Bike racing can be beautiful

I was building my new team bike this week and thinking about bike racing. I had recently read an article about the etiquette of improvisation in jazz jam sessions.

The article gave an insider's perspective wherein "everyone pay[s] close attention to the other players and [is] prepared to alter what they are doing in response to tiny cues that suggest a new direction that might be interesting to take...everyone understands that at every moment everyone (or almost everyone) involved in the improvisation is offering suggestions as to what might be done next, in the form of tentative moves, slight variations that go in one way rather than some of the other possible ways...some of these suggestions begin to converge and others, less congruent with the developing direction, fall by the wayside. The players thus develop a collective direction that characteristically...feels larger than any of them, as though it had a life of its own."
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Most criterium racers could offer a similar account. When you are in tune with your teammates' abilities and limitations and can respond accordingly, bike racing can be as beautiful as jazz.

Just a thought as I'll miss not having much time to jam with teammates this season.

"Clearly, we could identify a whole range of kinds of situations, varying between the two poles of those that work on the basis of an etiquette that recognizes and maintains a formal ideology of equality of status and those whose etiquette requires recognition of differentials in the contribution made to the collective effort."

Becker, H.S. (2000). The etiquette of improvisation. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 7(3), 171-176.