*And I plan to do more!

I have no idea. Except that riding itself is a progressive, evolutionary act. I’m a better rider than I was a few years ago. And, despite my permanent place in the middle of the pack, the inherent physical (and mental) benefits are accruing, laying a foundation for a future of healthy living. That is, riding, and racing, encourages a more sustainable lifestyle, whose dividends are an untold positivity. The investments I’m making now—the training, racing, lifestyle choices—could prove far more valuable when I’m 75 years old than any 401k or stock options ever will.

But what about right now? Or next year? Or the next 5 years**?

**If it were not for this blog, I’d have no idea what I did 5 years ago.

Recently, a co-worker asked me about my 5-year plan. “My what?”

“What do you want to be doing in 5 years?”

“Uh…”

A list of bike and ski irrelevancies flashed through mind: the Colorado Trail Race, the Breck Epic, the Coconino 250, the southwest face of Timpanogos, Superior…

I pushed those thoughts away long enough to act focused.

“Honestly, I have never thought that far ahead.”

I really hadn’t. Ever. And I still haven’t. At least, I haven’t in any specific, presentable form. There is no PowerPoint presentation on my desktop called “The Next 5 Years: The Future of Grizzly Adam.” When I do think about the future, the thoughts are abstract, obscure, and clouded. I do know that I want to write more. I’d like to climb a few more mountains. I want to show my kids the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, and more of Zion. I want to stretch my bike riding habit to its logical conclusion. What is that conclusion?

How should I know?

Actually, I hope there never is a conclusion. Not to bike riding, and not to adventures, bike races, and the desire to try new and interesting things.

I want to ride a bicycle forever.

It is a profound bit of symbolism that a bicycle can’t be ridden backwards. One can only go forward on a bike. Onward. Ahead.

Forward propulsion leads to mental, spiritual, and emotional progress. Pedaling a bike forces us to connect with our bodies and our minds. We learn to appreciate the sublimity of human strength, the acuity of gravity, and the conspicuous beauty of the world around us. Not only the beauty of the mountains and the sky, but the small things as well; flowers, rocks, dirt. We learn to slow down, even while becoming faster and more efficient riders. We are not so hurried, and the day’s urgencies fade into the background, forgotten for short, but wonderful moments of clean, circular happiness.

I don’t know what I will be doing in 5 years, and frankly, I don’t care. So long as a bike is still involved, then whatever it is I spend my days doing won’t really matter. As long I have the bike to keep me sane, healthy, and forward-focused, I will be happy. In other words, in 5 years, I hope I’m doing most of the same things I am doing today. Riding. Writing. And having the time of my life trying to improve at each.

Related posts:

1. What I’m Riding This Year
2. New. Year.
3. Happy New Year
4. A Year in the Books
5. And a Happy New Year

Image: David Stoker

The group splintered immediately. The stout, steep climb broke us apart like waves on breakwater. Those with the legs, rode away up the hill. The rest of us labored painfully over the top. I was dizzy. My breathing was deliberate and forced. My legs were screaming. “Why do I feel so sluggish?” I wondered if my brakes were rubbing, or if one of my tires was slowly going flat. No, the brakes were fine. And so were the tires. The sluggish, heavy feeling originated in my legs.

The climbing ended. I breathed deeply as the dizzy blur faded into clarity and focus. My legs started to feel better, lighter. I stood up and chased. Slowly riders started to grow closer. I passed one, and then another. And then a few more. But the lead group was gone. Gone forever. I glanced behind me. Nobody. Ahead? Nobody. I was, once again, in no-man’s land.

The race course at Soldier Hollow, Utah is really two courses in one. The lower half is fast, wide, and requires constant pedaling. The upper half is singletrack, and is a more traditional mountain bike experience: switchbacks, rocks, and no room for error. The sum of the parts is a unique course, part cyclocross, part mountain bike. The long sections of relatively flat terrain are interrupted by short and abrupt climbs that sear the legs and explode the lungs. They are not hills, so much as they are walls. Any easement in the pedaling, and the train of riders behind will charge by with sudden authority. It’s a course that requires one to go, and to go hard.

There is no place to hide.

And so, I went. Until I couldn’t anymore.

Being caught in no-man’s land was an undesirable predicament. With nobody visible ahead, there was nobody to chase. And with nobody chasing, there was nobody to run from. Complacency, and a false sense of speed, lulled me into a trance. Until the 40s, who had started a couple minutes back, started blowing by me. From top to bottom, the Expert 40s are the fastest (non-pro) group on the local circuit. That fact gives me hope. Who knew that mountain bikers get better with age?

One by one they came by, and one by one, I latched on for a tow. Grabbing the faster wheels forced me to dig a little deeper, and ride a little harder. I remained in categorical no-man’s land, but found a game of cat-and-mouse nonetheless. And in the end, progress. A little, anyway.

The next day, I brooded over my result. “How long am I going to bother with this eternal treadmill?” I wondered. “I won’t win many, or any, races. I won’t ever be as light or lean as the traditional cyclist. But I can be better, right?” But how much better? And to what end?

To what end? It’s a question that I ask all too often. Indeed, it’s a poisonous question. A way of quitting something before ever trying at all. It’s a question that breeds indifference, apathy, and destruction. To what end? Who cares! The results of anything we do—bike race, or otherwise—can’t be controlled, or pre-determined. There is no way to know with certainty if the latest campaign at work will succeed, or if anyone will read your book, or if you will win the next race. The variables are infinite, and the metrics of success, indefinite.

Later, I realized once again, that worrying about results, and that being disappointed with them, is futile and pointless. I raced hard. I did my best. And I am happy about the effort. I am encouraged and optimistic at the incremental improvements that are slowly, but unmistakably, manifesting themselves. And best of all, I had fun. A lot of fun. Racing bikes is supposed to be enjoyable. Why that is, or how that is, I will never understand. But pushing our bodies and minds beyond the limits of reason is delightful.

And, if there is an end, then that is it. Fun. Joy. Bliss.

Immediately after the race, riders were clustered together swapping stories and doling out praise to one another.

“Great race!”

“Nice move on that switchback at the top.”

“That attack was brutal, you blew my doors off!”

“Way to close the deal.”

There were high-fives and claps on the back. Hand shakes, and half-hugs. They were all handed out evenly, regardless of finishing times or placement. Everyone understood that everyone else had suffered, dug, and pedaled just as much as they possibly could. We were, at that moment, equal.

I love racing my bike. I love the joy and the pain. I love the people. I love the irrational justification.

But most of all, I love the riding.

We mountain bike racers are like children. We play in the dirt. We go fast. And we ignore reason.

In other words, we have fun. A lot of fun.

Image: David Stoker

No related posts.

  Pedal

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              Pedal Pedal Pedal Pedal Pedal

               Pedal Pedal Pedal Pedal Pedal Pedal

                  Pedal Pedal Pedal Pedal Pedal Pedal

                          Pedal Pedal Peal Pedal Ped—Vomit

          Coast

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 Coast Coast Coast

     Breathe Breathe Breathe

        Breeeeeaaaaatthe

     Breathe

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Related posts:

1. Soft Pedal
2. Soft Pedal. Hard Lessons

Related posts:

1. Recovery (Photos)
2. Autumn. Fall. (Photos)
3. Slideshow (Photos)
4. Random Photos
5. Black and White (Photos)

In 1944 Ray and Eva Stewart opened a small ski resort in the shadow of Big Provo Cirque, and Timpanogos. 25 years later, the resort, and many of the adjacent acres, were bought by Robert Redford. He called the place Sundance.

I first remember visiting Sundance when I was 10 years old. I learned to ski in a Sundance-hosted after-school ski program. A few years later, I started riding my mountain bike during the summer on the fledgling trail network. Since then, I have spent as much time on the Sundance slopes during the summer, as I ever had during the winter. The trail network, like mountain biking, has matured. Sundance itself has matured as well. But it remains a fairly quiet and quaint place.

Above the resort Timpanogos is abrupt. The National Forest is dense and layered. Folded canyons and deep woods surround the mountain, providing a wilderness and recreational paradise. Trails, waterfalls, backcountry ski slopes, and the most scenic road in North America* highlight the Fork, and make it one of the most loved places in Utah. Of the area, Robert Redford said:

This place in the mountains, amid nature’s casualness toward death and birth, is the perfect host for the inspiration of ideas: harsh at times, life threatening in its winters of destruction, but tender in attention to the details of every petal of every wildflower resurrected in the spring. Nature and creativity obey the same laws,
to the same end: life.

Racing a bike at Sundance has primal associations. My first “real” mountain bike race was at Sundance, on July 4th, 2001. I knew nothing about racing. I didn’t know any other racers, either. What I did know, was that I had wanted to race my bike for a long time. That summer, I finally did, and my life has never been the same. I know a little bit more about racing now. And I know a few more bike racers. But every race continues to be an adventure, and a conduit to something new. New insight. New stories. New injuries, scars, and bruises.

Saturday I raced once again at Sundance. It had been 2 years since I last raced there. It occurred to me as I warmed up for the event how much I had been missing the trails, the views, and the hills of Sundance. Memories of ski days, bike rides, hiking trips, and family picnics flooded back to life as I turned my pedals through the trees. Returning to the singletrack at Sundance was an overdue homecoming. I gaped up at the snowy peaks and felt happy to simply be there, in that place and at that time; until I was forced to brush away the nostalgia. I was there to race, not to reminisce.

*Go ahead, just try to find a drive more scenic than the Alpine Loop.

There were—and I counted—2,872 switchbacks on course at the Sundance Spin. OK, I didn’t count them. But there were a lot. We climbed switchbacks, we descended switchbacks. Tight, shaded, technical, and steep. Indeed, one was steep enough that it needed to be held together with a boardwalk. Of course, it’s designed to be ridden down, and so we, being hearty mountain bike racers, rode up the boards during the race. The grade was steep enough that I actually scraped my chin on my handlebars. But the racing, and the singletrack, was good. Great, even.

The top riders in my flight rode away at the start. I watched them go while silently vowing to (one of these days) start training. Really training. With intervals, power meters, heart rate monitors, and phases: Build, peak, recover. But silent vows are worthless at 180 beats per minute. And so, I raced with the gas I had in the tank. There was enough there to redeem myself from the sins of Lambert Park, but not enough to chase down that elusive group of riders that vanished up the hill and into the trees when the race began. Afterward, there were more vows. More promises.

But then, I’ve never raced my bike without making promises about the future. Even when I do really well, I am caught committing myself to keep that fitness, or to improve my handling skills, or to stop daydreaming meaninglessly during the race. “Focus! Pedal! Go!”

There are always more and better things to achieve on a bike. There are always new hills to climb, technical descents to survive, and dark, despairing places to illuminate. That we propel ourselves forward using eternal and circular wheels, chains and pedal strokes, is an appropriate metaphorical motif. Sometimes the only way forward, or upward, is constant, abiding repetition. Even after we reach the top, our return descent still requires wheels to roll, chains to spin, and pedals to turn.

Aristotle put it more concisely: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”

Going to the mountains has been a lifelong habit. And, whether on a bike, or not, that habit has created who I am. What I am. Being (and racing) at Sundance, a place where my love of the mountains was nurtured, reminded me of John Muir’s words, that “going to the mountains is going home.”

I’m already looking forward to returning to the mountains again, and making good on my promises to get fit, and to chase down the riders on the horizon, around the corner, and up the hill.

Image: Kendra Clark

Related posts:

1. The Sundance 12
2. More Sundance
3. Sundance
4. Spinning my Wheels
5. Sundance From Space

Maybe it happened when I started using clipless pedals. Or the first time I rode with a heart rate monitor. Or when I started shaving my legs more often than my wife. I once read (in Bicycling, if I remember correctly) that riding a century for the first time is a sort of signal flare, a way of telling your friends and family that all this bike riding is “more than a hobby, but a lifestyle.” I rode my first century at about the same time I started using clipless pedals, the heart rate monitor, and so forth. But the century was a symptom, rather than a disease. It was a natural, seamless continuation of a way of life that was becoming more and more enjoyable and important to me.

But between the landmark accomplishments and cultural integration, was something deeper and more nuanced happening in my life. I began to realize that riding a bicycle, itself a simple, common act, was changing the way that I saw the world. Riding a bike was causing me to think and see everything differently. Or, if not differently, at least more clearly. And I know that right now some of you who know (or think you know) how I see the world are rolling your eyes in amazed disbelief. “I know you,” you are thinking, “and there is nothing clear about your worldview!” Well. Imagine that view before I started bothering with the bike.

But I’m not defending my belief system. Not today. Rather, my point is that before I started riding regularly, that belief system was, at best passively dormant, and at worst, deliberately neglected. In other words, I never thought much about anything at all until I started to spend countless hours, usually alone and surrounded by beauty, on my bicycle. The only conversation available was internal. I had a choice: ride in silence, or talk to myself. I chose to talk. And to argue. Sometimes aloud. As if a cyclist in rural Utah isn’t already an anomaly, imagine one mumbling to himself, while riding alone on the west side of West Mountain.

Eventually, I started to reconcile what I wanted to believe, with what I knew was true. That process is (like fighting a dragon) ongoing, evolutionary, and at times, even revolutionary. I am a different person than I was 15 years ago. I suppose that would be true with or without the bike. But in my case, the bike was instrumental in my growth as an adult. That is, I grew up on a bicycle. And that’s probably why I see the world as a metaphor for cycling, instead of cycling as a metaphor for the world. I’m a cyclist; everything is a trail or a road to be pedaled. Everything is a hill to climb, a headwind to face, or a mechanical to fix.

The most important thing I’ve learned through all the hours, and among all the miles, is that cycling creates cyclists. Tautological? Clearly. But if other cyclists are anything like me, and there are a few of you that are, then I know that you are also arguing with yourselves while spinning across gravel roads in Iowa, climbing mountain passes in Colorado, or snaking over singletrack in Georgia. And that means that each of you are also growing up on bikes, and, regardless of the various and distinct conclusions that we each arrive at, that we can all be sure of one thing: the world needs more people on bikes.

Why? Because cyclists have learned that life is meant to be self-powered, spent with friends and family, and energetically cooperative. Cyclists understand that headwinds, while vexing, can be mitigated. Cyclists have realized that team time-trials and solo break-aways are not contradictory, or mutually exclusive. Indeed, they are symbiotic. That is, individual and cooperative accomplishments cannot exist without each other. Behind the solo victory is a team. And inside the team, are individuals. Too esoteric? Or too obvious?

Nevertheless, as cyclists we have learned that each of us have long, rocky, twisted miles in our legs. And that each of us have somehow found a way to ride those miles. Along the way, we learned. We argued. With ourselves, and with each other. But as we argued, we also pulled each other through the wind and up the hill.

And that’s why the world needs more cyclists.

Related posts:

1. We Are Cyclists

Mythology is rampant with dragons. Dragons occupy our collective stories, from ancient Greece, to China, India, and Europe, and even to current American and English pop-culture. The dragon is a universal symbol of evil, chaos, or struggle. Throughout mythology a dragon is always slain by a hero, often an unsuspecting, humble, reluctant everyman; a man who draws his power to defeat the beast, not from nobility or royalty, and not from magic or brute strength, but from righteous honor and the worthiness of his cause and character. The motif is common and inspiring, even today. Who among us does not have dragons to slay?

Our lives are rife with opposition. Everyday we must fight off the forces of apathy, discontent, and entropy. The dragons of disease, tragedy, and conflict are ever-present, circling high overhead, waiting and watching. Dragons are infinite and inevitable. They are eternal, and indefatigable. However, these dragons can be defeated. We can win. Indeed, what choice do we have, but to win? Our cause is just. Our swords are sharp. And our hearts are pure. If the battle is inevitable, victory is imminent. But fight, we must.

There is no better way to fight dragons, than bike racing.

In bike racing, as in dragon fighting, we are never really done. When one race is finished, there is another to prepare for. Another race, another day of uncertainty, fear, and darkness. But bike racing teaches us to see in the dark. Or rather, to see through the dark. In a bike race we do the impossible. We overcome. Our continual quest for fitness, for better results, and for eternal glory, is an ongoing ascension, a perpetual climb. The higher we climb, the stronger we become. But climbing higher increases our encounters with dragons. Dragons love mountain tops. Where there is glory, there is also opposition.

What to do?

Fight the dragon.

Or, in more concrete terms, turn the pedals, even when (especially when!) doing so seems pointless, futile, and impossible.

We are bike racers. We live for the impossible.

We live to slay the dragon.

Related posts:

1. Enter The Dragon

For the serious ‘crosser, there is no debate. Tubular wheels, without question, are the only real way to race cyclocross. Anything else is, not only offensive to the Tradition of Cyclocross, but also insanely ineffective. No self-respecting ‘cross racer would ever be seen on anything other than carbon tubulars. It’s Just the Way It is.

But tubeless tires have come a long way. Tubeless is now standard on a mountain bike. Inner tubes? What are inner tubes? Oh right. Those folded strips of rubber that we carry in our jersey pockets for good luck. While tubeless is ubiquitous on the mountain, it’s hardly that way in ‘cross and on the road. But it’s becoming more prevalent. NoTubes builds a high-end series of tubeless road and ‘cross wheels. Hutchinson, among a few others, are selling tubeless road tires. It’s a very primitive trend, but it is growing. More and more narrow tires are neither tubular, nor inner-tubed. They’re tubeless.

Well. So what?

If tubular tires offer a better ride, what does it matter if another inferior design is catching on? It doesn’t. Unless of course, tubeless wheels can match, or surpass, the quality and comfort of tubular wheels. Can they?

Maybe.

I don’t have any experience with tubular tires. None. Unless you count watching other people suffer through numerous flat, rolled, and ripped tires at ‘cross races as experience? I’ve been told that nothing can match the soft, controlled ride of tubular tires. I’m sure this is true. I’ve thought seriously about investing into a pair of tubular wheels. But whenever that possibility arises, I balk. My mountain bike upbringing, and the ongoing success of (and faith in) various tubeless set-ups cause some of my skepticism. But the impractical learning curve is also partly to blame. I don’t know the first thing about gluing tires onto rims. Scratch that. I do know the first thing: hire someone else to do it. Which would work once or twice, but eventually I would need to learn the voodoo of the glue. Which might be fun. But I might get frustrated enough that instead of gluing tires, I’d just sniff the glue until I passed out.

Tubeless it is.

But tubeless cyclocross tires aren’t exactly trouble-free. Unlike the mountain bike world, which allows for an almost infinite choice of tire/rim combinations, tubeless ‘cross is fickle, picky, and unreliable. The known working tire/rim combinations are few and limited, which can cause great consternation among the Different-Tire-For-Every-Course contingency. Me? I’m not too picky. My riding skills are mediocre, as is my ability to decide which tires are better for different conditions. And anyway, a tire well suited to mud isn’t going to make me any better in the mud. Likewise, a fast rolling tire won’t actually help me roll any faster. I’ve been content to find a working tire (an “all-rounder”) and rim (inexpensive, durable) combo, and to ride it every day. Training, racing, dry, wet, what really is the difference?

But in the back of my mind a small, nagging thought has lingered…

“Am I missing something?”

Maybe tubular wheels really are the gold standard? And if so, are they worth the learning curve, the glue, the expense?

Yes, of course!

But only for the True ‘Cross Rider. I’m a hack, remember? A mid-pack hack. I secretly curse the rain. I’m terrible in corners. I can’t bunny hop. I’m a dirt bag in a sport made for smooth, clean-shaven, fashionable people from Rotterdam, Brussels, or Portland. Not from Utah. ‘Cross is a sport meant to reward skill and class. I have neither. My brutish approach to the game is crude and clumsy. Class? No, I don’t have class. But I can throw an elbow, and trip over barriers. I drink Diet Coke, instead of designer coffee. I use DZNuts embrocation cream, rather than something from Rapha or Mad Alchemy. I ride a crass, American branded bike made from Chinese carbon. I train and race on the same set of  inexpensive aluminum wheels with cheap, low-thread-count clinchers from mass-market, big-box manufactures like Bontrager or Specialized. I’m not worthy to use tires made by companies called Dugast, Tufo, or Vittoria. I don’t even use cantilever brakes! I’m unfit for the luxury of tubular wheels.

But maybe not for long.

I can change my ways. If Adam Myerson, tattooed and melodramatic, and can ride tubular wheels, maybe a mountain biker from Utah can as well? I can learn. About Belgium. About frites. I can learn who Sven Nys is, and how to say a few phrases in Dutch, or French, or New English. “Heeft u lijm uw eigen banden?” But until then, I’ll continue to get by with aluminum clinchers. Unsexy, but reliable. Like a good dog. Instead of rolling tires off my carbon rims, I’ll burp them off aluminum wheels; which is a rather telling metaphor for the tubeless/tubular debate. One rolls. The other belches.

But then, I’ve always enjoyed a hearty burp.

Image: John Shafer

Related posts:

1. DIY 29" Tubeless
2. Cross on Cross
3. ‘Cross Grade
4. June/July Review
5. My Crusher Bike

Being sick is miserable. Obviously.

There’s never a good time to be sick. But there are especially bad times. Like race day. As I warmed up for the first USCS race of the season, it was readily apparent that I should have been home. In bed. But, I had pre-registered. And the race was practically in my backyard. What choice did I have? And so, I lined up. I felt terrible. Truly terrible. I had chills, body aches, and a solid headache. However, I secretly hoped that I’d be able to race away the sick. That I’d be able to “dig below the sickness” and race as if I were healthy.

My first clue at how bad a day it was really going to be, was the electric energy coming from my fellow racers. Are mountain bikers always so hyper? And talkative? Racers rode their bikes up and down, round and round, this way and that way. And they talked. And talked. It was like being in a jar of buzzing mosquitos, everyone was zipping randomly in every direction, trying to escape into the wide, open air.

I sulked. I faked a few smiles and conversations, but it was useless. I was a man apart. I elbowed my way to the front of the pack and secured myself a good place to start anyway. I thought, “as long as I’m faking it…”

“How’s the cold?” asked Mark.

“I dunno. I guess I’m about to find out.” I answered.

“Good. I need you weak.”

Which is exactly what I was.

This race was unique. The lap was short—just a few miles—and fast. A couple of doubletrack climbs broke up the narrow singletrack, but mostly the race was a twisted, rocky, and compacted version of its longer, more breathable cousin—the XC race. It wasn’t quite XC, and it wasn’t really short-track. It was someplace in between, a ‘cross/XC hybrid. Fast, short, technical. It would all last just an hour… or maybe a little bit more. But not much more. I figured that if I were really sick, that I could fake my way through the race, secure a few series points, and go back to bed. Anything can be faked for an hour, right?

Anything, except mountain bike racing.

It took no more than 30 seconds for the entire flight to utterly and completely leave me. They all rode away immediately and definitively. I gasped for breath, and more gears, as I soft-pedaled (at 175 bpm) up the opening climb. A climb that seemed especially long and steep, but in reality, was not at all long or steep. I knew then, that it was going to be a very, very long day. And in the end, it was.

I finished. Dead last. Indeed, I think it was the first time I had ever finished absolutely last in any race. I once finished something like 235th in a high school cross country race. But there were two or three kids behind me that day. It once took me over 12 hours to finish the Brianhead Epic 100. But it took a few others even longer. Somehow, no matter how badly I have raced, there have always been someone whose day was worse. Or, if not worse, at least, longer. But not this day. No, on this day I finished with the distinguished honor of the Red Lantern.

But I was sick. Really sick.

In fact, the rest of the day, and into the next week (and lingering still), this long-overdue physical correction caused me to hobble around the house like an old man. I’ve shivered and moaned, complained, and coughed. And all the while, I lamented my result. Dead last.

But I was sick! Somehow the words never brought any comfort. Yes, I was sick. But I lined up, anyway. And lining up at a race comes with certain unwritten declarations. Among them: “I am here to race, and to win. I am here to compete. I will do everything in my power to beat you. Right now, we are friends, but when the race starts, we are enemies, rivals, competitors.” And so, being sick, while a legitimate reason to skip a race, is not a legitimate excuse for a poor performance during a race. I lined up. I knew what I was getting myself into. Being destroyed by my competitors was the only possible outcome. It was just and inevitable.

I thought, erroneously, that I could fool my body. In fact, isn’t that what bike racers do every day? Fool our bodies into performing heroic acts of 2-wheeled supremacy? Actually, no. Instead, we fool, not our bodies, but our minds. Our bodies are well-trained. Finely tuned. Or, at the very least, tuned adequately. It’s our internal, mental governors that need fooling. Perhaps that’s why I never really considered skipping the race. I’ve become too adept at self-deception. I tricked my brain into thinking that I was ready to race. Which, of course, is nothing new. I would have done the same thing, had I been healthy. Only, instead of tricking the the mind into thinking I were healthy, I’d have tricked it into believing some other delusional stupor involving trophies, oversized checks, and podium girls. Alas, there were no podium girls. None at all.

As I pedaled around the course, others must have wondered if I were actually racing. “He has a race number,” I imagined them thinking, “but nothing else suggests he is racing at all.” No. I was racing. Nominally. I reminded myself over and over that “this is an amateur event. There is no shame in completely sucking.” Indeed, that is true. But that I had no pride whatsoever is indicative of how awful I really was feeling. There are two kinds of suffering: Good suffering. And bad suffering. And there was nothing good about how I was feeling.

And yet, racing is racing. And riding a bike is better than not. I tried to fake my way into fitness. I failed. I pretended not to be ill. But I was ill. The alternative, however, was far more undesirable. I could have stayed home in bed, but I would have been just as miserable. And so, given a choice of miseries, I’ll choose bike-misery over regular-misery every time.

It’s been said that “there are no bad days on bikes”. It’s an awfully presumptuous idea. But it’s also the Gospel Truth.

Indeed, suffering on a bike, is always good suffering.

No related posts.

Airplane windows are poorly designed. They are too small. And too low. For an adult to peer out he must slouch or strain. It’s uncomfortable and laborious. Nevertheless, a window seat on a cross-country flight offers an interesting topographical experience. I don’t fly often. But when I do, my love for maps and for looking out of windows is combined into an arial perspective that, even as an adult, is thrilling.

Recently, I flew home from Pennsylvania on a crowded flight full of exhausted, restless people. The flight was, in every conceivable way, uncomfortable. The plane was old and cramped. The temperature in the cabin fluctuated randomly. And my row-mates slept fitfully and without regard to personal spaces. And so, I huddled meagerly against the window, hunched and sore, and watched as the United States passed below.

From Philadelphia, we rose abruptly into a cloudy sky. Quickly the tall buildings of the city became toy-like and distant. The suburban neighborhoods faded into country farms and ranches. The river-lands of the Ohio sprawled out below us in fertile vastness. I tried to guess which river or lake I was staring at. I have no doubt that my guesses, while perhaps regionally accurate, were never actually correct. The sheer number of rivers, lakes,  and streams made the game futile. Even with the wide-angled birds-eye view of the airplane’s GPS, it was impossible to know exactly where we were. But I ventured silent guesses anyway.

From the air, the variation of the land was muted. Canyons and mountains looked like wrinkles and goosebumps. Green and brown and yellow passed by indefinitely and constantly. Small towns pocked the landscape, seemingly solitary in their existence. Close to nothing. Far from everywhere. And still, more rivers. More lakes. More fields of wheat, barley, and corn.

The man next to me slept. His face was smashed against the seat-back in front of him. He snored gently. A flight attendent reached over him to hand me a small, pointless, worthless bag of pretzels. Inside there were 3, maybe 4, miniature pretzels. I ate them begrudgingly, remembering that I had not yet had a proper meal that day, and that it would be hours until I would. When it cames to comfort Delta Airlines spared no expense. Minutes later, the man startled awake and looked around in bewilderment. But the pretzels were gone. He sat still, and looked annoyed.

Below, there was nothing. Empty, brown, featureless nothing. The plane was speeding over the Nebraska/South Dakota border. The landscape was bleak and featureless. Not exactly flat, but not rolling either. Bumpy, uneven, inhospitable. There were no visible rivers or lakes anymore. No fertile fields, no lonely towns. Only emptiness. It’s an emptiness that extended southward as far as I could see. Occasionally a dirt road wound and meandered through the maze below. I followed them with my eyes unti I couldn’t anymore. Some of the roads dead-ended on a rocky ridge or a canyon overlook, and others, at points unseen and unknown. My brain told me that the plane was moving, but the unchanging landscape below defied the idea. The occasional passage through, or near, clouds offered the only proof of forward progression.

The hours dripped away in complete boredom.

But then, there they were.

Far to the south, exploding from the rural monotony of the Nebraska badlands, interrupting the bleak horizon, were the Colorado Rockies. I stared in awe and wonder. Other ranges soon followed. The Laramie Range, The Medicine Bow Mountains, the Wind River, and Uinta ranges. In between the mountain peaks were open sage-laden valleys; the high desert plateaus of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah.

In the distance I could see the Wasatch Range as its familiar peaks started to materialize. Timpanogos, Cascade, Provo, The Salt Lake Twins. We flew north of the Uintas, and over Cache Valley before plunging into the Salt Lake Valley.

At last, I was home.

Related posts:

1. Home Again
2. The Long Way Home
3. Home from Bike Camp
4. If You Can’t Beat ‘Em… Upgrade