Nobody beats the Biz
Biz Markie was a great rapper and beat boxer and influenced a generation of rappers and hip hop lovers. He was also an avid record collector. His style was unique and often humorous but he was serious about his craft. As for my cycling he is in heavy rotation as I ride around Saitama and Tokyo prefectures thinking about his influence on hip hop culture.
The rain has gone but the heat has replaced it. In about a month I’ll be back home. Just trying to savor the time I have left with my family. I finally got some new bar tape. My rear tire was rubbing on my frame. A shop mechanic realized that my tires which were 25s were too large for my narrow frame and so he suggested 23s. He was right and so now I will be much faster minus the friction. It probably cost me in a few epic encounters I had out on the Arakawa River but you live and you learn and adapt.
The more you ride, the more you learn and the better you get. That has been my experience. The Biz had a song called the Vapors about starting out as a rapper and people not taking him and his friends getting dissed. It’s a classic rap song and something a lot of us can relate to. I’m kind of in that mood now. People will diss you in life and then try and come back and patch things up. You know your value but they try and tell you have none. With cycling life has become more clear, I guess you can say the same thing about rapping or anything else you do. The better you become at something and the more centered you become, things get clearer and so you start to feel a new inner strength and that might mean you leave certain people or situations behind.
These are challenging times for all of us. The Olympics here in Japan are filled with problems but for some people the show must go on. Climate change is real and the world is feeling it though some are denying it as well as the fact that the pandemic is real too. I will get vaccinated when I return home. When one of your favorite rapper dies and he is not much older than myself, it really hits home how important health is. I’m at that age when things start to happen physically and so that is why cycling is so important.
Health is wealth but nobody beats the Biz!