The scratch

A friend of mine once got a brand new candy apple red full carbon aero road bike with a Dura Ace di2 groupset and 50mm deep carbon Enve wheels. It was his pride and joy. Too precious to be stored in the garden shed it spent its non road time in his spare bedroom covered in a duvet.

The bike was washed after every spin, only used in very good weather and polished once each week, even on weeks when it did not venture outdoors.

All was good until the day disaster struck. After a nice two hour spin the bike was washed and brought into the kitchen to dry when his phone rang. It was an important work call so he went into his home office to take the call. Just as he was finishing up he heard a faint banging noise coming from the kitchen. He went to investigate and was confronted with the sight of his 3 year old son using a sweeping brush on his bike. He shouted out ‘what are you doing?’

With a smile on his face his son replied ‘helping Daddy clean his bike’

He grabbed the sweeping brush and shouted at his son ‘Never ever touch my bike’ His son ran off crying.

He examined the bike and his worst fears were confirmed. A small staple on the head of the brush had scratched the left side of the top tube. It was at least 20mm long. He was devastated.

For weeks afterwards every time he looked at the bike all he could see was the 20mm scratch. He no longer saw the carbon frame, the Di2 groupset or the Enve wheels. All he could see was the scratch. The enjoyment he felt taking the bike out on the road was no longer there. To say he was depressed would be no exaggeration.

Then one day he received a call from his son’s daycare. His son had a fall, hit his head resulting in a nasty cut and there was an ambulance on the way. Luckily it was not as bad as it originally looked and after a nights observation in hospital he was able to return home. Since the day of the scratch he had been cool with his young son but now he finally found some perspective and was overcome with guilt.

Reality also hit home. It was only a small scratch, had no effect on the performance of the bike and was something you would have to look very close to see. He was focusing on the smallest imperfection and overlooking the 99.9% that was perfect.

How often do we all overlook all the good things we have in life and all that is going in our favour to focus on some small problem that we won’t be able to even remember in a weeks time.

Forget about the scratches in our lives and focus on the carbon frame, Di2 group sets and Enve carbon wheels. Focus on what’s good, focus on what you have going for you, focus on being happy.

Barry