I’m a road cyclist. Normally about 4,000 miles a year, but aiming for 5,000 this year given that I retired in March. Next year 6,000 will be the goal! I’ve been a cyclist since I was 10 years old, but I took a new attitude in 2013 and now am justifiably able to call myself a sick road cyclist.
“Sick” is the right word not just because it makes me appear as if I might have been able to use cool language five years ago but more because all endurance sports are a complete madness, a deliberate, planned insanity that you sign up for without any urging or pushing, or need or anything. You don’t have to do it. You just decide that for some unfathomable induction, you have an unquenchable need to suffer for 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 hours, whatever, not just once, but repeatedly, and again and again. I do heartily recommend an endurance sport for everyone, and not just because I want you to suffer too. Invigorating, sure, but more to the point, humbling, even humiliating, until that sublime slice of time when you cross the finish line and for the briefest moment, you are a hero. Everyone cheers, until the next sufferer arrives and you are forgotten, left with your bike and your dust and your need to do it again. Soon.
And so it was last Saturday morning, I dragged my retired rear end out of bed at the ungodly hour of 4 am for the first time since I stopped commuting in March of 2020. And for the first time since I took up road cycling seriously in 2013, I had signed up for a event where you pay money in order to ride your bicycle on roads you normally ride for free but in which I was not doing the century, the 100-mile option. For this year’s Marin Cyclists’ Marin Century, I had chosen the 50-mile Compact Classic. 4,000 feet of tough climbing, sure, but why, why, why I kept mumbling had I bailed on the big ride? Why not sign up to suffer more? Only the first of the anxieties.
If I paid heed to my own instincts, I would never get out of bed. I have not once in my life awoken without thinking, omygawd, I can’t do this. No way. I need to quit, bail, give up, pull the covers over my head and breathe heavily until it all goes away. Fortunately, seven decades on this planet has given me the skills to overcome my instincts. Mostly that means, these days, having a pot of coffee at the ready … just suck it in, roll out of bed, get to that pot of coffee, bring back a steaming mug of it and get back under the covers. I glance at the clock, and give myself a deadline to have my feet on the floor. I normally overstep the deadline by 5 minutes, so I have built that into my calculations.
A hard bike ride always gives me the willies. I worried about the parking, what time should I plan on arriving, I didn’t know where I’d leave my bike when I visited the port-a-potties and whether I should lock it up or would that seem insane. I was anxious about how long it would take at the registration desk, and if they would look at me and laugh. What if I forgot something. What food would they have there. Where would I meet my friends. Not to mention the usual fears like what if I get a flat. What if I crash. What if the whole thing just goes completely to hell. I’m a mess before a ride.
Fears are real, sure, but fears like these are all in the head. The solution is not to not fear (sorry), but to create a little cheat that allays the fear long enough for it to dim. Do these enough times and you have what we like to call a routine.
I got to Stafford Lake Park in Novato where the ride starts at 6:12 a.m.; parking opened at 6:00 a.m. so I felt late, but I was so early that I got parked in a few minutes in a perfect spot while those arriving later complained about half hour backups. Yes, I luxuriated, being stupid-early pays off again! I had all my annoying check-in stuff done by 6:45. And, since I am sure you’re wondering, I left my bike locked to my car while I searched out the port-a-potties on the very far side of the whole spread-out event. Sure enough, my friends Ken and Larry were at the starting line … duh … and we pulled out precisely at 7:30 right as planned. Those roiling petty fears that I manufacture so professionally had devolved smoothly into a giant nothing sandwich. Again. If only I could smarten up and trust my plan without all the dithering angst.
There’s nothing quite like clicking in (cleats in pedals), hitting start on the bike computer (I favor a Wahoo Elemnt Bolt), and getting down to pedaling. All the anxieties of getting there turn into a rush of wind in my face. Preparing is nothing. Starting is everything. So off we went, three of us from the Marin Marauders AIDS/LifeCycle team, festooned in our brand new kits, and pleased as punch about it.
It was bloody cold, but it was gonna get bloody hot. Road cyclists are fanatics about weight. Every ounce you carry is one more ounce you have drag up a hill or that might slow you down on a flat. My approach is to dress for the hottest moment of the day and suck it up about the cold at the start. It has to be very cold for me to bring a shell … you end up stuffing it under the back of your jersey and you look like a humpback. You can note in the pic above two souls sporting what I view as heavy shells on a day where the temperature was going to top 90˚ (32˚ for everyone who does not live in these United States or in the Bahamas, Palau, Belize, the Cayman Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands). Madness. I was shivering, but … again … suck it up.
The rest stop pictured above was right before the first big climb, cloyingly referred to as the Marshall Wall by cyclists. I think we call it that to impress our friends. It is steep for sure for the first third, but after that just another beautiful climb in California. The top looks out over Tomales Bay and it is spectacular. The photo below is from 2014 but it is unchanged today, the beginning of the descent after Marshall Wall, Tomales Bay beckoning below the horizon.
What is it about climbing. It hurts, but it is what road cycling is all about. To conquer climbing, you start with rhythm. The rhythm of the cadence you set, or in the case of something steep, the cadence you can manage. I aim at 80 revs per minutes (rpm) and I get worried if I fall below 70. If it gets easier, you have gear down to keep that rhythm at 80. The rhythm started in your mind. When I am at the bottom of a climb, I always say hello to it, shout out loud “here we go” or some such. You have to announce your intentions, and being outside in the wild world with no one giving a pattoottie about how mad you are, it pays to shout it out to the world. That said, on a long climb, the shouting in the distance, say 10% into it, I always start to wonder, what the hell am I doing here.
Some climbs can take an hour, longer. Marshall Wall takes me about 13 minutes; my personal record, fancifully called by all cyclists your PR, 12:25. The toughest climb I have ever done is Mount Diablo which takes me about two hours of moving time; I’ve done it seven times, always in the winter except that one time. Mount Hamilton in the South Bay takes about two and a half hours but it is not nearly as grueling as Diablo. I’ve done Hamilton eight times, and my best times was the first time in 2014. Regardless of short or long, climbing is about the rhythm of your legs, the pacing of your breath, and keeping your mind slow and weighted. I have a little technique when the climb seems to overwhelm … I contemplate the surface of calm water. I have to remind myself not to close my eyes! It slows the mind, so I can start breathing in rhythm. I never worry about my legs. They know what to do.
We had a satisfying rest stop in Tomales. On regular rides, I love Tomales for the incredible pizza at Tomales Bakery. Hung out with the bike bros … Ken and Larry, pictured below. We posed and preened and laughed. Love those guys.
But the climb of the day was not Marshall Wall; it was the brutal “back side” of Wilson Hill. I figure every hill has a front side and a back side. Wilson Hill is short, front and back, but steep in both directions. The back side is a sustained 10% for about a kilometer. And the roasting point was the aforementioned 90˚ (ya know, 32˚ for the rest of the world). Blazing hot, spit roasted between the sun above and the black pavement below. Halfway up the climb there were ambulances and fire trucks and CHP (California Highway Patrol), and they were removing a motorcycle. I called out, is the guy ok, and they said everyone was fine. They kindly directed us around the mess without making us stop. Road cyclists do not like to stop on a climb.
Somehow I had the rhythm. I set a PR of 11:10. Only the second time, though, on that climb. I tend to avoid it. But no more. I made it my b-word. Lol. I conquered the damned thing.
And from there it was up and down to the finish line. 50 miles and 4,000 feet is not a rough ride. But I was a little fried by the heat. The best thing about the shorter route was that there was still lots of BBQ when I got there. We ate together and were joined by a bunch of our team members who started later than us OCD types. Stuffed ourselves. I even had ice cream … and, count ’em, two Coca Colas! That never happens.
And then the drive home. One final note. Bike brain. You have to be very conscious when you get into a car after a hard bike ride to think like a driver, to sharpen up the old brain because there is a bit of a tendency to bring that zen of the bicycle into the automobile age, and that would be a mistake.
I got home and took a nap.
Up next: some thoughts on architecture.
In the dustbin: I never quite got that post on the professional bike tours beyond the idea. Maybe next year.