I want to ride my....
Aug. 6th, 2002 03:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
volksdragonI rode my bicycle 23 or 24 miles yesterday.
I know, not since a big deal, but it is for me. I haven't ridden anywhere any distance away in YEARS.
Some background: I used to race in Criterium races at LEAST once a week, and I used to win at LEAST 50% of the time. For the class I was in, I was pretty good. This was 10 years ago, back when I was MUCH younger, and 30 pounds lighter. This was high school time, and just after.
Then I went to college. I'm still not sure why, but I stopped riding, pretty much. I definitely stopped racing. I tried another criterium race a few years after my last one, and found out that while I hadn't lost too much speed, I had lost the ability to ride in a close pack of people, and that's not an optional skill when racing.
During and after college, I gained some weight. I'm nowhere near as skinny as I was before, while I'm still in decent shape. However, I'm not in racing shape by any means. I had a mountain bike I rode most of the time, and in fact sold my racing bike, my beloved Cannondale, to a friend who also did some racing and courier work with it, and I was happy to see it used well.
After a while, he stopped racing too, and so I bought it back for the same amount I sold it to him for originally. It was still in decent shape, if not a little dirty, so I cleaned it up, and put it in the basement. It stayed in the basement.
Two or three years ago, I took it out, and tried to ride it. I felt all wobbly on it, very insecure, and took a short 1/2 mile and then consigned it again to the basement.
I moved it last year from our OLD basement to our NEW basement. It gathered more dust, but no rust, since it's aluminum, and I was careful to keep it relatively dry. "I'll ride it some day," I said to myself.
I've watched almost every Tour de France race since 1986, when I started racing. I watched Greg Lemond do what an American wasn't supposed to be able to do, win the tour in 1987. I watched Andy Hampsten try and fail to become the next American hope, when Lemond's career (and luckily not his life) was ended by a freak shotgun accident while hunting. I missed Miguel Indurain's dominance in the 1990's, because I just plain disliked the man, but I still followed the tour. But when Lance Armstrong started winning in 1999, I sat up again and took notice. His story was too compelling to ignore, and I watched more carefully, rooting for this unlikely tour winner.
His dominance each year has personally given me a pang of regret, not at the fact that he won the race, but for the fact that I did not continue racing. I was good, and if I'd kept it up, I could have been, I think, perhaps racing in the Tour de France alongside Lance. Watching him simply dance away from his competitors again this year FINALLY triggered something in me that said, "I'm getting my bike out again."
And instead of farting around, I actually did it. I took it out of the basement a few weeks ago, dusted it off, pumped up the tires, checked all the cabling, oiled a few parts, strapped the clipless shoes on, and hopped aboard for a check-out ride. Lo and behold, if I didn't feel stable on the bike this time, and while I wasn't nearly as fast as I'd ever been before, and I came back all sweaty and tired out after a few miles of pushing myself harder than I should have, I remembered why I'd started riding these things in the first place.
I remembered the freedom with a bicycle, the freedom to go anywhere, without worrying about tolls, gasoline, routes. I remembered the satisfaction of making it up to the top of the hill ahead of you, and seeing the HUGE downhill spread out before you, and just KNOWING that, if you pushed it just a little, you could probably just crack 55mph on your way down. Few things are more exciting than breaking a highway speed limit on your bicycle.
When I was racing, and I was really good, and I'd just spent 30 miles cruising along at 26mph with a pack of 40-50 other guys... I'd be somewhere in the middle, and we'd cross the line for the last lap, and the bell would ring, and I'd get goosebumps all over my arms as we sped up even MORE, and for the last lap, we'd be doing between 28 and 30mph for a mile, and I'd be working my way up to the front, and we'd come around that last right-hand corner, and I'd see the hill start to climb up slowly ahead of me. I'd be in the little group of 10 guys ahead of the rest of the pack, and I'd get in a nice draft behind two or three guys, pedaling along up the hill, really cruising, not slowing down at all, and we'd drop 3 or 4 more guys going around that uphill corner. The guy ahead of me would look around, and I'd be practically TOUCHING his rear wheel with my front, and he'd see I wasn't going ANYWHERE. When we crossed the 200 meter mark, I'd jump. I'd pop it up one gear higher, get out the seat standing, and just THRASH, try to blast past the guy so fast he couldn't get a draft on my rear wheel, and I'd just be gone, except for ONE guy who could almost match my jump. He'd streak through with me, and I'd sit down, pop up another gear, and stand and really stomp it again. My stomach would slowly start to hurt my 150 meters, and the guy would be about 20 feet behind me, but not gaining. At 100 meters, you could hear and see the crowd at the finish line cheering, and see the line, and I'd sit, pop one more hear, and then stand up with my head down and just think of nothing but pedaling.
When I crossed the line, the guy behind me couldn't keep up, he'd dropped off with 60 meters to go, and I'd won easily. I crossed the line at 35, 36mph, with 30 feet to spare.
Usually everyone shook hands while riding around on the cool-down lap. I got a few dirty looks from some of the guys, having been beaten by some 16 year old kid. They figured I was lucky. Those, and the guys with the $2000 bicycles were the ones I liked beating the most. I whole-heartedly agree with the title of Lance's book, "It's not about the Bike." In fact, I'm hoping that's very true in my case. I'm not sure if I want to, or even if I could, get back into racing. I'm thinking the random racer I met while riding Monday was some sort of sign that I should give it a whirl, but that would mean giving up some other things in my life. On the other hand, I could use bicycling to get back into some shape closer to that which I was in before, while eschewing racing. I don't know. I do know that, even though I came back from my ride yesterday hot, tired, and I was forced to stop once due to my inability to continue moving my legs, I rode a good distance in a good time, and had fun doing it.
If you hear me inviting you to a bicycle race sometime in the next year, don't be too surprised....
I know, not since a big deal, but it is for me. I haven't ridden anywhere any distance away in YEARS.
Some background: I used to race in Criterium races at LEAST once a week, and I used to win at LEAST 50% of the time. For the class I was in, I was pretty good. This was 10 years ago, back when I was MUCH younger, and 30 pounds lighter. This was high school time, and just after.
Then I went to college. I'm still not sure why, but I stopped riding, pretty much. I definitely stopped racing. I tried another criterium race a few years after my last one, and found out that while I hadn't lost too much speed, I had lost the ability to ride in a close pack of people, and that's not an optional skill when racing.
During and after college, I gained some weight. I'm nowhere near as skinny as I was before, while I'm still in decent shape. However, I'm not in racing shape by any means. I had a mountain bike I rode most of the time, and in fact sold my racing bike, my beloved Cannondale, to a friend who also did some racing and courier work with it, and I was happy to see it used well.
After a while, he stopped racing too, and so I bought it back for the same amount I sold it to him for originally. It was still in decent shape, if not a little dirty, so I cleaned it up, and put it in the basement. It stayed in the basement.
Two or three years ago, I took it out, and tried to ride it. I felt all wobbly on it, very insecure, and took a short 1/2 mile and then consigned it again to the basement.
I moved it last year from our OLD basement to our NEW basement. It gathered more dust, but no rust, since it's aluminum, and I was careful to keep it relatively dry. "I'll ride it some day," I said to myself.
I've watched almost every Tour de France race since 1986, when I started racing. I watched Greg Lemond do what an American wasn't supposed to be able to do, win the tour in 1987. I watched Andy Hampsten try and fail to become the next American hope, when Lemond's career (and luckily not his life) was ended by a freak shotgun accident while hunting. I missed Miguel Indurain's dominance in the 1990's, because I just plain disliked the man, but I still followed the tour. But when Lance Armstrong started winning in 1999, I sat up again and took notice. His story was too compelling to ignore, and I watched more carefully, rooting for this unlikely tour winner.
His dominance each year has personally given me a pang of regret, not at the fact that he won the race, but for the fact that I did not continue racing. I was good, and if I'd kept it up, I could have been, I think, perhaps racing in the Tour de France alongside Lance. Watching him simply dance away from his competitors again this year FINALLY triggered something in me that said, "I'm getting my bike out again."
And instead of farting around, I actually did it. I took it out of the basement a few weeks ago, dusted it off, pumped up the tires, checked all the cabling, oiled a few parts, strapped the clipless shoes on, and hopped aboard for a check-out ride. Lo and behold, if I didn't feel stable on the bike this time, and while I wasn't nearly as fast as I'd ever been before, and I came back all sweaty and tired out after a few miles of pushing myself harder than I should have, I remembered why I'd started riding these things in the first place.
I remembered the freedom with a bicycle, the freedom to go anywhere, without worrying about tolls, gasoline, routes. I remembered the satisfaction of making it up to the top of the hill ahead of you, and seeing the HUGE downhill spread out before you, and just KNOWING that, if you pushed it just a little, you could probably just crack 55mph on your way down. Few things are more exciting than breaking a highway speed limit on your bicycle.
When I was racing, and I was really good, and I'd just spent 30 miles cruising along at 26mph with a pack of 40-50 other guys... I'd be somewhere in the middle, and we'd cross the line for the last lap, and the bell would ring, and I'd get goosebumps all over my arms as we sped up even MORE, and for the last lap, we'd be doing between 28 and 30mph for a mile, and I'd be working my way up to the front, and we'd come around that last right-hand corner, and I'd see the hill start to climb up slowly ahead of me. I'd be in the little group of 10 guys ahead of the rest of the pack, and I'd get in a nice draft behind two or three guys, pedaling along up the hill, really cruising, not slowing down at all, and we'd drop 3 or 4 more guys going around that uphill corner. The guy ahead of me would look around, and I'd be practically TOUCHING his rear wheel with my front, and he'd see I wasn't going ANYWHERE. When we crossed the 200 meter mark, I'd jump. I'd pop it up one gear higher, get out the seat standing, and just THRASH, try to blast past the guy so fast he couldn't get a draft on my rear wheel, and I'd just be gone, except for ONE guy who could almost match my jump. He'd streak through with me, and I'd sit down, pop up another gear, and stand and really stomp it again. My stomach would slowly start to hurt my 150 meters, and the guy would be about 20 feet behind me, but not gaining. At 100 meters, you could hear and see the crowd at the finish line cheering, and see the line, and I'd sit, pop one more hear, and then stand up with my head down and just think of nothing but pedaling.
When I crossed the line, the guy behind me couldn't keep up, he'd dropped off with 60 meters to go, and I'd won easily. I crossed the line at 35, 36mph, with 30 feet to spare.
Usually everyone shook hands while riding around on the cool-down lap. I got a few dirty looks from some of the guys, having been beaten by some 16 year old kid. They figured I was lucky. Those, and the guys with the $2000 bicycles were the ones I liked beating the most. I whole-heartedly agree with the title of Lance's book, "It's not about the Bike." In fact, I'm hoping that's very true in my case. I'm not sure if I want to, or even if I could, get back into racing. I'm thinking the random racer I met while riding Monday was some sort of sign that I should give it a whirl, but that would mean giving up some other things in my life. On the other hand, I could use bicycling to get back into some shape closer to that which I was in before, while eschewing racing. I don't know. I do know that, even though I came back from my ride yesterday hot, tired, and I was forced to stop once due to my inability to continue moving my legs, I rode a good distance in a good time, and had fun doing it.
If you hear me inviting you to a bicycle race sometime in the next year, don't be too surprised....
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no subject
Date: 2002-08-06 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-08-06 01:14 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-08-06 01:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-08-07 06:47 pm (UTC)Bike riding ROCKS!
heh
Date: 2002-08-10 09:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-09-09 07:07 am (UTC)Its silly, I never won my road races, placing in my age group all the time, but never the whole thing. And at the last, having crunched out a 5k at sub 6 miles, I could basically SPRINT the entire last 200 hundred yards or so. It was usually this time when I passed the greatest numbers. Maybe I was running wrong, I dunno. But, I'm running too. Maybe soon when I leave Manhattan (?) I can run somewhere there isnt a lot of dust.
Good luck, buddy. This is a great story.