Category Archives: Cycling

Well, not a good race for me this week. I only hung on for four laps or so, and then I just couldn’t do it any more. There were a bunch of reasons for this, I think, the main one being that the pack took off much faster than usual. Since I’m usually barely hanging on, if they speed up just a little bit, I’m lost. I heard later that after a while they slowed down, but I couldn’t last that long. I tried to take a break for a couple laps and catch back on (normally this isn’t allowed, I think, but these races are training races and so they encourage it, so riders can get more training), but once I’ve fallen behind, I just don’t have the drive to try once again. Also affecting my performance was my bad eating throughout the day: I’m extremely sensitive about food, so not eating at regular times really messes me up. Plus, it was windy, so if I fell behind from the pack just a bit, I had to work super hard to catch back up, since I was battling the wind.

But I don’t mean to sound like I’m making excuses for myself — I’m simply not in good enough shape. And the truth is, I don’t care that much how I do. I want to be strong, which I am, and I’m not too concerned that there are a whole bunch of people who are stronger than me. Now, if only I could bring that kind of equanimity into the rest of my life, I’d be set. But that’s harder.

So much for the short rides (very short this time around!) — I’m really, really jealous of these people who are doing all kinds of crazy long rides and blogging about them. They are the Ditty Bops, a two-woman band who are touring across the country on their bikes! I mean, touring as in doing shows across the country, and riding from show to show. Doesn’t that sound just great? They are riding about 70-90 miles a day, maybe with some days off thrown in there, I’m not sure.

I’m jealous a little bit of their singing ability (their music is uncategorizable, sort of country, folk, pop, rock … something, and seems good although I haven’t listened to much), but mostly I’m jealous of their cycling trip. I so want to ride my bike across the country. If anyone out there gets a hankering to drive across the country and doesn’t need to do it fast, let me know, because what the Hobgoblin and I need is someone willing to drive along with us to carry our gear while we ride. We could just ride all by ourselves, but carrying a tent and food and clothes on the bike would be very difficult. The best way is to have someone drive and meet us at the stopping spot every night.

I just love thinking about long distance trips like this — on the bike or on foot. I really, really want to hike the whole Appalachian Trail (about 2,100 miles) and the whole Long Trail (much more do-able at 270 miles), and then there’s the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail. And on the bike, there’s that cross-country trip, of course, and I want to ride the entire Blue Ridge Parkway through Virginia and North Carolina. And I want to do walking and cycling tours through Europe too.

I’m afraid, though, that the best part about such trips might be the anticipating and planning. I know from the longish backpacking trips I’ve taken (1-2 weeks) that my interest begins to flag after not too long. I’m not sure whether if I stuck with it the pleasure would return or not. I sure would like to give it a try and find out.

One of the things I love about riding my bike and walking in the woods and going backpacking is that I just don’t know what is going to happen to me. I’m not much of a risk-taker, but I do like putting myself outside just to see what happens. Sometimes it’s breathtaking, sometimes it’s difficult, sometimes it’s boring, sometimes it’s dangerous. Always it’s worthwhile.

Anyway, Tuesday evening, my race night, the Hobgoblin and I rode out to the race course under threatening clouds, and before we’d arrived, we started to feel raindrops. Soon, it was a downpour, with thunder and lightning all around us. The two of us and a dozen or so other cyclists tried to take shelter under a little tent where race registration was held, but it didn’t work: the rain, slanting sideways, soaked me anyway. We had fun though, huddling under the little tent, half frightened, half thrilled by the lightning, and in about 15 minutes the rain passed. We got back on our bikes and continued warming up, although with wet uniforms and on wet pavement.

And I had a great race. It was my longest yet, at just under an hour, and I stayed with the pack the whole time, right up to the finish line. I even finished ahead of quite a few of the guys. The hardest part of the course is a hill, not that long, but just long enough to cause me to struggle, and since the course is just under a mile, during that hour, I rode up it again and again – 30 times in fact. Sometimes I found myself falling back a bit on that hill, but always I was able to catch up and stay with the main group.

Before the race began, the guy in charge gave us a little lecture about bike etiquette, how we should be “ambassadors” for cycling, to give cycling a good name. We might say hello to people mowing their lawns as we pass them, and we should make sure we greet other riders. And, of course, we should always obey the traffic rules. The implication of this lecture is that cyclists can be rude – otherwise there would be no reason to lecture us – but the feeling I got from it and from the response is that most cyclists really want to promote their sport, get other people involved in it, make sure it has a good reputation. This is one of the benefits of being involved in a sport that’s fairly small – the people are often very welcoming and friendly. Cyclists want to have other people involved, to create a healthy level of competition. This is certainly true for female cyclists: there sometimes aren’t enough women to have a decent-sized pack for a race, so the more women involved the better. Yes, those other women are competitors, but without competitors, a rider doesn’t improve. Other riders aren’t merely your competitors: they are the people you need to make yourself better.

During the race, there was a rider who kept helping me out; he should have been in the “A” race – the fast race, but for some reason, he was riding with the “B” riders, including me. He came up beside me at one point and said that it’s easier to ride up front in the pack, which I acknowledged to be true – riders at the front tend to ride more smoothly and at a consistent pace, while at the back, people keep “yo-yo-ing,” or speeding up and slowing down and speeding up and slowing down, over and over. But if you’re a beginning racer like me, it’s very hard to stay up at the front. So this guy offered to pull me up to the front; he motioned for me to jump on his wheel – to ride right behind it and draft him – and then he rode around the pack, leading me up to the front. Then he motioned at another rider’s wheel I was supposed to draft on. Unfortunately, I kept falling back, so a couple times more he led me up to the front. He seemed to have a lot of fun doing this. At one point at the bottom of the hill when I started to fall behind the pack, I felt a hand on my back, which I’m positive belonged to the same guy, giving me a push up the hill, helping me to keep up. Later, again at the bottom of the hill, he said, “now don’t make me push you up the hill again!” and so I pushed hard and kept up with the pack.

I looked around for him afterward, but couldn’t find him to thank him. Maybe next week. If I were a stronger, more experienced rider, I wouldn’t want such help, but as it is, I’m pleased. I can’t help but like it that there are people out there taking an interest in how I do, wanting to help me, and obviously getting some fun out of doing it.

I know that there are cyclists who are jerks, who are hyper-competitive, who only care about winning and don’t care what they do to win, but I’ve haven’t been meeting those people. Instead, I’ve been meeting people who love the sport and want others to love it too, who love just being out on the race course and a part of the pack, and who want to help out new riders.

Last night I rode in the weekly Tuesday night bike race, and once again I finished, which, for me at this point, is all I hope for.

The race felt like it was more about people working together than it was about competition, although competition was there too. This happened in two ways, the first I didn’t find out about until after the race. A group of 9 riders broke away from the pack – which had probably about 45 riders total – fairly early on and stayed ahead for the rest of the race. When a group goes off the front, leaving the main pack behind, riders in the main pack who have team members in the break-away group will try to keep the main pack riding slowly, so the break-away group will stay out front and therefore have a better chance of winning. Since one of my teammates was in the break-away group, other members of my team worked hard to keep everyone in the slower group back. If anyone tried to catch up with the front group, they got in front of that rider and slowed him or her down. They were sacrificing their own chance of winning so that the faster teammate could win. I wasn’t aware of this, partly because I was pretty far in the back and couldn’t see the tactics and partly because I’m working so hard, I don’t pay attention to anyone else.

And this is how cycling is supposed to work. I didn’t realize for a long time what a team sport it is. It’s not at all like running where, as far as I know, everyone is on their own and you just run as fast as you can. Instead, the team is supposed to work together, with the drafting of course, but also by designating one person as the rider everyone else will support, with everyone else sacrificing themselves if necessary.

After the race, some of my teammates were standing around talking, all excited about working together to help someone else out. This is funny, in a very cool kind of way. I mean, each of them was basically saying, “I played a supporting, subordinate role in this race, and I had a great time doing it. Isn’t it fun to make sacrifices for other riders? It’s not really me that matters, after all, it’s the team. Winning isn’t everything.” It’s not often a woman gets to sit around and listen to a group of men talk this way.

And you know what they call the guys who help the top teammate by keeping the main pack in line so the fast guy can get out front and win?

Domestiques.

So my teammates were all excited about being domestiques. Women, if this doesn’t get you up on your bike and out to join your local cycling club, I don’t know what will. This is also the sport where you get to see beautifully-muscled men wearing pink.

The other thing that happened is that one of the two other women riding in this group – neither of whom I’ve actually met – spoke to me a couple times, encouraging me to keep going. One time this happened when we were riding up the short hill on the way to the start/finish line; I was slowing down a bit, and she came alongside me and told me to keep pushing, that the last thing I want to do is fall back on the hill. I’d have a chance to rest at the top. So I pushed on. Later on she pulled up beside me, told me I was doing great, and explained that she’s gotten dropped on hills many times and has learned that you have to push as hard as you possibly can on the uphill and recover later. That’s the only way to keep up. I thanked her, and tried to find her after the race to talk a bit more, but she didn’t stick around.

So we were competing, but the feeling was one of helping each other out. I was pleased at the gender solidarity – that woman rider, whoever she was, was making a point of encouraging me – a beginning, struggling woman rider, perhaps with some potential. And I love the team solidarity as well. I don’t know how often the teams actually work together like they are supposed to – I’m sure it happens much more often in professional cycling than on this amateur level – but it sure sounded great to hear people talking about it later. I can’t assist anyone on my team right now, but they are helping me out a lot, and maybe someday I can return the favor.

For another perspective on the race from the other reader/rider/writer who lives in my house, check this out. Because I know all you bookworms can’t get enough of this racing stuff.

Tomorrow, back to books: an update on my Evelina reading.

I’ve been riding in a series of races every Tuesday night for the last three weeks. They are held less than two miles from my house, so on Tuesday evenings my husband and I will roll out of the house on our bikes and ride over. When people ask me how I did, I have to find some way of telling them I’m happy with my performance, even though, in truth, I didn’t do very well. “I did pretty well — for me…” “I did badly, but better than the week before…” “I’m happy with how I did …” And then we have this discussion of how what really matters is how I feel about the results, that I’m having fun and am getting in great shape. Yeah, yeah.

Last night I actually did pretty well — I finished the race with the pack for the first time. The previous two weeks I stayed with them for 2/3 and then 3/4 of the way (they ride for about an hour) then had to drop out because I couldn’t maintain a 25-mile an hour speed and an average heart rate of 173 bpm or so. But this time I was with them up until the very last bit of it.

When I arrive, I look around at the other racers and see all these people, almost entirely men (the first two races a couple other women rode but last night I was the only one), who look so strong, and I think, no way. This is silly; I can’t compete. It must be something about seeing all those men with their low body fat percentages and their obviously rippling leg muscles that intimidates me. I’ve got big leg muscles, all right, but you don’t see them unless you look really closely, covered as they are with my feminine layer of fat. But you really can’t tell how someone will ride based on how they look. People who look a bit overweight will end up having some super-powerful muscles and they will leave you behind, or the scrawny guy who has the tiniest-looking muscles will fly up the hill like you wouldn’t believe.

I dread these races every week. Every Tuesday I think, really, I’d rather just stay home and read. I think, oh, I’ll just take it easy this week. I really don’t feel like riding hard. My day was too stressful and I just need a rest. I warm up for a race and have no energy; I’m sluggish and can’t work up speed. But something happens when I get really warmed up and the race begins — I get energy, and by the end of the race, I have a lot more energy than I did at the beginning, even though my muscles are very glad I’ve stopped.

When I did training rides with my old cycling club, I’d do this obnoxious thing where I’d say to everybody, oh, I’m going to take it easy today. I’d get that lethargic feeling, and I would know it was going to be a slow ride. But then I’d get energy from somewhere, start riding faster and working harder, and people would get annoyed with me because I’d be pushing the pace when I’d promised not to. Actually, I’m not the only one who did this — our conversations before the race would be about how everybody was tired that day and was going to take it easy. We may have believed it in the moment, but everything changed once the ride began.

All this tells me that I probably shouldn’t listen to those feelings of dread and weariness when they come. Or maybe I should listen to them but not believe them. I feel that dread before a lot of difficult things I have to do — it’s similar to the sense of dread and weariness I will often feel before I teach a class. But once the class begins, I get energy from somewhere and I end up having fun.

Difficult things like bike races don’t sap my energy: they create it. There is nothing worse for me than sitting around all day reading a book. I will feel weary and disgruntled by the time I go to bed. A perfect weekend day is really something like riding a race or doing a hard training ride in the morning, and then coming home, with new energy and the feeling I’ve accomplished something, and then sitting down and reading for as long as I like.

Speaking of reading, I recently finished Muriel Spark’s novel Aiding and Abetting, which I will post on soon.

This is one of the major problems of being a cyclist — that you spend the whole summer with very sharp tan lines right where your cycling clothes end. I’ve already got a dark line on my upper arm, a series of dark lines above my knees, at the places my cycling shorts of varying lengths end, and a dark line above my ankle where my socks end. A large percentage of the time I spend outside I spend on my bike, so I’m stuck. I have this problem where I’ll apply sunscreen, and apply it when I have my cycling clothes on, so I get it right, but then as I ride, the shorts will ride up a bit and the short sleeves on the jersey will pull up a little bit, and I’ll have missed a section of skin and will end up with this sunburnt patch of an inch or so on my arm and thigh.

The funniest tan lines, though, are the ones on my wrist and hand, where my cycling gloves end. I have a super-sharp line on the thumb side of my wrist, since I ride mostly with my hands in a sideways position, with the thumb facing up. And then as summer gets going, I’ll develop lines on my fingers, since the gloves end just before they reach the first knuckle. And, depending on the kind of gloves I have, I sometimes get a little dot on the back of my hand where the velcro strap doesn’t quite cover the skin fully. I’m already developing this dot on my left hand, although for some reason I don’t have one on my right. I guess my gloves aren’t quite the same. If you have gloves with mesh on the back, you will end up with a whole series of dots across the back of your hand. Some cyclists will develop a line across their forehead where their helmet goes, and maybe lines across the neck where the helmet straps cover.

Sigh — the sacrifices I make for my bike. So today is devoted to fixing this situation — sitting outside in the hopes that my hands and ankles will get some sun.

Yesterday I went on a 50-mile ride, my longest of the season by far; I’m working my way up to being able to do a 100-mile ride by late August. I like to ride centuries — organized rides with set routes and food and water supplied along the way — of (logically) 100 miles, although there are always shorter options for those not wanting to ride the 6 or 7 or 8 hours it takes to do the full thing. The longest 1-day ride I’ve ever done is 130 miles, about 1 1/2 years ago, a ride that taught me a thing or two about endurance and pain. For some reason, the pain doesn’t keep me away — I suppose it’s the sense of accomplishment and the feeling of strength that keeps me doing it again and again.

What a mess this day was. My race this morning was fine, and my husband’s was fine too until the very end when he was involved in a big crash, and we ended up spending the afternoon in the emergency room. That was not the kind of drama we were looking for today! He’s fine, but with a cracked rib and a lot of scraped-off skin. He’s on some fancy painkiller they gave him at the hospital.

That’s the risk you take when you ride, I suppose, and especially when you race. The only crashes I’ve been involved in so far are ones I’ve accomplished all on my own — accidently riding off the road and tipping over, not being able to get out of my clipless pedals, that sort of clutzy thing. But one day I’ll be in a real crash, I’m sure.

I’ll keep riding, though, and I’m positive my husband will too. I’m not the sort of person who tries very hard to avoid risk. I’m no daredevil, but I think that, at least for me, a perfectly safe life isn’t the best kind of life to live.

I haven’t had a moment to read until now, so I will be off to my books soon.

It’s turned out to be a beautiful day, sunny in the low 60s, but it wasn’t so great when I raced this morning at 8:00: it was kind of overcast and about 33 degrees. The race was fun, however; I’ve continued my trend of improving every race, and this time around I didn’t get dropped until the very last lap. Woo-hoo! And I didn’t feel like throwing up this time, either, an improvement I’m very happy to see. I think I’m getting used to the fast pace of a criterium. My average heart rate was lower and my recovery afterwards much faster. This was the last race in a series of six races, so now I have a few weeks off before I begin again. A few weeks to do what I can to improve my fitness.

As usual, I had a chance to talk with some of the spectators; this time they included the parents of a 14-year-old who is beginning to race and who gave me some pictures they took of me from last week (and I don’t even know their names!), and two guys who came to my little town from the big city. They don’t know much about bike racing, so I got to be the expert and explain things like “primes” and how to tell when you’re heading into the final lap.

I was standing with a group of guys at one point, sort of a part of their conversation, but not quite, one of whom decided to tell a joke or an anecdote, I’m not sure which, about a group of women marching or protesting for women’s rights and a man standing behind the group with a sign that said something along the lines of “go do my laundry, bitch!” I have no idea how this was relevant to whatever the conversation was. The guy next to me, not the one who told the story, turned to me and said something about why he was laughing, trying to explain it away, obviously a bit embarrassed. I just walked away at that point. I suppose I could have said something, but I didn’t understand the context enough to know why he told the story. Yuck.

Most of my interactions with the men who race and who watch races aren’t like that, thank God. I wish more women rode, though. Most of the time, I don’t really notice that I’m the only woman, or one of only a couple women, riding with a group of men, but sometimes the conversation gets ugly, and I think, are you forgetting that I’m here? Or do you just not care?

Update: the above story turns out not to be quite as bad as I’d thought. I later found out that the guy telling the misogynistic story was telling it in the process of making fun of another guy, not present, who is known as being ultra-conservative and misogynistic and is, therefore, mocked. The misogynist had sent the story around on an email. I’d missed the larger context, which is bad enough, of course.