Why do people care about winning or losing?

What is winning and what is losing?

Is it a silly concept created by humans to make us superior to each other?

Is it a natural instinct from when our ancestors had to survive the cruel world?

Anyhow, I don’t like the word winning and losing. I simply think it makes more sense to appreciate the joy you get from doing what you love instead of competing with people with the same interests.

That being said, I attended a checkpoint race Called OMM.

Hakuba Village, the venue of the event was beautiful. I’ve heard multiple stories of this place but man, everywhere I look had a pretty view.

Taking a deep breath while pedaling gave me a very relaxing feeling, a kind of feeling you can never experience around Tokyo.

I wish I had taken much more photos of the people who I met at the booths, but it was pretty cool to say what’s up to a lot of the people from shops we are friends with and see bikes that I wasn’t aware of.

Being a member of the online store team, I hardly have the chance to meet people from other shops or communities, so it was quite nice to get outside and meet new people to connect.

I was also saved by Circles for having a Bedrock Sandal in my size. The previous sandals I had were killing my pinky toe. Shoutout to Circles for distributing Bedrock in Japan. (I’m extremely sorry for my disgusting feet pic)

The BBQ at night was also pretty chill. We got rained out but camping makes rain less annoying for me. Not unless it’s not a storm.

The most thing I was stoked on is that I was able to sleep in a tent.

Waking up in the morning and realizing that I had slept throughout the night was almost touching.
If you are one of those people like me who gets anxious sleeping in tents, I highly recommend applying a sleep mask or a bandana to cover your eyes. I think ear plugs will make things even better.

It was raining in the morning, but munching on a grilled Sandwich that my homie made, while listening to the sound of the rain under the tarp was somewhat cozy.

“OMM! OMM!!”

The crowd of riders shout as they hype each other up to start the race in the rain. Gotta admit that this was pretty epic moment.

As you can see, I was really enjoying the race.

All jokes aside, this was the first time I spent hours on the saddle and we were constantly riding in a pace I would never ride in, so it was pretty tough, but my team mates were hyping me up so I was able to finish.

This is a checkpoint race so speed isn’t the key and it’s not a super serious event, so it’s really up to your team to ride hard or to take it easy, but my team mates were super into getting many points, so I tried super hard to keep up with them to not let them down.

Made it to the finish line in time. I didn’t even know or care about the results. All I cared is that I did it.

Staring at my dirty bike with the feeling of accomplishment was not bad. Feeling this post high school basketball practice type of feeling at this age was pretty cool.

To put a conclusion to my OMM report, I think it’s safe to say I enjoyed it overall. I met with new people, got to ride this amazing place called Hakuba Village and riding this kind of un-real terrain gave me more curiosity towards bicycles. What if I had drop bars? How would have the ride felt with SBDs? The list goes on.

In this type of job, it’s over when you lose curiosity. It’s very important to try out new things in life. That’s how you don’t become a grumpy old head. Just going to one event gave me a lot of inspirations, so I’d like to thank OMM and the organizers for holding such a sick event annually.


I’m sending out a super athletic college next year.

✌️

-Shin