Cycling

I've put out a few requests for a postcard from the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, but in the meantime my last Atlanta Summer Olympics postcards will have to do.

Was it during the Atlanta Olympics that cycling started to become so big?  It seems the amount of riders has exploded in the last ten or so years, with expensive bikes, designer duds, and a direct drift to seriousness.

We used to ride  bikes a lot, BC (before children).  We'd throw the bikes on the back of the VW Rabbit, and head to Sonoma or Napa or Bodega Bay.  It was an incredible way to spend a Saturday or Sunday, either riding a relatively long route (I think our longest was about 40+ miles), or meandering from winery to picnic spot and back.  Now, the biking is called cycling and it seems a LOT more intense.

What is it with our culture where at some point with any new activity, a group breaks away and starts going all out, and the whole thing gets very intense?  Is it the sheer numbers of baby boomers, and the never ending desire to be faster, stronger, louder, longer?  To have the most expensive toys?  To be the first with the best, and use it better than anyone?  Is it looking for a way to displace energy that used to be focused on attempting to make the world a better place?  I suppose the sociologists have an answer, or perhaps the psychologists, but I certainly don't.