1. The bicycle kick. 2. Let me get back to you on that one. 3. SEE #2. Okay, I admit I wrote that title for the clicks. One does wonder about the history after seeing a number of them in the 2026 FIFA World Cup, all of them failing to score goals so far, I think, It would be a quick Wikipedia search to find out why it’s called a bicycle kick and who invented it and so on. Seems like it’s mostly done out of desperation or for show. It’s not good for your back if you land wrong, and you definitely risk a yellow card if you kick somebody in the face doing it. Of course it’s very cool when it does work. Maybe it’s a good metaphor for this blog post:  All style and no substance. But maybe I can salvage some inspiration from it.

What comes to mind is that as a kid, my brother and I played quite a lot of soccer. Usually not on the same team since he was 2 years my younger (and still is). Of course it’s a team sport, and there’s running and Kicking and Screaming (the title of an early Will Ferrell movie with Robert De Niro that was pretty amazing). There’s no crying in baseball, but there sure is in soccer.

Also kissing and hugging, although more so with the European and Latin American teams. Dancing, singing, chanting, weird goal celebrations, and basically the full spectrum of emotions. Your team can be up a goal and be down two goals in two minutes.

Oh there’s also diving, just not into water, it just means pretending to get ticked and be heard when you’re really not or field advantage. The beautiful game also has its ugly side, like hooligans, racism, nationalism, FIFA corruption, and more. Like no hero is all good, no villain is all evil.

But this isn’t a one-blog attempt ro review the World Cup. There are far too many stories for that. I’m just searching for some relevance or deeper meaning to it all. Have I mentioned that I’ve watched every game, or for those that were double scheduled to prevent collusion, I watch the 20-minute replays? I have.

And I can do this because as mentioned in my last post my 6 year 8 month and 19-day consecutive daily bicycling streak came to a screeching, grinding, sudden stop two weeks. Quite unceremonilusly, I might add, aside from a few comments here and on Strava. It was not my choice. But also I knew it was coming. Besides I have no job to report to.

Only half minutes too keep up my daily walks and do very limited yoga, riding a bike is still off the table for and unknown amount of time. I used to report on the 11th of july, October, January, and April on the status of my drama statistics. Aside from my total daily 30 minutes of walking and saying for yoga, there’s simply nothing of note to report.

Except I suppose how it feels to not bicycle after so much time bicycling.   I’d like to say there is a lot of mixed emotions, but I knew it was coming and so I accepted the issue rather stoically. I’d already been slowing down considerably since the gig earlier in the year and having that my 52,000 mile, decade-long goal (a week early) in November of 20 25.

[To be completed soon…]