The Thin Line Between Love & Hate

There is a saying, “Even a bad day on the bike is still better than any day in the office”. And, oh God, a bad day in the office makes me long for the road.

Turning the pedals smooths out the frustrations of the day. Hours trapped behind a desk and computer screen, a dull pain behind the eyes, all worked out by a spin on the bike. Ahh, fresh air! Freedom! The joy of two wheels.

But a claustrophobic day behind that desk, a pointless job, a mediocre career, an uncomfortable ride on the tube elbow to elbow with irritable commuters… anger is different; anger is potent. As life contracts into a tangle of obligations and responsibilities, dashed hopes and disappointments, cycling becomes a defiant act. A two fingered salute. I am my own boss on the road, my own man, I can grit my teeth and turn over that gear; harder, faster, more painful. No longer an employee, I’m a cyclist.

In the saddle something switches, I leave a side of myself behind. How many of us do things we wouldn’t dream of when off the bike? Altercations with motorists who want to drive us off the road – the rush of blood, the gestures and swearing. The other me wouldn’t say ‘boo’ to a goose. In life I’m not a winner, not even a contender, I step aside. But in the heat of a race there is a different voice pushing me on: “you can beat them”.

Do we push ourselves out of spite? “Shut up legs” as Jens Voigt might say. What drives us to push our bodies beyond comfort? To despise its weaknesses, to pummel it again and again? Where does that determination stem from, what feeds it? Is it rivalry – do we really want to beat the competition so badly? Or is it something else, something darker within us?

Eddy Mercx was a modest middle class boy from the suburbs in Belgium; he came to be known as ‘The Cannibal’. He crushed his opponents, he had no mercy. Was he a champion because he simply wanted to be the best he could be, to achieve his limits, to carve his legend into history? Where did that aggression and fire come from? Positive thinking and an optimistic outlook can only take you so far. At his core was something else, something harder, a clenched fist. After all, nice guys finish last.

Mercx photo spotted on the Big Ring Riding blog.

Weight Weenies

Cyclists are obsessed by weight. It wasn’t until I had entered this crazy sport that my slight physique had ever put fear into the hearts of grown men. Previously, being so skinny was only ever a curse.

One summer when I was a young lad, I was playing in the paddling pool of my friend who lived across the road. His mother, observing me in my little swimming shorts, said she’d never seen such a skinny child; “I was worried there might be a gust of wind and he’d be swept off the ground and blown away like a leaf”. Not much has changed in the intervening years.

The impression given by the media is that every woman is, and should be, obsessed with their weight – every magazine is filled with celebrity stories of losing it, then gaining it, missery at being fat, misery at being too skinny. There are diets, exercise programmes, quick-fix solutions for beach bodies and party dresses. In every page and on every cover is a horror, a depressing fear of the body – a terrible longing to fulfill a particular skinny silhouette. Sometimes I count myself lucky I was born a boy – and a skinny boy at that, free to fill his face as much as he chooses.

Cycling keeps us trim, there are very few extra pounds to be found in the peloton. Yet when the road turns upwards, those labouring will curse their extra weight. Rarely will a sprinter turn to a climber and compliment them on the endurance or power they’ve developed in order to make lighter work of hills and climbs; they’ll turn their attention to weight, to their own excess and to your lack of it.

But any jealousy they have is worn lightly; to be a man and to be skinny is still to be not much of a man at all. A cyclist of more robust construction knows that it is only while turning the pedals on a climb that their physique is to their detriment. I’ve yet to overhear a woman professing a penchant for the pigeon-chested gentleman. Suits are not made in sizes suitable for the grimpeur. Boonen and Cancellara are the housewife’s favourites, not Contador or the Schlecks. Skinny men do not advertise aftershaves, or Calvin Klein underwear, only ‘Mr Muscle’ cleaning products. We’re a joke.

All this exercise and training that eschews the expectations of social norms, also keeps me healthy and strong. I am fitter than almost any other person I know (fellow cyclists excluded), yet often I wonder if life wouldn’t be easier spent on the sofa, or in the kebab shop at the end of a night out drinking. Or maybe if I suffered the intolerable boredom of a gym, with its mirrors and treadmills, and flexed my biceps for no other purpose than to watch them grow bloated with untapped potential.

But I’ve chosen cycling. When I line up with my fellow racing whippets on a Sunday morning – facing down the hills laid out ahead, to exploit one of the few natural advantages handed to us – I feel like I belong.

The Cycling-Work-Life-Cycling Imbalance

Some people live to work, while others work to live. However many of us cycle to work – then while at work spend our time organising rides, checking the forecast, and posting on cycling forums – and then cycle home again.

Friday night drinks are curtailed in favour of weekend racing. Housework skipped in order to degrease a chain or replace brake pads. A cyclist never has spare time on his hands.

During the winter months, the bite cycling takes out of life appears to be the biggest. Days are short, time for training compressed. Now spring has arrived and summer appears to be on its way, lighter evenings and longer days are to be savoured. Training is no longer a battle against the cold, a forceful effort to galvanise muscles against the elements. Discarding the thermal layers in favour of just shorts and jersey, this is when proper cycling happens – the glorious summer season has begun. Effortlessly, it consumes every waking hour.

Most of us remember when our lives were not like this. We used to be normal, regular people, with normal regular jobs and pastimes. Weekend mornings were spent in bed hiding from hangovers. There was time to phone your mother, hang out aimlessly with friends, to invest into a career. Cycling is selfish. Or rather, to be a cyclist demands selfishness.

It would be odd to think that there just happened to be a cycling-shaped hole in my life, and that fortunately that particular pastime came along and neatly filled it. The truth is that cycling saw the glimmer of an opportunity, barged in, and made itself at home and then started to boss everyone around in it.

Often I think cycling is a substitute for so many of the other things society thinks I should be doing. Putting in those extra hours at work for the chance of a promotion. Going to bars and clubs. Spending money on jeans and shirts, paying installments on a sports car, heading for exotic beach holidays for an all-over tan. Instead it’s lycra, bicycles, training camps and a tan that starts at the ankle and ends just above the knee.

At some point I know I’ll experience an epiphany; one day cycling will seem ridiculous. The hours spent training; the fruitless races (and even the fruitful ones); the need for acceptance and approval by a tiny clique – to impress other cyclists and be acknowledged by fellow racers. That cycling is more an excuse than a substitution. Even though I know that day will come, for now I’ll fight against the doubts. I’d still rather be out on my bike than anywhere else.

Heart Cycling, Hate Bikes

A cyclist without a bike is a strange sight; waddling around in their impractical shoes, sheepishly conscious of the indignity of wearing lycra. Even in that designer Rapha jersey – and especially if you’re all togged up in Assos – you will look like a prize pillock to the general non-cycling population. And no, they’re not even impressed by the size of your calves.

So I suppose we can agree that to complete the look, no cyclist should leave home without accessorising their outfit with an actual bicycle. Which is a shame, because I hate them. They’re temperamental, highly strung, require constant pampering, demand to be adorned with expensive bits and bobs. Neglect your bike and it whines at you, it creaks and moans. It drags it’s heels, mangles gear shifts. The little bastards think this sport is all about THEM.

Well, I can assure them, it is certainly not. Those glossy centre fold spreads of whizzy carbon steeds in cycling magazines leave me cold. I fail to get aroused by talk of ’46-ton carbon’, ‘beefy bottom brackets’ and ‘asymmetric chainstays’. Much like in life, it’s the pretty ones that require all the fawning pampering and attention (The Damien Hirst-designed bike for Lance Armstrong is a prime example. As delicate as the butterflies squished into its frame, I bet even Lance doesn’t get much use out of it) – ugly brutish bikes will just plough on without complaint, suffering the mud and wet of winter, wanting only a squirt of oil and a hose down now and again in return for its efforts.

Admittedly however, my criteria of assessing a bike is based almost entirely on aesthetics (I’m shallow and superficial like that). Yes, Sky’s new Pinnerallo Dogmas have had the attention of more engineers and scientists than the Hadron Collider, but it looks like it’s made of jelly. In contrast, slickly engineered Cervelos look sharp and mean, ready to cut through the air like a hot knife through butter.

With so many team kits looking practically identical bikes are a useful way of identifying riders during a race. Obviously remembering their race numbers would be better, but I’m not that smart (yes, stupid as well as shallow and superficial. I’ve got a lot going for me).

Equally, a quick survey of the bikes lined up outside race HQ can you give you strong clues as to their owners identity. For example, a pristine vanity-machine with whizz-bang gizmos and deep section carbon wheels may suggest a rider with more money than time to train. Conversely, something plain and black with inexpensive components and a dirty chain will no doubt be owned by a dedicated natural athelete, gifted with cycling flair and majestic style, concerned with hard graft rather than showy bling. So watch out for him in the race – he’s very likely to be awesome. *Cough*

Cycling Abominations: no.2 Sprinters

Flailing elbows, jostling for position, novelty victory celebrations…

Who of us hasn’t watched with a heavy heart the closing stages of a flat day in a grand tour as the plucky breakaway gets gradually reeled back in by the combined might of the sprinters’ teams? That horrible moment of the ‘catch’, with brave tired cyclists capitulating to the demands of the well-drilled bunch…

Maybe one courageous soul resists the inevitable just that bit longer, jumping away from his breakaway compatriots like a fish flipping out of the fisherman’s net… Only to be caught again a moment later.

I blame the sprinters for this unsporting cruelty. Those flashy ‘superstars’ of the peloton, who only poke their head into the headwind and the front of the race metres from the line. Those lazy spoil-sporting gits. Coasting in the slipstream of their teammates for 200km, only to bask in the glory on the finishing line.

WillPowerTap

For many cyclists power is where it’s at. Investments in expensive power meters with complex outputs measuring effort to the nth degree. Labourious toil in the gym working those quads or calves or whatever it is those guys do in there. But the cyclist’s real power is not found in bulging thighs, but in the head. No one is getting anywhere in bike racing without plenty of willpower.

I have skinny thighs – but worse, very little willpower. Lazy is my middle name.

At the start of a race you’ll always find me at the back of the bunch. The service car practically has to nudge me along, so reluctant am I to get going. The first 10 minutes always feel too fast to me. Don’t these guys know we’ve got plenty of time to do that? Why not leave the racing to the last possible moment, when we finally, absolutely have to?

Fortunately for me new scientific studies have shown that lack of willpower is not a sign that I lack character or grit, but that it’s just a general evolutionary flaw of the brain. The human prefrontal cortex – the bit of the brain that handles willpower – is underdeveloped, and is often overwhelmed by excess stimuli.

New Year Resolutions

Anyone who has stepped into a gym this past week will know that now is the time that New Year Resolutions are being made. For us roadie types this is a particularly exciting time of year – being generally prone to setting ourselves targets, then readjusting those targets to more closely match expected performance, then finally ignoring those targets in favour of establishing new totally unrelated goals that seem more achievable, even if only in theory… But January is when we really set the targets, when we’re really going to start doing that extra turbo session, to really stick to the training plan this time.

What’s even more exciting is that the weather is so foul at the moment that we can settle down and really concentrate on our plans for the coming season. Excel spreadsheets may well be a device in this process. Starting to write a blog may be another. Actually getting out on a bike and starting to train towards anything will have to wait for the time being – there’s simply too much planning to do.

For the record my resolutions are: to train better, to race better, and to get better results. And to get my hair cut on a more regular basis.