Quote Originally Posted by uforgot View Post

Sometimes I hate small town life, no Starbucks, and everone knowing my business, but when I look at your stories, I realize I may not WANT to move back to St. Louis like I thought. Now if only I had more than 8 miles of pavement in any direction. sigh. (But it's all good, we have awesome gravel roads and I'm in touch with my mountain biking side, too).
I'm with uforgot. I also live in a tiny place and not many cyclists and no women. Even the lbs partner said once to another customer "There are 2 women riders round here - me and her"
But people love to see me on my bike. They know I love it and they know what I have been through. Everybody loves a fighter. Everybody wants to see you beat the odds (in whatever way eg illness, injury, misfortune).
That said, they don't necessarily want to do it their actual selves. I think it *does* provoke them to see what is possible if you really set yourself to achieve something and that frightens them at a deep level. Because it means they have no excuse for their own lack of achievement. So they say "Ah, yeah margo is weird/different/special. The normal universal laws of physics and energy don't apply to her for some reason."

Interesting discussion...
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