Of balls and bikes

North Bend, WA
March 15, 2006


I was watching a Sonics Basketball game some time ago and noticed a witty commercial by Subaru. I was going to mention it here but it crossed my mind. Anyway, it showed some Subaru and played a Sheryl Crow song. I thought it was pretty amusing, but I don’t think most people would make the connection there, and even if they did I can’t imagine that that knowledge would tempt/convince someone to throw down 30 g’s for a car… maybe it would, I guess it makes people buy bikes, specifically one that begins with a t.
On the subject of basketball, while I was down in San Diego with the National Team, someone brought up the “talent subject-” in which one compares the relative talent within certain sports. The comparison of course was between basketball and cycling, specifically the relative talent of Kobe Bryant and Lance Armstrong. If they switched sports who’d be better? Of course the answer is that Lance would be better because Kobe’d quit after the first week. However, if you leave dedication out of the equation, who’d be better off of raw talent? My opinion is that cycling and basketball require a completely different set of physiological features, & Lance is an example of the ultimate cycling machine- aside from the fact that he’d be able to beat Kobe at anything purely off his mental capacity to produce what seems to be an extraordinary amount of determination. So the answer is that Lance could beat Kobe at any sport except basketball, well maybe only endurance sports...