BikeFest 2011

Yes, yes, I'm still here, lock up the messenger pigeons, and put away that cattle prod. I've been absorbed in, shall we say, "other stuff." Life stuff. You know -- what we do when not staring at a glowing screen? You do remember that, yes?

I've also been touched by the classic end-of-season malaise, but not as bad this year as previously. I'm still riding, still enjoying, but I have to double-check before I go out: Do I want to do intervals, or do I really want to cruise to the library and check out the latest Batman comics? More often than not, it's quirky rides, like 'splorin' new roads, riding to an event, or just slow-pedaling to the top of the hill by my house and checkin' out the sunset. Love it -- bikes were built for fun and transportation, back before the Victorian jocks got hold of them and decided they were one more way to prove their mustachioed manhood.

I did do a great little ride this past weekend, Northampton Cycling Club's annual BikeFest. Decided I was only in shape for the 43-miler, which turned out (of course) to be 48-miles-plus. Met up with a couple buddies, who promptly disappeared over the horizon about three miles from the start (no worries -- it's part of the unwritten group ride contract). Rode my own ride for about five miles -- as usual, floating in that no-man's land between the fast and the merely fit -- waiting patiently for a group of riders up ahead to realize that they'd let adrenaline get the better of them, and to start drifting back to a more humane pace. I saw them at the top of a hill and worked my way up to them; we finished together, more or less, and some of them were quite friendly and fun to ride with.

It was an ugly day, warm and soupy-humid, but the scenery -- distant, jagged peaks dressed in thick rolls of cotton-candy mist -- was fully up to par.

Back at the start/finish, we gathered for excellent jambalaya (speesy-spicy!) from the Lone Wolf in Amherst, and local hero Roger Salloom's excellent little combo doing rockin' Lonnie Smith and Chuck Berry covers, which added a little sunshine to a drab, wet day. Spirits were high, conversation was good, and I was glad I'd been talked into the day.

Here's to people getting together to do what they love!

I'm One of Them

I joined that local Wednesday night ride for the third time last night, and it seems I am strong enough to make a showing, at least. After three years in the Pioneer Valley searching for a group that is neither too fast nor too slow, I think I've finally found one. We rode up into the hills above Northampton, and, after going flat and fast the first two outings, I got to find out how my climbing stacked up next to riders I've been getting to know. This is the benefit of a regular group; I begin to sort out how fast I actually am, instead of constantly wondering, without anyone with whom to compare.

This is one the slowest of the rides the Northampton Cycling Club sponsors, although everyone agrees (perhaps self-servingly) that it's not a true "C" ride, because NCC is simply a bunch of hammerheads. You may discount this argument, having heard it before, and that's fine. I'm buying it -- it's the way I sleep at night. For what it's worth, most of us in the group have been B or even A riders in other clubs in other locations. Why NCC is so amped up is a question for another post. I have tried their B rides more than once, and been unceremoniously dropped -- I mean those guys were flying, in a double rotating paceline, and constantly ramping up the speed.

So, okay. Here's the verdict: Currently, it looks like I'm faster than most of the (relatively) slow, but not all of them. Some guys in this group are more hardcore than I am. For now. When they peel away on the flats, they stay away, and I'm caught chasing them, solo. When they make a move on a steep hill, I have trouble keeping up with them -- but again, I'm far ahead of the "peloton."

With that said, I did discover last night, to my pleasant surprise, that I am far and away the fastest descender. I'm either stupid enough or skilled enough (I like to think it's both) to hammer through steep curves others brake into. The extra few pounds around my middle probably don't hurt either; gravity is your friend, kids!

I can't help feeling like  being the fastest descender is sort of a condolence prize -- "You're not really in shape, but man, you sure can eat up those downhills!" But you know what? I'll take it.

I know. I've become one of those bloggers, posting excruciating details about tiny, invisible victories and defeats no one who wasn't there cares about. "But enough about me; let's talk about what you think of me!"
So sue me. I'm having fun trying to beat people -- something I've ached for these four years, since I swung my leg over a saddle for the first time in 25 years. The folks are super-friendly and the competition is just fierce enough, without that nasty "I beat you so I deserve to live -- for today" edge.

I've made a date for a ride this weekend with a couple guys from the group who're faster than me. Everyone better be looking for me over their shoulders on Wednesday nights. After all... it's only July.

Strength in Numbers

I rarely do group rides, because it usually works out that I'm faster than the slower folks, but slower than the fastest folks. I end up soloing much of the ride, with only the thought of those before and behind me to keep me company. Kind of disappointing after all the effort of getting to the roll-out on time.

Last night was different. I joined an after-work ride. It was, for once in recent weeks, a gorgeous night in Western Mass, a true early-summer evening: Temps in the high 70s, cool breeze, big puffy clouds against lucid blue sky. Folks were friendly -- a good sign. Yeah, there was a little "my hard ride was harder than your hard ride," but very little.

Early on, I was in a group that slowly broke away, eventually also breaking the speed limit of the ride. We were forgiven, and allowed to run at our own speed. Run we did, working hard to keep up a brisk canter into the familiar Connecticut River headwind. As we crossed the bridge at South Deerfield and buzzed south on the other bank, the evening sky was stretched out on our right, and the fields, mountains and water all around us nearly glowed with perfection. I had a grand smile on my face the whole way, thinking, "I live here!"

What a refreshing change from solo riding all the time. I am, by nature, a social person; I generally feel most alive in interaction with others (hence my job as a psychotherapist). I ride solo a lot because it's hard to find friends who ride at my pace. I've had three dependable riding buddies in the three years since we moved to the Pioneer Valley, but all of them have since moved out of state. (The Valley is a very transient area, because its main industry is higher education.)

Solo has its rewards, but in a group, there's that constant sense of camaraderie, working together. Chatting is lots of fun -- jobs, good routes, bike parts -- but there's something subtle but powerful that happens when everyone clams up and falls to work. A mutual, unspoken agreement passes from the front to the back of the paceline, and in the silence, the whirring of gears, the insistent squeak of someone's cranky cranks, the click of gears changing, the wind in helmet straps, and the constant stream of data from my legs and lungs, all recede. In their place, for a few moments or minutes, comes an active calm, like being one of a swiftly moving school of fish that decides and acts as one, instantly and thoughtlessly. The worries that nibble at me all day -- and, to some degree, make me the individual that I am -- fall away, and it is good, good, good, to be part of a unit, and nothing more or less.

All in all, a good ride. There was a spontaneous sprint for a speed-reading unit along the road. There were half-serious breaks chased down half-seriously. There was bonhomie and soaking up of the sun. I think I'll be back.

Running Towards What We Don't Want

For one reason and another, I haven’t been able to go on a “spirited group ride” (as the journalists like to call them) in about nine months. Extreme busy-ness colluded with nagging injuries to keep me away. I spent much of this time very, very frustrated, obsessed with how I could get back to that experience. It was my main goal when I started getting back into cycling seriously last fall.

For one reason and another, I finally felt ready to go on that particular weekly ride this morning.

I was really nervous as I was getting ready this morning. Last season, I managed to join this group only five or so times. I was just back on the bike for the first time in many years, and only in decent shape. I got dropped, badly, time after time. I would ride home alone, nagging myself again and again about the question of my fitness and ability, as if picking at a scab. I bored my poor wife with these involutions for weeks.

I went on to spend much of the winter and spring sticking rigidly to a training schedule and trying to heal from that recurring injury. I fantasized about going back and showing them – uh, I mean, showing myself (yeah... right) – that I could pass the test. That, at 44, I still had a little of the spark of youth in me. Granted, a spirited group ride is not a race – but the front half of this one is pretty close to a race. And I wanted to be indisputably IN it – not off the back. I worried. I trained. I researched. I trained. I upgraded my bike. I trained. I lost weight. I trained. Through snow and sleet and hail. Literally.

Today was the day to put all that obsessing and research and training and healing and money and time to the test. Was I right to think I could do it?

As it turned out, I did well today. I exceeded the goals I’d set for my return ride with this group, goals dreamed up during countless dreary winter training sessions in my basement.

Now, here’s the interesting part: The experience didn’t mean all that much to me.

Don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed it. It was exciting to ride hard and fast, to be in the chase, and, certainly, to be the one being chased. To feel the utter exhaustion and happiness at the end of the road, and the camaraderie with the other riders, the full kinship I couldn’t feel during the rides last year, because I wasn’t really one of them, couldn’t stick with them. I earned those things today, and they were nice.

But they didn’t thrill me like I thought they would. I mean, I poured myself into this goal, folks. I could not have done any more to make it real. Along the way, this nagging knee injury kept making me slow down, enjoy the scenery, ride like I rode when I was last really into cycling, as a teen. I rode in those days for the love of it, now didn't I? I seem to remember...

This year I kept moaning and groaning about how the injury was keeping me from what I really wanted. Turns out, what I wanted so badly? Not so much. It doesn’t do much for me to “rip someone’s legs off,” as the saying so tellingly goes in our sport. I thought it would really give me a frisson, make me walk taller. Nope. Fact is, I had at least as much fun last week exploring the Metrowest area on roads I’d never tried before, getting lost, intimately experiencing new places in my own backyard. Funny – Just like the stuff I loved when I was a punk teen. Huh.

I’ll probably go back to the group ride, and I’ll probably try to beat a few guys in a sprint here and there. It’s human nature to compete sometimes, and I like the buzz. But I’ve been healthily reminded that, if I ride for the love of riding, I will be happier both during and after. Whether that means meandering around new roads, or doing sprints that leave a long streak of melted rubber down my standard training route.

I have a stockpile of adages I’ve coined over the years to remind myself of the important stuff I’ve learned. One of them is: We run fastest from that which we really want. Today, I discovered a corollary: Sometimes, we run fastest towards that which we don't really want.

Let that be a lesson to me.