Mojo

Not to steal Feltslave's punchline for his well written web log up right now. But Mojo got me thinking. I used to always race with some sort of Mojo. It was a random bit here or there. Something goofy usually. I started doing it when i start racing MTBs. nothing heavy. nothing huge. but it was something.

maybe it is time to bring Mojo back on the cross rig.

There are shots floating around the internet of one US Pro racing cross in europe sporting some mojo my girls made for her last year. that was cool. very cool.

Now i sit wondering what would symbolize my mojo now. Mojo isn't static. It is dynamic like any healthy thinking person could be. Flip flopping back and forth with the scales of evidence, making you think one way then the other as you become aware of new facts. Sure. Many might say it is not appropriate to make/form/state an opinion until all the facts are reviewed. That, i feel, is not the right approach. If you take a position don't let it be immovable, esp in light of new evidence. Even if it is new to you. Change (or as some people call it flip flop) isn't a bad thing.

Changing your mind. Changing your opinion, is good. Don't make it a one way street.

One thing that won't change for me, at least for a long time, is that the sport/discipline of cyclocross gives me an identity. It gives me motivation, it really fuels my positive thought processes. Even the worst cross race has some positive lesson to teach, and is, even in the pit of pain, fun. Scrapes bruises, crashes, rolled tubulars, high siding, endos... all a small price to pay to participate, to compete. To work on getting better. Maybe, as cheesy as it sounds, my Mojo is racing cross. Maybe it is just getting to the line, and racing. Giving it everything i have at that moment. Maybe that is enough Mojo.

But then, it is hard to deny the positive re-enforcement that a physical embodiment of that mojo can offer.

All the talk of the new 'zine out keeps bringing me back to one of the other 'new' 'zines on the "shelf"

Urban Velo. Granted it speaks to my commuting side. It speaks to the alter cross ego. And it is a damn fine 'zine. I've been D/L the whole thing but when they bumped up the page number i've just started reading it on the lappy. Granted. I do like reading paper. I like the lack of power consumption it takes to open and just read a page or two (vs firing up the whole computer just to read/check on something) ya get with paper. But then, paper takes energy to make. Takes energy to print, takes energy to ship and all that. Sort of one of those gray areas.

From what i have gathered on a limited scope, Urban Velo and CXMagazine are taking two different approaches as start ups. UV is doing the free download of the whole thing, but recently from demand and requests has offered a print subscription option. $18 for 6 issues. With 70 odd pages, that's a decent couple minutes of reading. I'm sure CXmag will be worth it to. And i am optimistically hoping that it will shake Urban Velo from the top of my 'zine ranking. But hey, Urban Velo brings us links to cool things like DIY trailers! Although, i'm not quite ready to build a bamboo kiddie trailer, yet. Anyway, i guess it seems i favor the way Jeff and the gang at UV went about the 'zine start up. Do a good job and let people demand a print version. The real test will be in how long these stay in print. Will we watch them rise and fall like Winning? Will the publishers of Bike, or MBA or worse maybe Rhodale take over and clamp the irons of conformity and kill the spirit of these two? Maybe Dirt Rag and UV and CXmag can bond and form the NEW media Mogul. Will both fall to the corporate giants of acquisition like cyclingnews? Like most things, only time will tell.

time will tell...

till then do stuff you know have a positive impact, as minute as each action can be, every effort makes a difference. After, if a butterfly can flap its wings and create a hurricane, doing the smallest thing in your life can magnify into something huge and beneficial, and may be the one tiny thing that keeps this world from melting away as we know it.

smile,
-G