Robert Frost

Thank you, Susan, for showing us what it means to be gold.

Ignorance is bliss

Didn’t pack a lunch today and was trying to figure out what to eat. I’d spent some time on a stationary bike being a lab rat for Pat this morning and was starved by lunch time.

Cafe Rio sounded good, but I figured even a salad was going to be about a bazillion calories. Checked out the daily plate on Livestrong.com and found that it was 800.

That seemed a bit much, so I looked at Jimmy John’s. I only ever get one thing there: the Italian Night Club. I was horrified to find that it was over 1,000 calories and nearly 60 grams of fat. For just the sandwich. A Whopper is better for you, and TWO Big Macs are about the same. Yikes!

So I looked through a handful of other options that are within a few blocks of my office. And realized that packing a lunch most days is a good idea for more than just financial reasons.

In the end I went to Cafe Rio and threw half my tortilla away. I’ll miss Jimmy John’s. I may still eat there occasionally, but I’ll never enjoy it quite as much.

Thanks, Andrea

When I was in college, I worked as a production assistant at what was at the time the largest ad agency in Salt Lake City. When I went to business school, one of my marketing professors used the “Intel Inside” campaign as the benchmark for how to do branding. When he found out I used to work [as a complete and total peon] at the agency behind that campaign, his reaction was a little embarrassing.

Anyway, I had nothing to do with the campaign short of driving proofs or film to Fedex so the Intel brand managers could OK them or the magazine or newspaper could print them. And the campaign has really nothing to do with this blog post other than the fact that the last person to sign anything before it went before the client or went into production was our proofreader, Andrea.

Andrea was awesome and worth way more than what she got paid. When Microsoft had a glaring copy error in one of their Wall Street Journal ads, one of the copywriters posted it on the door of his office with a note that said “thanks, Andrea.”

Thanks to Andrea, I am adamant about using a serial comma before a conjunction, even though most of the copywriters HATED that she made them do that. I don’t remember the details, but Andrea told me there was a will or other legal document that stipulated that something was to be split between Party A, Party B and Party C. The courts decided, for lack of a serial comma, that Party A was to get 50%, while Party B and Party C were to split the other 50%. Had there been a comma before the “and,” the parties would have split it three ways equally.

I sometimes wish I had someone like Andrea to proofread my blog before I post. It would probably save some embarrassment. Of course Dug and Rachel are pretty good about letting me know of the really-obvious-to-everyone-but-me errors, which I can fix after posting. So considering how little is on the line with this blog, I should be happy just to have that.

OK, I’m having some trouble staying focused, but what I was eventually hoping to get at was that Andrea wasn’t just good about finding copy errors. She also would have prevented stuff like this from going out the door. Seriously? Did someone not notice that, or was it intentional? I’m going with intentional.

Of course some things not even a proofreader like Andrea would fix; they just need to be redone completely. But that’s why we employed some pretty good copywriters: to help save clients from themselves. Otherwise, you might end up with copy like this:

With careful consideration from an analytical approach of our core team and a collaborative effort from our consultants domestically and overseas, our business model has come full circle and represents the very best in resort entertainment possible. A comprehensive and in-depth marketing study in conjunction with steadfast planning sessions have led us to a rigorous regiment of continuous improvement and refinement to our new business model. We have determined how to maximize our impact to our community of [specified location] and plan to execute this model by the end of this year.

Our Mission is to provide the very best in quality family entertainment to our community and the surrounding area. We will continue a long standing tradition of excellence in entertainment and business that will bridge into the coming decades utilizing our 20 year history of providing the very best entertainment and decades of experience in the ever changing industry of entertainment and hospitality.

When I first read this, I thought it was a contest to see how many times they could re-use the words decades, entertainment, and industry in a statement that really doesn't tell me anything. Either that or a game of buzzword bingo* where one of the key participants didn’t know everyone else was kidding.

Thankfully the person who wrote this had the good sense to send it to his ad agency and ask them to clean it up. I just happened to rescue it from the cutting room floor, as it were, to use as an example. (No, it’s not my company or one I’m even associated with in any way or ever have been. I just sorta found it.)

If your company employs someone like Andrea that makes the rest of you Philistines look way, way better than you would on your own, go tell her thank you. She deserves that and a whole bunch more.

*When I was in B-school the rules were that once you got Bingo, you had to raise your hand and use the word “Bingo” in a comment rather than just yelling it out. The best execution of this I have ever seen was by a classmate, coincidentally also named Andrea, whose use of “Bingo” was so natural that I felt like delayed reaction man once I finally realized what was going on.

Bike racing is stupid

On paper, the Tour DAY Park City should be the best road race in the Intermountain West. 170 miles, 9,544 feet of climbing that takes you over a 10,700 foot pass and through some of the most scenic country in the most scenic state in the nation. The race is fully supported, with musette bags for the racers and wheel cars following behind--no need for your own support vehicle, unlike Lotoja. In addition to the climbing, you've also got a six mile "pavé" section of dirt road. Kind of like a spring classic and a grand tour mountain stage all rolled into one.

Moreover, it's located in Park City and starts and ends in the same place, which has ample parking and dining choices for after. The Park City location means I can sleep in my own bed the nights before and after the race. Really, what more could you ask for?

Here's what I would start with: the name. Why in hell do race organizers feel compelled to use "de" in race names? We're not in France. The word "tour" means the same thing in French and English. We live in an English-speaking country, so why can't they call the race "Tour of Park City?" Tour of Utah, Tour of California, and dozens of others get it right. But Tour DAY Park City and Tour DAY Georgia insist on being all Francophile and crap. Get over yourselves. If you're going that route, why not call it the "Giro di Park City" or the "Vuelta a Snyderville?" The fact that the Tour DAY Georgia got mothballed this year should serve as a lesson to all race organizers that if you don't want to offend sponsors, viewers, and the local Red State government that you shouldn't use French words in the name of your race.

Name notwithstanding, the real problem is that for all the good intentions of this event, the execution is pretty weak. It's a new race, and they're still getting through some growing pains. Regardless, 170 miles is a long way and it's dangerous to have people out there that long if things aren't working like they should. Good thing for them we sign away our rights before it even starts.

The problems began with the rollout. In every other UCA race, the Cat. 5 field is limited to 50 racers, and the Cat. 4s go out in their own wave. If there are more than 50 Cat. 5s, they split the field. Except yesterday. There were close to 100 Cat. 5s and another 50ish Cat. 4s. We all started together. For at least half of the Cat. 5 field, I'm guessing this was their first or second race.

To describe this many inexperienced riders--all wanting to be in the front half in order to stay out of trouble, even when they're the ones causing the trouble--as a rolling junk show would be an understatement. It was a clustercoitus, a SNAFU, absolutely frightening more often than not.

In the first 60 miles, there were at least three crashes. Could have been more that I wasn't aware of. Centerline violations were de rigeur, most notably from a guy in full Caisse D'Epargne kit,* who would go left of the double yellow to get around a bunch of people, then get back in the group and ride with his hands off the bars while he fiddled with something. He was a menace.

*Why do people wear team kits for Pro Tour teams? This will be the topic of a future post, but suffice it to say someone so attired in a race is nearly always someone about to cause a crash and to be avoided at all costs.

The first feed zone was a disaster in more ways than one. First was the obvious confusion of so many people who had never been through a feed zone before. Then there was the volunteer who left her baby sitting in the stroller right to the side of the road. At least one wreck was caused by riders trying to avoid the stroller itself.

Then there was what was in the actual feed bag. The race bible said there would be two bottles, one with water, one with energy drink from the event drink sponsor. There would also be peanut butter sandwiches, bananas, candy bars, probars, and other energy bars. I thought beforehand that this sounded great and I'd just need to bring enough food for the first 50 miles, after which I would have more than enough. In fact, the description indicated that the feed bags would have more than enough so we could sort through and choose the things we wanted and still have plenty.

As I sorted through the feedbag, I felt like I was opening a preschooler's lunch box. There was half a banana, a microscopic Nestle Crunch bar that I think was somebody's kid's leftover halloween candy, and a quarter of a peanut butter sandwich. That's right. Not a half, a fourth. Maybe 50 calories. Oh, and there was a bag of Chili Cheese Fritos. Yes, Chili Cheese Fritos in a feed bag. At a bike race. Srsly.

To add insult to injury, the event drink/energy food sponsor was Hammer Nutrition, whose products are all complete and total crap. They keep sponsoring these events in hopes that having us use their garbage will make us want to actually buy it. My reaction is now one of wanting to avoid events that they sponsor, the stuff is that bad. The energy drink tastes awful and induces nausea, and their energy bars are made from ground-up raisins and cause a persistent gag reflex if you try and eat one. I threw the hammer bar on the side of the road, and a mangy stray dog whose ribs and spine were visible through its skin walked over, sniffed it, and walked away. OK, not really, but it would have, they're that disgusting.

Once we hit the dirt outside of Evanston, most of the Cat. 4s, including Tyler1 and Tyler2, whom I thought were the men to beat, and a handful of smart Cat. 5s had made their way to the front. As soon as we were on the dirt, they drilled it. 26-30 mph across a potholed, gravel-covered dirt road. The intent was clearly to shake off as many of the weaker riders as possible, which they did. Dug's colleague, whom we'll call Tyler3, thought he had a flat and slowed to check his wheel. We had talked about working together, but that was the last I saw of him.

At the water station in Evanston, I was already out of food again (yes, I ate the Chili Cheese Fritos) and asked the volunteers if they had any. One, who was holding a bag of food, told me "no." Clearly her bag of food was to support another racer, even though personal support was verboten. I knew I was in trouble at this point, as I already felt weak and needed something besides that crap Hammer sport drink. Steve gave me a pack of Gu Chomps that I took, feeling guilty that it may jeopardize his race.

The climb up Mirror Lake Highway is a war of attrition. It starts out gently and slowly ramps up and beats you into submission. The real climbing starts after you have over 100 miles in your legs, and nearly everyone is already hurting. From Evanston to the feed zone at about mile 100, nobody wanted to take a pull. There were four or five of us who would try and get a paceline going, but nobody would pull through. I sat up and soft pedaled at about 16 mph, and nobody responded but one Cat. 5 who didn't look like a climber. I let him be a hero and go up the road in a solo breakaway.

At this point the lack of food was really getting to me, and I told Steve I couldn't find a gear that didn't feel like I was climbing the North side of Suncrest. When we finally rolled into the feed zone, I grabbed my bag but also stopped at the tent to look for the Coke products that were supposed to be there. They had lemonade and Vault. I grabbed the Vault and pounded it, then I ate everything in my feed bag but the Spicy Nacho Doritos, which I stuck in my jersey pocket for later. No Hammer bar this time, or I would have gagged that down too. I just kept pedaling and hoped it was enough to get me to the next feed.

As we began the climb in earnest, Tyler1 moved to the front, but suprisingly didn't set a hard tempo. Steve, Tyler2, and a handful of others were in the group with us. I knew if I didn't run out of gas, I could hold this pace to the top.

About 2/3 of the way up, the bonk started rearing its ugly head again. My heart rate wasn't too high, my legs weren't burning. I just had no spark. I started falling off. I could see the leaders and with any energy at all could have chased back on. I watched them nearly to the top, tantalizingly close, but the elastic had snapped.

The worst thing about the Mirror Lake climb is that you get to the first crest and then descend for a few miles before starting up again and grinding away the last 1,000 feet to the true summit. I was alone at this point with nothing but the carnage of the shattered Cat. 1, 2, and 3 fields around me. I knew I was ahead of a lot of Cat. 4s but was never going to catch the leaders.

I grabbed food at the top and started descending, at this point downright angry about the inadequate food, the fact that I felt worse than I ever have on the bike (mostly from lack of food), and that there were Winnebagos pulling trailers full of motorcycles trying to pass me. My anger fueled my ride, and I rode solo to the final water stop at 150 miles. The water stations were supposed to have Coke products, but instead of sitting, oh, I don't know, at the side of the road in a cooler where people could actually get them, they were 50 yards away. Sitting in full sun on a 90 degree day. I didn't care. I waited for a volunteer to run and get me a hot coke and drank it as I soft pedaled until the group I saw behind me caught up.

All but one of the racers were from another category, so my only concern was not letting the Cat. 4 get around me. He fell off on the second-last climb. I stayed with the two riders that were left, but on the final climb, I was completely done. I stopped and asked the course marshall at the last intersection if she had any water. She said she had, but she'd already drunk from the bottle. Like I cared. She kindly gave it to me.

I was caught by a group of mostly Cat. 1 and 2 racers and followed them until about a mile from the finish, but then I was too blown to hold on and limped in alone.

I saw Rachel and the kids as I crossed the line. Then the first person I saw after that was Tyler1. "How'd it go?" I asked.

"It went OK." Not realizing Steve and I are brothers, he said, "I think your buddy won, though."


I was thrilled. I went and found Steve. It was down to him and Tyler2 at the end. Tyler2 was completely blown, so Steve pulled the last two miles and easily outsprinted him at the finish to take the win. Not only did Steve win, his time was better than the winning Cat. 3 and would have placed eighth in the Pro/1/2 field. (I realize these aren't apples to apples comparisons, as the tactics in each race are different unless it's a hill climb or TT, but I thought I'd point it out anyway.) Not bad work for his second race as a Cat. 4. I somehow managed to finish 10th.


Alex finished in the winning bunch of Cat. 3s and took third. After a couple fourth place finishes, this was his first podium as a Cat. 3. And he was apprehensive about upgrading. Sheesh.

During the descent and while I was soloing along for over 40 of the last 60 miles, I hated this race. I thought about how stupid racing bikes is to begin with. I wondered why I endure saddle sores, dehydration, starvation (both acute and chronic), and put in efforts intense enough to induce vomiting from time to time. It makes no sense. The Darwinist would say it's rooted in an instinctual desire to show potential mates how strong I am. But I'm married and monogamous, as are most of the guys I race against. You'd think the gene that triggers that stupid desire would figure that part out and that 30 and 40 somethings would lose whatever it is that makes us do this crap by now.


I have no answer to this. Bike racing is hard. It is miseable. There is very little about it that's fun while you're doing it. I had no reason or desire to do this race again next year. But Steve has to defend his victory. So of course I'll be right there with him.