Not 100

Had I known I wouldn’t have gone. Not on this local metric century. This became obvious when I showed up to register and I just stood there with my Piglet staring at all the roadies in disbelief. These aren’t normal men; they cannot only stand up to kryptonite, I think they have it for breakfast.

My Piglet was the only piglet there. All others had names ending in vowels and if bikes could speak surely they snarled at Piglet. We didn’t belong there. I think that one of the ultra-leek, carbon-titanium-scandium beasts literally barked at Piglet.

Piglet wanted to go home. He knew better.

Let’s face it: I felt like an idiot. This, I suddenly realized, was not a walk in the park. You guys know that feeling: earth swallow me now. How can I get out of this?

I didn’t. I was dumb enough to take the start. After four kilometres – FOUR – I could not keep the pace on the controlled speed section of the tour. Let me explain.

This tour was made up of four sections. 1) The first 30 kilometers were to keep the speed of the Race Director’s car. Meaning all cyclists are to keep together riding on the main road through all the towns. There is a State Trooper on the front stopping traffic and a State Trooper on the back to let traffic pass when all cyclists go through. There is also an ambulance and a sweeper car to take care of any “problem” cyclists that can’t keep up, are injured or just give up. 2) There is a 15 kilometer “free zone” that climbs Mount Iroite. This is a free-for-all. No pace car. Nothing. The fastest wins and wins after climbing a gruelling 12 kilometer ascent (12% rise). 3) A second controlled section of about 45 kilometers where the Director’s car again maintains the pace. 4) A free-for-all final ascent of 10 kilometers up Mount Curota (15% rise).

I kept up as fast as I could in the first section but always lagging behind the group. I had never maintained an average 30 kilometer speed. It was destroying for me, but I somehow kept up. On the second section – the huge 12 kilometer ascent – I kept up for about half the course and then all passed me as though I was a vegetable on the road. I couldn’t believe it! The roadies just climbed and climbed. The sweeper car stuck with me on the entire climb at 6 kilmeters per hour – walking speed, I kid you not. I was a puddle of sweat and drank my only two bottles of Gatorade on the climb. There was a 20 minute rest at the top of the climb which included fluids and food for all the riders. When I got there the group was beginning to take off on the 3^rd section so I only had time to eat a banana, take more water and ride the descent.

I could not keep up on the descent either. My 58 kilometer top speed was nothing for these monsters. Again I stayed behind. After riding on the main road for another 20 kilometers – crawling – it became obvious that I had become a nuisance. The sweeper car had to stick with me yet the State Troopers and the roadies were already 40 minutes ahead of me. The sweeper car politely rode next to me and said “I think we’re falling way behind. Maybe you should consider coming onboard so we can catch up.”

And that was the end of it. About 70 kilometers into the deal and I was done. Not because I couldn’t make it but because I couldn’t make their speed. I had expected to see some beginners like me on the tour so we could make a little “inexperienced group”, but there were none. It was just me and my Piglet.

Still I had a great time seeing how the roadies go about their thing. They are great riders on their slick bikes. And for road work there is nothing like a true road bike. Lots of lessons learned, which I’ll come back too. And most important of all: rather than feeling defeated I feel stronger and with more will than ever to continue to ride and to improve all my skills on the bike. For serious road work, no Piglet.

100

In a couple of hours I’m off to see the wizard, I guess. I’m gonna try to do my first 100 K. A couple of friends -- untrustworthy roadies -- asked me to participate in the annual metric century ride here. It’s actually 108 ks and it climbs two ports of 700 meters -- the first one is 12 ks long. I’m fairly sure I won’t make it because the last port is about right at the end of the ride and I know the mountain well. The first ramp nearly defeats me in normal conditions; that is, riding a mere 30 ks for me (and the most I've ever ridden in one sitting has been 66 ks.) It’s a 12%-15% rise and it's the only time I have to hit my granny gear. The roadies chew it up. I’ve seen them pass me on occasion as they wave by, saying “C’mon champ, we’re almost at the top!”

I just love that. It’s when I think of semi-automatic weapons and their much needed use in cycling. But the roadies have encouraged me looking down at my Piglet: “Nice little, fat wheels on that, eh?”

Nice, little fat rider, I am. See you at the summit, buddy.

The Fall…and it ain’t the house of Usher

This formula calculates the acceleration of gravity on the surface of a planet or star. Problem is the reverse formula: when you are the Star and Gravity your Foe.

Falling from a bike is a right of passage. We’ve all fallen, from that tricycle, deluded as always from the false safety of extra wheels, then later just from riding that normal afternoon ride over that pot-hole we didn’t see; that gravel on the curve. The more advanced riders fall, too, as seen in this year’s Tour de France.

In fact, there is NO NOT FALLING from our two-wheeled horses.

Getting back up is part of that passage from no fear, to panic, to respect for speed and road.

There is NO NOT FALLING.

When my 8-year-old son fell HARD a few days ago going down a rocky slope for the first time, twisting his bike out of shape, tearing the breaks out of his handlebar and holding his right elbow in tears as though he had broken it made me reflect on these “dangers” for awhile.

It was difficult to get my son back on his bike; nothing happened to his elbow (or his head, thanks to the helmet). Only lovely black and blues added to his beginner’s scar collection. Still he isn’t riding the same as before. He’s afraid. He’s tasted fear and pain – for the first time on a bike. How to make him overcome?

When I was zooming down at 58.3 km down-hill yesterday, my bike swerving in a cross-wind, – that taste of speed-fear on my lips – I thought of my boy: his fear in me.

Caesura

Every once in a while my job demands that I travel abroad; sometimes down to the southern hemisphere, to this island on the Indian Ocean. It is often one week or two weeks, depends, but regardless it always messes up with my inner compass rose. When I return I am never the same exact person, whomever that is, at least for a little while – like something you lose or gain along the way of unnatural miles travelled. It is not like the cycling way or the walking way where you tick off the miles tenderly. It is not like that at all. It’s a huge flash – most unnatural – where you stop doing what you do in a routine way and start anew on something else. I dislike it very much. It makes me abandon things –this all encompassing way of using my time for nothing else but work.

So it’s a pleasure to return from the beginning of winter to the beginning of summer – to return and pick up the bike and curse my way up the hills. That zero summer. So lovely.

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart's heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul's sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time's covenant. Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow, a bloom more sudden
Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,
Not in the scheme of generation.
Where is the summer, the unimaginable
Zero summer?

T.S. Eliot

Kent Petersen & Family

Damn it, I don’t want Kent Petersen to be a hero. I don’t want his family to be heroic. I wish they wouldn’t call so much attention – that there be more of them, somehow, that wished to do what they do, that carried it out and that liked doing it. I think it touches a deep chord, somewhere, for a lot of us. Surely, Kent Peterson would’ve been nobody to someone like my father growing up poor after a civil war. “So they have no car. They walk or ride a bike to work. What the hell’s so strange about that?”

The fact that something as natural as walking to work or riding a bike to a store has become so unusual tells a lot about where most of us are headed today. How did we get here? Or worse, we actually allowed things to become this complicated? To Kent & Family: My Deepest Respect.

Bike Day

It was Bike Day yesterday in our little corner of the world. About 200+ turned out. Beautiful weather for a Sunday morning. A nice day with the kids. We were escorted by the Local Police so it was nice to own the road for one day, watching all the cars just stop and move out of our way.

OUTTA MY WAY, BOYS!!!

Shouldn’t it be Bike Day everyday?!

Bitten

I didn’t go bike riding yesterday – at all – and I was bitten by a horse.

I could’ve been bitten by a number of animals, normal biting animals, like a dog or even a flock of killer geese. Hell I could’ve even been bitten by a snake. But no, I had to be bitten by a horse.

I needed a zero day yesterday ‘cause my legs went from feeling like concrete to slush in two days. I needed to recoup so I ended up visiting my friend Fran, who I hadn’t seen in a long time. I should mention that Fran’s father is a wine-maker-virtuoso of sorts and so makes his own wine – many, many barrels of wine. And so when you go over his farm house you cannot leave without drinking…say …at least one of those barrels. Quite bucolic, these parts are.

If I had ridden my bike like the good boy I should’ve been yesterday I wouldn’t have ended up at Fran’s.

Oh, yeah, Fran has three horses. No bike talk with him. His youngest horse is a bastard…and I assure you he has this most incredibly powerful jaw…literally took my hand and wrist in his mouth and playfully played VICE with my bones.

So there. Ride your bike. Be good. Never know when that horse’s gonna bite you.

Numbers

Like the song about Mondays I just don’t like Numbers. Never been good with them – despite the grades – and let’s face it: I just don’t like them. In cycling there’s lots to learn about numbers: number of spokes, chain links, cassettes or, worse, number of miles per trip, average, maximum, cadence, heart-beats per minute…WAIT…luckily there’s just

two pedals

two wheels

one seat

I want to count no further than that; I don’t want to count my kilocalories per Big Mac (cause I don’t eat either kilocalories or Big Macs) and I don’t want to know how many hills I gotta climb to get rid of those two cool beers I had after I finished climbing those same hills that made the beer taste so good in the first place.

Can I not count?! Can I just enjoy the ride and not be faster than yesterday? Can I stop improving for the sake of improving? What happens when we really, really stop improving? Isn’t that sort of like riding a bike downhill….FUN!!!

Can I just ride my bike or must I ride by numbers?

The Poodle Challenge

I did not want to ride yesterday. I was cold all morning curled up at my desk. Figured I’ve been over-doing it on the bike and though I did not ride on Sunday, the zero day did nothing for my legs. But I had to worry about the Poodle Challenge knowing that Ruby can easily ride his 20 kilometers to work everyday and be done with me easy. And so I am dumb enough to try and stick with him by making my commute at least 20 ks when it is only about 7.0. So I rode 21.74. Being that much smarter than me, on 22 May Ruby only rode 7.0. That’s it. In other words I rode his normal commuting mileage and he rode mine. There must be some strategy here – somewhere. (Thank god this is over at the end of the month.)

Challenges

My legs feel like concrete columns. And I don’t mean in strength. Only in weight. My thighs hurt. They hurt when I touch them; when I walk; I suppose they hurt even while I sleep. My mileage for the month is a mere 167 kilometers (103,77 miles) and still

mean people from all over the world challenge me. Little me! I’m having a glass of milk and I’m going to bed.

Et tu, Brutus?

Never trust your biking friends and surely never trust them when they’re wearing serious amounts of spandex and fast looking bike glasses – those that cost more than my little bike. My so-called friends are nice guys – presumably. They know I’m a beginner; they know I have a modest road bike for commuting purposes (and to defeat my children on half-hour outings). (I can out-ride my children in case you didn’t know.) My friends knew the most I’ve ever ridden uphill without stopping and gasping for life was a mere 12 kilometers (7.5 miles), with one or two rolling hills in between. I’m a beginner for god’s sake!

So why, then, did they try to kill me?

They promised care, kindness and lots of easy learning. This included 26.4 kilometers of huge hills, boulder-ridden roads, tree branches in my face, in my spokes and countless near-falls and gasps for life. I wanted to go out for a ride not to cross the Amazonian rain forest on a commuter bike. (Not to mention the geese strategically placed on the apex of that last hill waiting to attack the last and slowest rider: that was me.)

So I did it. “See? You did it,” my ex-friends said, smiling. It was best I had no breath to respond. (Which reminds me: semi-automatic weapons will now be included on my list of required biking equipment.)

The Fun of Pain

I must be improving my commuting skills but it’s happening slowly. I’ve purposely been increasing my return-home commute ‘cause I like this stuff DESPITE THE PAIN!!! Okay, I’m sick. Yesterday I conquered about 3 kilometers – out of 12.4 - of steep hill country, non-stop, though I was basically doing walking speeds for most of the climb. Except: when you walk you can talk. Am I to worry when lungs feel and squeal like bag-pipes? Is it normal to use very, very nasty language while talking to oneself on a bike? Like: What the f&%k am I doing here climbing this hill on an opposite direction from my house where food and warmth await me?

Yeah, sure, this is FUN.

Sheep-Jam

Traffic

"It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep may be."

- Virgil

Now that’s a crock of shit. Obviously, Virgil had no bike.

I’m tired of reading of urban commuting battles like the rest of us poor, rural bikers face no dangers at all. There we are riding along: “Oh, so fresh and aromatic these tulips, are they not, dear?” No. Well, yes. Tulips are cool; they don’t move either willfully or negligently; they do not jump; they make no animal noises; they don’t cross the road when you do. I like tulips that way. I really do, dear.

But there’s real danger out there, people; bike commuting is brutal. If you guys think otherwise or consider yourselves so well prepared, then tell me how the hell do you experts get a bunch of sheep to continue crossing the road without having them stop in the middle of it to stare at you? C’mon smarties? Have you ever had a hundred sheep stare at you, sheepishly so to speak? Scary shit. Do not trust Virgil.

No. Calling them ugly four-letter words doesn’t work. You can’t bang on their window; can’t slap their hood. They just stare at you. (If they could speak they would say they just didn’t see you.) What then is it they find so interesting and what is it that keeps them from finishing their crossing maneuver just when you arrive? What the hell does the traffic code have to say about that? A bike is a vehicle, a bike is a vehicle, a bike is a vehicle. Bahhhhhhh! No respect. These are real right-of-way issues, people. They’re supposed to stick to the green part of the highway. Why don’t they “shew” away when you shout “SHEW!, SHEW!?”

Hell, you guys don’t know one thing about difficult and dangerous commuting. (They did outnumber me they did, those puffy white things.)

They outnumber us all.

Revelation

Handle- Bars

While riding with my seven-year-old the other day on our way back from bike-camping he came upon a startling revelation. After my customary “CAR COMING FROM BEHIND!” warning we simply cruised side by side down this lovely hill, pine and eucalyptus surrounding us. Suddenly, he said:

- Dad, if there were no cars at all, wouldn’t that be great?

- Why do say that?

- Cause then there would be no accidents and everyone could ride bikes on any road, even really little kids.

- Yeah, that would be nice.

- And no pollution, too.

- I think you’re on to something, son.

And he rode on for the next half-hour without saying another word.

The First One, The Baby, The Big One

Hey, I started commuting this week and I just didn’t want to make a big deal about it, alright. I mean riding 2.49 miles one way in 15 minutes, a howling wind pushing on my backside – and getting tired doing it – isn’t something we need to discuss much further. I was a sport, okay. The first day was like this:

I did what I was told; I followed instructions. I folded my shirt nice inside my right pannier, same for the slacks. Shoes, fresh socks and a T-Shirt on the left. But, hey, you’re not supposed to sweat on a fifteen-minute, 2.49 mile ride, mostly downhill. (Don’t ever listen to that rubbish and don’t come back to me about my being over-weight or under-trained. I’m just under-height and quick as lightning on the granny gear. So what if I look like a helmeted-hamster! At least I can reach my pedals.)

On your first commute you sweat. Believe me, others lie. It must be a right of passage or something equally medieval. You’d expect someone to give you some recognition – knight errant on a bike honor thing - but reality is harsh. My lovely family waved and laughed as I closed the garage door. “Now what might be so funny about dad riding his old, ugly bike to work?” “C’mon, dad, dads don’t do that sort of thing…they race and do cool stuff like that.” “Hey, I can race, buddy!” (I could if I really wanted to...just not my thing.)

Minutes later not one stranger even waved at me, though I saw a couple of guys smirking as I zoooomed past. (“That’s the guy who grew up in America,” they said, or something to that effect, shaking their heads.) Now what was that supposed to mean? Were they talking about me? “You talking to me?!” “Hey, bud,” I wanted to yell, but shit, I’m already downhill and can’t go back up to see if my Latin-macho image was being questioned. I must grant it to commuters, but bikes are safer that way.

I change gears the way I change tenses, okay. I can do that; I’m a bike commuter now. So picture this: I’m near the office so I wanna look extra cool making that last turn, but children on fixed gears rumble by. “Hey guys…”. They’re too fast and far ahead to hear me. Man, I wanna look like a commuter. I am a commuter. I need to yell at a car, to win my road space, something. Hah, there. A slick Ford Fiesta comes from behind and gets right next to me. I see the right blinker on. Now what does she think she’s about to do…cut me off…I’m a commuter, lady…but she smiles and waves me on in front of her.

That’s it?! My first commute in? Is that all? No Star-Spangled Banner?

I refuse to discuss my commute back home. Do you know how sheep – yes, sheep – react to the sound of a miss-shifting Shimano?

You know what they say about dogs…

Dion-Bouton

Maybe it’s applicable to bikes as well. Do bikes “look” like their owners? I came upon this reflection when Shawn Kielty, blogger-biker, noted that perhaps one ought to find “his inner bike”. Now that’s stretching karma concepts far and wide and deep inside, I suppose.

I’m much more superficial, I guess. I’m content for now to look a bit like my bike or to have it look somewhat like me. Considering my Purple Pig, god rest its karma wheels in the Heavenly Kingdom of Painless Hills, I’d better take a closer look at my looks. Unless ugly, aging bikes look…well, interestingly mature?

I thought not.

Bike Commuting: Once a Commuter Always a Commuter

Why should I be afraid to commute now when I used to be a thoroughly experienced bike commuter 30 years ago? Fear may be a strong word. Uncertainty, doubt, inconvenience, excuses. As a child I commuted on a bike to school for two straight years. Grade seventh and eighth. A child really. I rode on the road oblivious to hazards. Never thought of cars as bastards and never called a driver stupid.

I still have no idea as to how I could possibly have convinced my overprotective parents to let me do that, but I apparently did. After we had moved to another section of town I was supposed to change schools. I would have none of that; all my friends were at my old school; I liked the teachers; I was doing well with grades. Why mess it up?

So I commuted on my bright-yellow Columbia ten speed, drop-bar handles, blue lunch box strapped to god knows what. In the rain, in the snow. Never a problem. I still remember that one big hill and that old lady I ran into on the corner of Heald Street. (I was riding the side-walk.) I actually knocked her down and felt terrible about it, but she got to her feet quickly and was strong enough to yell at me. My apologies. I hope she didn’t remember me for years as that bastard biker kid.

What happens to that child in us? Maybe he never really grows up.

Lovely to commute by bike, is it?

Frankly, I have to say that bike commuters don’t make a good case for commuting on a bike. Do bike commuters really enjoy their rides to work or are they on some Quixotic quest to prove the world wrong? What I’m finding all over the internet – in blogs mostly – is this bitter, angry rhetoric about how terrible cars are. I suppose that applies also to drivers. There is this mean – us vs. them attitude – very evangelical in fact. These people on cars pollute, they destroy our lungs, they tailgate, they insult us, they drive us off the road. Hey, these people even kill us! People die on the road, on bicycles and in cars. Some drivers are negligent, others are criminal. So how do commuters enjoy their trip to work?

It seems to me that what is wrong – deadly wrong – is the society in which most commute to work and live in. People self-righteously talk about choices: about bikes vs. cars. What a joke! That is not making choices. There cannot possibly be so many angry people living in one place at the same time. It is not cars; it is not bikes. It is people. What the hell’s wrong with this picture?

Done

Well it wasn’t exactly on my birthday, but close enough. Looks like my new, beginner’s commuter / touring bike’s gonna be the Specialized Crossroads. Went and bought it today. I think I was driving my LBS guy crazy. Funny it was the first bike I liked when I first saw it a couple of months ago and at the end, after seeing others, just went back to it and got it. (Took the last frame the LBS will have this year and he won’t be able to upgrade it for himself, as he planned to do.)

I was simply disappointed with the Lapierre Sub 550 – it seemed weaker to me and I really disliked the suspension, so once I got through all the bells and whistles it has as compared to the Crossroads – it just didn’t tickle my fancy. (I never got to see the Orbea so that’s something I’ll keep to myself. Might that have been the bike for me?) Frankly, I was tired of looking and waiting and thinking, though I managed to keep my patience for a few months. Not bad for me. “It’s only a beginner’s bike, for God’s sake”, I finally said yesterday. Done.

A beginner’s bike ought to be just that. Something to get pedalling on, reasonably comfortable and not overly expensive. It should provide first experiences on the road – a bit of commuting perhaps – and some easy riding with the children. Might also be able to do a little touring, if one were so inclined. Based on my research I think that the Specialized Crossroads can do just that - perhaps even more as Amahia showed riding it through China -, with the additional bonus that I won’t be afraid to tinker with it – as I did with my Purple Pig; so I can learn to change a flat, to tighten a bolt or two, to center the breaks or to even take the crank right out to see what the hell those things really look like in a horizontal position. Yes, my poor Purple Pig did all of that and had it not been for the broken crank I’d still be riding it today.

In the end, riding is what matters, isn’t it?

Another Miss-Start (A.K.A. “Another Excuse”)

Another foibled attempt today at commuting on my bike. I’m only 4 kilometers away from work, mostly downhill on the way in and uphill on the way back. This will theoretically keep the sweat down on the way in and up on the way back home, after which I would presumably take a longer ride just to enjoy and train a little. (As a beginning biker my endurance is, well, none.) But once again I could not get started.

First because I had to dress a bit nice today for professional matters. That took care of the morning – cause in Spain we have to commute four times a day. We take a two hour lunch every day to eat with the family. It is our big meal and then return to work in the afternoon. Normal work hours being from 0900 to 1300 and from 1500 to 1900. (In summer we become European and try to work only from 0800 to 1500.) But for the rest of the year it becomes increasingly hard to comply with tradition and, as you can see, with commuting rituals. Luckily, unlike most Americans, we live very close to work. We could not afford it otherwise as we are heavily taxed on gas prices (3 times more than in the states), instead on being killed with property taxes a la Americana. I prefer the way here as I do with socialized medicine. (Perhaps we can get to retirement without having to sell our homes to move to Florida on account of unreasonable / untenable property taxes.)

But that was the first foible of my first commute. The second takes place because I have to meet with my kids’ teachers at 1800 and without a car – due to work commitments – I just couldn’t make it to the teachers on time. So once again I carpooled into work for those horrendous 2.49 miles of no traffic whatsoever. Life.