CYCLING AND PRIDE
For a non-athlete like me, cycling should be something done for enjoyment, fitness, solitude, and self-improvement. I’m not a racer, and thinking of an event competitively is a sure-fire recipe for false pride and humility.
A few years back, I was treated by the universe to each of these in rapid succession. Every couple years I ride the STP – an organized ride from Seattle to Portland. It’s a fine ride, and though you share the event with ten thousand other riders, you still have a lot of time alone with your thoughts … thoughts that can run astray if you let them.
So, I’m riding along, and see a pace line of about six skinnyboys … attired in matching US Postal Service spandex outfits from head to toe, each atop a matching US Postal Service Trek bicycle. The US Postal Service team was led at that time by Lance Armstrong, and these guys seemed like they just might be admirers … if not acolytes. Their pace line was so tight, and their cadence so perfectly matched, it was as though they were riding a twelve-wheeled tandem, rather than six independent bikes.
What surprised me though was that I was gaining on them. This made no sense. I had to be 25 years older than them, probably had more body fat than all of them combined, and my twelve-year-old bike probably wasn’t worth much more than one of their spandex outfits. I wasn’t racing them, or even speeding up (at least not consciously). But I got to where I had to either slow down, or pass them as a group. You see, there’s no way to pass just part of a pace line; there’s nowhere to pull back into the six inches between the rear wheel of one bike and the front wheel of the next. So, I waited until there were no cars approaching from behind, pushed the pedals just a bit harder, and passed these guys one by one, until the pace line was behind me.
As I continued along the ride, and the skinnyboys faded from view in my rearview mirror, I started to ponder the question about whether I had been underestimating my athletic ability. Maybe it wasn’t too late to begin racing in the Master (a.k.a. ‘Older’) Class. Maybe I might even end up on the cover of some bicycling magazine. The thought was a pleasant distraction that I enjoyed for a while – probably aided by the fact that I wasn’t overtaken by a faster cyclist in the next half hour or so. I never really took it seriously, but did breathe a little deeper, and a little prouder that day.
Then, a couple weeks later, I was doing another ride – one that involved a great deal of hill climbing. As I was huffing and puffing my way up one moderately challenging, fairly long hill, I noticed a rider in my mirror beginning to overtake me. Each time I checked, the rider was closer. Since we were climbing—and I still possessed that body fat I mentioned earlier—there was no way I was going to accelerate to avoid being overtaken. When the rider finally caught up, it was not a pace line of athletic-looking skinnyboys at all, but a non-athletic-looking woman, at least my age or older, between whose flounderous thighs, a saddle had to be taken as an article of faith. She slowed just enough as she passed to offer me some breezy advice about how I might improve my pedal efficiency if I didn’t throw my knees to the side every time my pedal reached the top.
The advice was gratuitous, and stung just a little – maybe more than just a little. But I smiled, graciously thanked her for the advice, and began reconsidering my fantasy about becoming a bicycle racer.
Don’t worry about me and my feelings. It’s been fifteen years now, and I’m over the indignity … really! I am!
For a non-athlete like me, cycling should be something done for enjoyment, fitness, solitude, and self-improvement. I’m not a racer, and thinking of an event competitively is a sure-fire recipe for false pride and humility.
A few years back, I was treated by the universe to each of these in rapid succession. Every couple years I ride the STP – an organized ride from Seattle to Portland. It’s a fine ride, and though you share the event with ten thousand other riders, you still have a lot of time alone with your thoughts … thoughts that can run astray if you let them.
So, I’m riding along, and see a pace line of about six skinnyboys … attired in matching US Postal Service spandex outfits from head to toe, each atop a matching US Postal Service Trek bicycle. The US Postal Service team was led at that time by Lance Armstrong, and these guys seemed like they just might be admirers … if not acolytes. Their pace line was so tight, and their cadence so perfectly matched, it was as though they were riding a twelve-wheeled tandem, rather than six independent bikes.
What surprised me though was that I was gaining on them. This made no sense. I had to be 25 years older than them, probably had more body fat than all of them combined, and my twelve-year-old bike probably wasn’t worth much more than one of their spandex outfits. I wasn’t racing them, or even speeding up (at least not consciously). But I got to where I had to either slow down, or pass them as a group. You see, there’s no way to pass just part of a pace line; there’s nowhere to pull back into the six inches between the rear wheel of one bike and the front wheel of the next. So, I waited until there were no cars approaching from behind, pushed the pedals just a bit harder, and passed these guys one by one, until the pace line was behind me.
As I continued along the ride, and the skinnyboys faded from view in my rearview mirror, I started to ponder the question about whether I had been underestimating my athletic ability. Maybe it wasn’t too late to begin racing in the Master (a.k.a. ‘Older’) Class. Maybe I might even end up on the cover of some bicycling magazine. The thought was a pleasant distraction that I enjoyed for a while – probably aided by the fact that I wasn’t overtaken by a faster cyclist in the next half hour or so. I never really took it seriously, but did breathe a little deeper, and a little prouder that day.
Then, a couple weeks later, I was doing another ride – one that involved a great deal of hill climbing. As I was huffing and puffing my way up one moderately challenging, fairly long hill, I noticed a rider in my mirror beginning to overtake me. Each time I checked, the rider was closer. Since we were climbing—and I still possessed that body fat I mentioned earlier—there was no way I was going to accelerate to avoid being overtaken. When the rider finally caught up, it was not a pace line of athletic-looking skinnyboys at all, but a non-athletic-looking woman, at least my age or older, between whose flounderous thighs, a saddle had to be taken as an article of faith. She slowed just enough as she passed to offer me some breezy advice about how I might improve my pedal efficiency if I didn’t throw my knees to the side every time my pedal reached the top.
The advice was gratuitous, and stung just a little – maybe more than just a little. But I smiled, graciously thanked her for the advice, and began reconsidering my fantasy about becoming a bicycle racer.
Don’t worry about me and my feelings. It’s been fifteen years now, and I’m over the indignity … really! I am!
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