Pee is for Performance

Well, the leaves are tinged with color and the mornings are starting to get misty and chilly. As the cycling season winds down, I find myself synthesizing lessons learned this year. Some are lessons I learned last year, too – obviously, not well enough. Perhaps I’ll post a series of them now, in no particular order. Well, except this one, which I think has become the One Overarching and Immutable Rule of Cycling for me:

Pee Last.

Better to walk around the house like something out of a male strip show gone horribly wrong, my white gauzy bib straps hanging down my legs and an unzipped jersey slung on to ward off the morning chill, risking the sarcasm of my loving spouse, than to hit mile eight of a forty-five mile ride and realize I have to stop already, secure the bike, waddle into a café under the glare of the the patrons’ bemused gazes, and do the chimpanzee dance in the bathroom tryng to remove all the layers so I can relieve myself. Waste of time and momentum. If I walk about the house before roll-out with everything undone, I remember that, after I put on the gloves, adjust the shades and the helmet, and yes, even and especially the shoes (if I wait til the shoes, I’m sure to be ready to go) I must stop in the bathroom as my very last step.

No slacking on this: I’ve discovered that if I push pee time up even so much as five minutes, wanting just to suit up so I don’t feel so floppy and ridiculous, I pay for it later. The wheel of Nature’s law grinds slow, but exceeding sure. If I pay heed, I can usually spend the remainder of the ride in that sweet balance between intake and output, never stopping unwillingly.

Randonneuring?

If you have done a century or a double century and are looking for the 'next' challenge, this may be it. You need not be fast to be successful; in fact, the best randonneurs are steady and consistent and know how to budget their energy. It doesn't hurt if you're a bit obsessive about riding and perhaps a wee bit eccentric.

Randonneuring is long-distance unsupported endurance cycling. This style of riding is characterized by various rules and traditions that date to the end of the 19th century in France. When one participates in brevet events, one is part of an ancient cycling tradition with a worldwide following and over 110 years of legend, history, myth, and lore. It is not racing and being first is never the paramount goal of brevets. Finishing is the most important goal and especially for those who do so self-sufficiently and without outside support.

~ Sammamish Valley Cycling Web site

Been thinking about randonneuring lately as a pursuit. In the two years since I started cycling again, I've been sort of wandering around the territory, wondering which discipline is going to fit me best. I definitely need more focused seasonal goals. Having ill-defined or inappropriate goals has contributed mightly to my tendency to injure myself or overtrain in my first seasons.

I wonder if distance riding is the ticket. I deeply enjoy the whole "ride deliberately/budget your energy" aspect of the long rides I do every week. And, as Velophoriacs know, I am in love with the mythopoetic Euro-roots underpinning the history of cycling. That figures largely in randonneuring (note the French word, natch), so that would be a match. I guess another part of that same trad-Euro aesthetic is that randos get to ride some unbelievably well-crafted bikes.

The distance people I've met tend to be a bit older and more intellectual, mellow and social than the majority of their racer cousins. I like the "Ride your own ride, but be part of our group anyway" ethos, the general de-emphasis of speed, power and finishing order (they say results are usually posted alphabetically, not by time. Fancy that!) To be honest, I'm pretty prone to the ravenous obsession racers have about speed and competition; the problem is, my body develops problems if I push that side too much. Overall, it seems to thrive best in a sort of "steady effort" state, neither hammering nor dawdling. (Though I do love both hammering and dawdling).

I'm really enjoying learning ever more about bike repair, too, an essential part of long-distance riding because there is no "neutral support." You on yo' own, baby. Break a spoke, mash up your derailleur in a crash? If you don't know how to fix it, you're likely going to DNF.

Sounds good so far. Wait -- what about being "obsessive" and "eccentric"?

Uh, yeah. I think I got those covered.

The more I think about it, the more the description appeals, and applies, to me. Well, except the little thing about riding a century. Working on that. Done two metrics with a fair amount of climbing, so I figure I'm pretty close. When I do my first imperial century, it'll tell me a lot more about whether I want to undertake true "long distance" events. Y'know -- the stuff behind all the pretty bikes and alluring lore. The suffering, the flats, the headwinds, the bonks, the rain, the 2:00 am depressions.

Hey -- that which does not kill me, makes me stranger, right?

Only in My World?

Mrs. V. just started a terrific new job as the librarian at a local middle school. I went in with her Saturday morning to get a gander at her library and help her chip away at the gargantuan task of re-shelving the hundreds of dusty books piled randomly about the place. (The school hasn’t had an official librarian in many years.) We spent a nice morning listening to bouncy tunes from her iPod and perusing the various titles kids are reading nowadays – and were reading in, say, 1961, since there are innumerable dust-encrusted tomes that sorely need replacing. It was a geek’s paradise.

As a reward for my labors, the Missus bestowed upon me an important historical volume, reluctantly jettisoned from the collection due to its antiquity: Popular Mechanics Book of Bikes and Bicycling, by Dick Teresi. (Thanks, hon!)


Now, before you go smirking at the photo and the grandma’s-attic funk wafting from the typeface, just feast your little peepers on a random selection of topics covered in this baby, selected by simply flipping it open to various pages as I write this:

• The bleeding-edge innovation of titanium frames, newly available from Teledyne, an aeronautics company. Much lighter than Reynolds 531 steel tubing, which was the coin of the realm when this book was published. (Insider’s tip: Titanium is expensive, kids! A fully equipped bike, including that newfangled Japanese componentry, costs $300! But hey, it weighs a mere 18 pounds – the lightest bike on the market…)

• A suggestion that kids getting involved in those lunatic off-road cycling events that seem to be gaining popularity in wacky California, “use the ever-popular banana-seat, high-rise [handlebar] type of bike, sometimes called a ‘Sting Ray’ or a ‘Chopper’ (…) Some riders adapt their bikes with special studded tires, and handlebars with a special padded brace across the ‘Y’.” (Think full-travel suspension and disk brakes are recent? Look again. But careful of the stick shifter when jumping those stumps -- your future children are at stake.)

• A delightful photo of a woman in welding glasses and a summery gingham smock, hard at work in the Schwinn factory. The caption reads, “A craftswoman hand-brazes a Schwinn Paramount frame at [low] temperature, which produces a stronger frame.”

If you think you detect a sardonic note in my worship of this book, think again. I’m loving it; the nostalgia, the history lessons the pix and all. Personally, I think discarding it from the library equates roughly with using one of the lost papyruses from Alexandria to light a cigar – but then, I’m not complaining. My gain, right?

But the best is yet to come, folks. For fun, I looked up Mr. Teresi on the Web. First, I have to mention that he turns out to be an accomplished author and editor. But better yet, where do you think he lives? Amherst, Massachusetts. That’s right, the next town over from me. I’ll have to look him up some time. My bet is I already know someone who knows him.

This kind of thing tends to happen to me. My passions tend to connect me with people in my midst. Arbitrary folks -- my doctor, a therapist I'm starting counseling with, the husband of a co-worker -- just "happen" to turn out to be enthusiasts, too. It's always a treat when it comes out of the blue, a little gift to brighten the day-to-day. It's part of the flavor of my sweet and weird little world.

The Purest Expression of the Bike Mechanic

For professional advice, I relied on Taylor, who worked at South Mountain Cycles, a bike and espresso shop in the central triangle of our small town... Taylor was wild-haired and supernaturally lean, and festooned his face with goatees, handlebar moustaches, ironic mutton-chops, and other expressions of his mood. He was somewhere between eighteen and forty, had probably looked that age his whole life, and would continue on ageless, appearing ever in his prime until some magic day late in his life when he'd instantly transform into one of those ancient, crumpled mechanics who sit at the workstands in bike shops like gurus on mountaintops... He was, at least outwardly, enthusiastically living a life focused on a calling that, like a teacher or social worker or nursing-home caregiver, was important but doomed by market forces to a wage most Americans would find untenable, if not unlivable... He was a wrench—the purest expression of the bike mechanic.

Ten Points, Bill Strickland

I was reminded of this beautiful passage yesterday, as I am every time I stop by my first-choice local bike store and this one particular dude is tending the place. I won't mention his name, because I can't be sure he'd be flattered by the comparison. But I have to tell you, the excerpt above is an almost exact description of the fellow. He somehow manages to be surprisingly generous, slightly weird, utterly self-possessed and untouchably cool all at once. He has all the appealing qualities of those young, hip bike-shop employees—without all the annoying condescension and arrogance. I go there almost as much to be around him as I do for the good advice and fair prices.

Lucky me, huh?

End-of-season Rides, Western New England

Back in May, I compiled a list of early-to-mid-season cycling events within a two-hour drive of Amherst, MA -- an area including most of Connecticut, Western Massachusetts, southern Vermont, and a thin strip of New York State along the borders of those previous states. Having moved here recently, I found precious little in the way of comprehensive resources for cyclists, so I posted the list on Velophoria.

Last week, I repeated the process, searching for the regional rides remaining in the '09 season, starting in late August and running through the end of the season in October. These are organized rides that are neither official races nor official brevets/long-distance events. Each generally offers a range of distances, anywhere between 25 and 100 miles, and proceeds usually go to a good cause.

I only found six, and the two posts together comprise a mere 18 rides, which in itself represented hours of work. I'm quite sure there are many I've missed so, in the spirit of fostering greater Western New England cycling community, I'm putting out the call for comments, corrections and additions.

Sat., 8/29 - Ride with the Champions - Topsfield, MA

Sun., 9/13 - Connecticut Valley Century - Hatfield, MA

Sun., 9/13 - Ride to Provide - Amherst, Ma

Sun., 10/4 - Ashford Metric Century (Plus...) - Ashford, CT

Sun., 10/4 - Major Taylor Century - Whitinsville, MA

Sat., 10/17 - Ride for a Reason/Livestrong - West Hartford, CT