You read a lot about how rotten the Internet is, how it's laden with sexual content and malware and viruses, how it leads to molestation and murder, how it's making people fat and dumb and lazy. There's a flipside to that coin, something that often goes unstated, that the Internet is the greatest democratising communications tool ever invented and it lets us people share their wisdom and their lives across vast distances quickly and cheaply.
There's lots of blogs I read regularly, but here's two that have struck a chord recently. One of my greatest Internet joys is seeing a new post lob on Dave Moulton's bike blog. I don't know Dave and I'm unlikely to ever meet him, but thanks to the world wide web I can enjoy his pearls of wisdom from afar. He's a great writer and has a terrific perspective from decades of riding and framebuilding.
Kent Peterson, (above) calls himself the Mountain Turtle, after his riding pace. I'm a regular reader of his blog too. He's off to Race the Tour Divide 2010 in a few days. It's a non-stop self-supported race the length of US Grade Dividing Range. Quite an undertaking to be sure.
I've never met Kent either but thanks to the Internet, a few bucks I earned in Hobart, Tasmania are now doing something more interesting that paying bills by helping a guy chase his dream. I'm not sure why I feel like I'm along for the ride, but it's a wonderful thing to be able to support an ordinary person to do something extraordinary. I suppose in a way I'm sponsoring a racing team!
Kent rolls out in a few days, if you're a fellow cyclist you can follow the link on his blog to support him via Paypal. You'll know for sure he'll make the money go a long way - 4418km to be exact. All power to the Mountain Turtle.
Posts
