Resting, or Trying to at Least.
Last week I talked about wanting to go fast and light (Its call Randonneuring by the way), on my bike tour. I did go reasonably fast, for me I guess, but I certainly could have gone lighter. I had planned to make the trip a four days, but after I got over being nervous and scared I realized I was moving really well that first day and I decided to combine day one and day two. That made for a 190K day. Which is the longest I’ve gone in a while.
I was scared out of my mind before leaving. Scared that I was going to get totally lost. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to actually do the miles. Which means I was doing the right thing. But like I said Monday I’m saving the details for now.
At the end of the three days I had done nearly as many miles than my biggest week. I was back on Wednesday, and I had planned on spending Thursday writing and sitting with my legs up. Instead I did some writing, had coffee with a friend then went into Seattle to hang out with Jason at Cascade Bicycle Studios. After which I rode the fifteen miles to home. The next day I rode to work, well home from work after getting a flat and having to get a ride from Signe’s Mom. Then I rode to and from work on Saturday, claiming that Sunday would be the day that I didn’t ride. But then I rode down to Phinney Ridge, another 15 miles or so.
I know I need the rest and I’m hoping that today will be the day that I don’t ride. I say that as I think about riding out to a park in Mulketio and laying in the grass. Hopefully I’ll stay home, read, write and rehabing my bike. Problem is (and this is good problem to have) is that this trip has filled me with so much passion for riding that I feel I just have to do it.
The trip opened my mind to what’s possible on a bike, which is pointing me in directions I didn’t think I’d ever go. I’m also finding that I no longer identify as a “racer”, and I’m hoping to just be able to identify as a cyclist. Even if most the people at work think cyclist are bullshit.
Adventuring
Four years ago this month I lost the job I found my way into when I first moved to Portland. I was interning at a backpack company and looking to start my own thing. That was only kind of working out, and it was suggested that I take a trip, that I needed to go on a trip.
That trip was four days in the Mt. Stuart range just a smidgen north of Cle Elem Washington. Signe and I had been dating just long enough that I was meeting her family for the first time, and I asked her to drop me off before she headed back to Portland. It had been years since I’d gone backpacking and this trip was my first true alpine experience. The combination of loosing my job and not having any true prospects on the horizon, and some intense interpersonal battles along with feeling a little lost provided a perfect environment for self assessment. A bit of the feeling I was talking about in last Wednesday’s post.
Monday morning I leave on the first proper adventure I’ve gone on in a long time, when I start pedaling a path through the Olympic Peninsula. I’m doing it for a story so I’ll keep the details of the trip on the down low for now. I can say that I choose to do this ride so I could create the gig, my first true gig. Now I’m finding that this is type of ride is exactly what I need.
Lately I’ve been thinking about ways to combine the ideals of “fast and light” alpinism that I aspired to, but was never strong enough -mentally or physically – when I was climbing. I had a small inkling then, but its clear now that I was a fraud then. I knew where I wanted to be, but knowing I wasn’t there I faked it, hoping I would eventually make. I did all the training, rarely went on the trips. I got close to the ideal a few times and I failed trying to achieve it more time than I can recall.
When I first conceived this trip I saw it as traditional bike tour. Steel bike, laden with panniers, self supported; tent, sleeping bag, stove, extra clothes, all the stuff they tell you to toss in. Kitchen sink style. Problem was I didn’t want a bike that was just for that. But over the months of planning I’ve settled on doing this fast and light. Maybe two overnights. Small sleeping bag, tarp for cover, stove for boiling water, coffee, noodles and oatmeal.
I said I failed a lot when it came to Fast and Light Alpinism, but it wasn’t because I didn’t know how to go light. Near monthly camping trips between the ages of eleven and sixteen taught me how to do that, climbing just refined that idea. So I’ve got that down. Now I just have to do the pedaling.
There’s still the story I pitched. That will get written. There is also another theme emerging and I’m excited to dig into that story as well.
Of course that means there won’t be any posts this week. I need to unplug for a week. See you when I get back.
Fight Gone Out.
A lot of pixels have been misaligned here talking about racing, The PRO’s, my own insignificant racing – back when I first started riding again and thought that my suffering was worth reporting, and the fact that I haven’t been racing this year. This is probably going to be another one of those posts.
For two years I organized my life around riding and racing. Training plans, long rides and sets of intervals. This year, with the move and all I had a really hard time getting into that head space again. I have come to peace with the fact that, at this moment I am much more content to ride without doing sets of intervals. Now my rides are defined by the things I saw and felt or the swooping feeling of nailing the series of ninety degree turns that is Goat Trail Road. I’ve stopped training, at least as I used to do it, fuck time at threshold, because well… let’s be honest here: I’m coming on thrity-four years old and fifteen pounds overweight. I’m willing to bet that even if I was allowed to quit my job and do nothing but ride for the next five years I wouldn’t be able to win a Stars and Stripes jersey at thirty-nine.
I’m ok with this. Totally ok with this in fact. I don’t want to be paid to ride a bike. I do want to be paid to write however. Part of giving up on actual training this year was the knowledge that this year would be the year I would become a better writer and not a better racer. There is a chance of that happening. Though I’m clearly not qualified to judge that.
That doesn’t mean I don’t miss the racing. I have tried so hard to be alright with not spending one weekend day a week racing. A few Thursdays back I was talking to John about how I miss it. “Do you really miss though?” He asked. My answer was an emphatic yes. Not the paying for and driving to and certainly not the intervals but the teamwork, and the hurt, and the fun, and the jumping from one fractured group to the other.
A few years back, Bill Strickland wrote a post for his Sitting In, blog where he wrote (during a period of not racing and I assume heavy workload.) “It reminded me that somewhere inside something inside me was dying.” I don’t feel that something in me is dying, but I do feel part of me has changed or is in the process of changing.
Lately I have this feeling that I’m no longer confronting myself. That I have moved from a state of near constant struggle to one of resignation – that this is the way I am. That I am doomed to always be an also ran, and all attempts to make myself into the human I want to be will fall short. I feel like I’m losing my ability to fight to become that person I want to be.
Racing is not fundamental to who I am. But that fight, and my seemingly lost ability to just barely pull some kind of victory from defeat. That’s a big lost for someone who’s track coach once nicknamed him “Bulldog”. Not because I won, or ever came close to cracking top five in race, but because I was tenacious enough to hold on and run through whatever pain I was feeling and still finish mid pack. Mark Twight wrote, or at least that’s where I read it, “You become who you hang out with”. I get to ride with some great people every Thursday. The rest of time I ride by myself or I’m at work… with the people I work with. Spending two hours a day with good people doesn’t balance it out.
I feel like the fight is coming out of me and that scares the hell out of me.
Press Pass
In two weeks I am heading out on my first freelance assignment, a difficult one that will find me bike touring the Olympic Peninsula and stopping at various breweries along the way. Difficult, I know. My writing has appeared else where and I’ve even been paid for one of those stories. The problem is they are all about me, but this one is about what’s out in the wilds surrounding the Olympic Mountains.
Thing is I’ve never been on a bike tour before, the bike I’m going to use is heavy and has some large ass gears (for touring anyway) and I have a terrible sense of direction. I can read a map and use a compass, which I plan on doing (strictly old school here). I’m excited, but also pretty frickin freaked out right now.
Getting my writing in front of a larger audience, having something to write about that isn’t about me, and – yes – being in print is something I’ve been working toward for the last couple of years. I’m terrible at pitching ideas. I’ve blown a couple of chances to bring this blog to the next level. You can dig through the archives and find read how I blew the Dan Harm interview. I somehow blew the chance to embed with a team at the Cascade Cycling Classic, first after I failed to write a descent enough pitch to two publications, and then was unable to convince that team that I should write about them on these pages. One only has to flip through some of these pages to see why. I know there are other factors, but when you get down to it I’ve failed somehow.
If you also read these pages regularly you’ll know that this is a constant struggle for me. Balancing the moments of confidence, hubris and near crippling self doubt has made it difficult for me to get it together. Well that and the fact that I hired a terrible editor (me). This up coming tour is maybe an opportunity for me to get it together. Prove to myself that I’m capable of pitching and following through with my ideas. That’s how I’m trying to see it at least.
It Breaks Your Heart
USA Cycling has taken a lot of hits this year, with all that Lance shit. Earlier in the year there was lots of talk about people opting out of getting licenses this year as a form of protest. Then there was the (needed) hoopla over what races PROs could actually take part in without having to use nom de plumes. One could wonder what they could do to make amends. How ’bout live streaming the US PRO races in Chattanooga? Yeah okay. But how about also streaming the Woman’s races. YES!
The Olympic road race demonstrated to the world that Woman’s racing is every bit, and most the time MORE exciting than the Men’s races. Sadly, its often pretty damn hard to watch a woman’s road race. Which is a goddamn shame. Today’s US PRO Woman’s race showed why woman’s road racing needs more attention.
When I finally made it over to the coffee shop to watch the race Mara Abbott was off the front and trucking. With teammates in the chase group it looked like she was going to nail it. Jade Wilcoxson made a bold move to bridge just as Mara Abbott was struck with a puncture, then a difficult wheel change, then a broken derailleur hanger. It was, excuse the phrase, an epic mechanical. It was heart breaking to watch.
That moved Wilcoxson from being the chaser to being off the front. Kristen McGrath bridge and the two worked well together. Both riders were lucky enough to have teammates in the chasing group.
The two worked well together until the last small rise when Wilcoxson dropped the hammer and dropped McGrath. I’m not an Oregon native, but I lived there long enough to feel a bit of investment in here result. She soloed off, hammering in the drops. It was all over when she hit the descent. There was just a left hander between her and victory. Then, just like when Van Summeran won Roubaix, tears fell from my eyes.
That win was fucking beautiful.
Not from today’s race, but hey I’m posting before the podium is even finished.
Its About Telling a Story: Rapha Club Jersey Review
One night, after Portland’s Tuesday night PIR race I was riding home with Otis who lived in the same neighborhood as I did. It was our first time meeting in real life though we’d been talking on twitter a fair amount, but that doesn’t really give you sense of what each other does for a living. That lead us to copy writing and branding agreeing that part of selling a product was telling a story that customers could get behind. One they could see themselves in. That lead us to Rapha, who are the kings when it comes to spinning that narrative.
At the time I owned a few Rapha products.
- 3 caps
- Essentials Case
- Old Prototype of a Softshell Jacket
- Old Prototype of the Stowaway Jacket (now the classic wind jacket)
The jackets aside (which I picked up 50 and 60 dollars on craigslist!) I owned only products that my customer service salary could allow. Later I would work past my salary, save some pennies and bought a Long Sleeve jersey this past winter. I love it, but since I bought it on clearance there was only Large left. I figured I would fit a “Rapha Large”, just like people will tell me, “I wear a medium, except in Castelli, I wear an XL” Well, the Large is too big, which doesn’t stop me from wearing it, but it doesn’t fit right so I’ve refrained from writing a review.
Two weeks ago I took the plunge and purchased another jersey. This time it was the Club Jersey, which gets a new set of colors (3) every year. Each jersey is colored and named after a cycling legend. This years color ways are Fig, Black and Light Blue. I picked up the last of CBS Fremont’s Fig jersey – in the proper size this time – which is named after English Cyclist Tommy Godwin a track and endurance cyclist who was capable of putting down 75,065 miles a year. You can learn all about him on the linked wikipedia page, or you could just peep the label inside the right jersey pocket. That brings us back to the story.
Aside from looking good, being comfortable and functional, good kit should inspire you. It should raise in you a desire to set out and have your own version of the adventures you see the Rapha Continental having. In addition, any brand pedaling road wear should have a focus ON THE HISTORY OF THE SPORT which Rapha does beautifully.
Regardless of what you may think of the black and white aesthetic and use of the word “epic”. Regardless of what you may think about the pictures of riders sprinting against each other sans helmet (get over it I say!) you can not deny that this is some of the best cycling ware around. The fit on my jersey is perfect. It doesn’t sag when the pockets are stuffed and despite the quarter zip, it keeps me cool when the temps rise. I wore it yesterday and immediately washed it so that I could wear it again today. Simply put it is the best jersey I’ve ever worn. Now I just need to save up for a pair of bibs so I can stop mixing my kit brands.
As with previous reviews this item was purchased (with a small discount) with my own money from one of my favorite shops (studio).
Chaos and Embeds
Monday is my rest day and this week it just so happens to coincide with the first of Giro’s rest day. Which, when I break it down really only means that I have one less thing to do today. I used to roll my eyes when friends of mine would drone on about how the Giro is really the better of the Grand Tours. There really is no way to compare the weight of two beauties, but when it comes down to it the Giro is, in general, much more fun to watch.
Partially because its in Italy, partially because the mountains are cut from a different cloth, but mostly because its really hard for teams to march up categorized climbs. The reality of it is that the Giro goes down in similar fashion to a Spring Classic, where chaos rules the days and makes things difficult for those who come in to Italy after leaving in the positive feedback loop of out of the way islands and not rubbing elbows in the Peloton and working on crucial Spring race skills like – I don’t know – descending in the rain. (In all fairness I can’t go downhill worth a goddamn – wet or dry – but I’m also not paid to ride a bicycle.)
The Giro is beautiful, not just because of the chaos, but also because it, in some ways, harkens back to the Golden Era of cycling (which happens to be the Golden Era of cycling Journalism). But maybe I’m wrong.
However there was some journalistic drama after dogged pursuer of Lance, David Walsh posted one of his No Hiding Place series, as he embeds with Team Sky. The piece is about Wiggo, and lets not beat around it here, because that’s who English readers want to read about, so there’s not problem casting him as the protagonist. Walsh did catch some shit however for striking out at Time Trial winner Alex Dowsett, who at some point last year called Lance a hero. Walsh struck out, telling people via twitter to make his day. He seems to have forgotten that Wiggo has been confused about Lance as well. This is how it goes when you are embedded with a team.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Walsh comes out with a new book based on his time following Team Sky. He mentions in his dispatch that the staff know when to leave Wiggo alone. I’m sure Walsh knows those moments as well. Truth of the matter is this: No team would invite a Journalist of embed with them if they didn’t think it would serve the team well. David Walsh didn’t sign up to be a Sky PR hack, but by following the team its hard to not become that.
Giro, you are beautiful.
