Let’s start with the meaning of Chèvre. In French it means “goat.” You are correct, recalling your high-school French that Fromage is “cheese.” The bigger question, why goat. Goat’s seem to play a prevalent role is cycling -- I have no clue why. I know of one “Solo Goat” rider. Then there are “Goat Heads” what we typically call sand-spurs in this neck of the woods, because we have more sand than goats, no doubt. Goats can be linked to voodoo or satanic rituals and I happen to think cycling is one hell of a sport. I have included the image from my profile in the blog content. Seems some of the viewers out there get a picture of a rose or kitten which is not image I wanted to portray! One look at the correct image would have answered your initial question immediately. There, cleared the air on “goat.”I needed a moniker when I was training for last year’s Mountain Mama. While that is in the mountains and I have only flats to ride on, I chose Little Goat over Flat Goat. Seemed to have a better ring to it and sounded less like road kill. The change to French was a pedal stroke of genius or the result of watching too much Tour de France. I would like to claim the former as it is more inspirational. Most things sound better in a romance language anyway. And here I must thank you for your catch on gender.
You pointed out that “Petite” refers to the female in French while “Petit” is the male. You will note it has changed on the blog. Thank you for the catch! I do not want to be known on the World Wide Web as a Little Girl Goat -- just among my golfing buddies. I have never been blessed with strong grammar skills. You see when I was going to take grammar in junior high school the teacher had a nervous breakdown over the summer. They replaced her with the science teacher, one Mr. Leon Holland. I’m sure you remember him, Nanny, he was probably eighty whey YOU had him for science. A smallish man with shock white hair and a hunched back. He always wore (maybe still does) black pants, white sort sleeved shirt with a thin black tie. I think it was a throw back to his days working on The Manhattan Project. He had a droll, monotone way of speaking and emphasized his points by vigorously wrapping his knuckles on the soapstone science lab counters. I was much more into dissecting his mannerisms than paying attention to his English lessons -- as a result I paid dearly for in my three years of German -- both times. The end result is that I paid too little attention to matters like “male versus female” genders. I can tell you the atomic weight of a verb however. πR2R.
Next up, Nifi. There is a trend toward anonymity on the Web, blogs in particular. While I am sure I don’t need to worry about my wife having a stalker, why take the chance by putting her information out there publicly? Nifi, or more correctly in Greek -- Nuephe -- means “wife.” There are some “brides,” a few “wifey’s” so I chose something a bit more exotic and landed on the Americanized Nifi (pronounced Nee-fie, just made that up too).
Finally the insanity issue. I chose cycling as sport years ago because I was not a team sorts guy. I sucked at hockey, football found me down more than up and the hand-eye coordination of baseball put me out in no-man’s land. Fortunately I discovered all this by the time I was eight. Now I am by no-means a competitive cyclist, but I do enjoy the camaraderie of riding with friends. But for some reason I train alone -- must make the “team” rides even better. I guess to supplement the challenge of not going too fast, I like to go further, where it is hotter and going up a hill becomes a respiratory event. Too, as I explain to Nifi, that training might keep us from spending time together, but I will be healthier so we can live longer. And spend more time apart. The honest answer is I need a challenge apart from working. Cycling is a great lifetime sport that has a core group who “gets it.” It is satisfying. The distance? Well I suppose that feeds on itself, bigger challenge (within reason) and I use Lab Rescue fund-raising as the motivator. For cycling, labs, Nifi and you, it all comes down to love.
Spin On
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