Honking Love

When I was first learning to ski, just over ten years ago, a Boeing engineer told me "If you're not falling, you're not learning." I took that to heart. When I ski, I don't always go into nasty places just so I can fall down, but I try to do it often enough that I get better. It's how I learned terms from my little sister like "tucking trees," "ski armor," and "mandatory deduction."

Cycling has proven to be much the same. However, instead of falling, I depend on my motoring friends to warn me if I've been taking things a little too easy. If I get too many interactions or days without a single "toot," it's a warning that I need to get out of my comfort zone a bit to sharpen my skills and expand the "ZONE OF UTTER COMFORT." Put another way, if you just stood out in an open field a mile from the nearest road, with a wall around you, nobody would EVER honk at you. But you wouldn't get anywhere and you'd never get better. Remember, if they're not honking (at least once in a while), you're not learning. It shows they still love you.

Postscript - That engineer broke his leg skiing the next year (on a run even I would have no trouble with), so his credibility might be suspect.