Do You Really Want To Know?

What's on the other side?

 We asked for listener questions the other day on the latest Guitar Ted Podcast, and one came in this past weekend which had me thinking quite a bit. The question will get addressed soon enough, but one part of the consideration I had for the question landed on something which is close to my heart. 

Do we really need to know? 

You might say in answer, "What do you mean?  What is it we might need to know?" 

And it could go a lot of ways from this point.  But keeping things cycling related, I was thinking that, speaking for myself here, I tend to get a lot more excited about going on a ride where there are elements to the ride I do not know about. Unfamiliarity with a course, or roads, is an obvious one there.  

It could be as simple as taking a road I haven't been on, ever, or for a while. Or it could be meeting new people. Whatever it is, not knowing things is exciting. Taken a bit further, getting lost is even more exciting. Okay, you may not like feeling lost, but sometimes I do like this feeling. As long as the end comes out on the positive side, I think getting a little lost is fun. 

I know.....I'm a bit odd that way. 

So, I saw this new bit from some route-finding app which promises AI analytics for any given gravel course. You plot in the route, say from a GPS file you were sent by an event, and this program tells you all about the road surfaces, elevation gradients, and more. Now......maybe it actually works, I do not know. I don't care either. But what got me was that people want to spoil their experience. To me, this takes all the excitement right out of going to an event. 

Image by Wally Kilburg (R.I.P.)

 Maybe if you "know all the stuff" ahead of time it makes you feel safer. Perhaps this is the motivation? Or perhaps you "have an advantage" of some sort? I don't know. I think you've just sucked the life out of your possible cool experience. But you do you....

The world is a dangerous place. Knowing everything" you can know ahead of time does not take the danger away. It is a sick illusion. It just takes your focus off the thing that could be giving you "life". That "oh shit!" moment when your heart rate spikes and you somehow pull out of there with most of your skin intact and a great story to tell. I don't know, but I'd rather have that than a saran wrapped, safe ride with zero surprises and nothing exciting. 

Image by Jason Boucher

Kind of like the day we did the Tree In The Road Ride. Nothing turned out like we expected it to. There was a split in the group, we got sort of lost, our GPS units were being weird, and it was hot as Hades, but ya know what? 

It was damn fun. That's what. 

Had I known what lay ahead that day? Had I known it wasn't going to work the way we had intended it to? Yeah.... I probably would have totally short-circuited one of the funnest rides I've been on in a long time. 

Sometimes it is better not to know.