I took a walk today aiming towards Hayes Street with the thought that I’d find somewhere to eat, a reasonable premise. Of course, it had to have airy outside seating, food I actually wanted, and safe transit to an inside restroom. The demands of the pandemic as we “learn to live with it”. And sure enough I found the perfect configuration at Suppenküche, a longstanding German establishment at Hayes and Laguna. I had the wild boar hash with a side of the finest sauerkraut I’ve had in some time. The black coffee was strong and odd, and I was not sure if that was a feature or a bug. I enjoyed my read as I continue to wend my way slowly through The Phantom Tollbooth.
Here’s some food porn. You’ll see that I have already managed to soil my book!
But it’s Sunday. How can I be lallygagging in a German Haus when I should be on my bike, as I have been on virtually every Sunday for years. There’s a tale there, perhaps uninteresting in itself, but it says something about me that may be relevant to these musings.
I was eating wild boar because I bailed on my Sunday bike ride with my AIDS/LifeCycle team, the Marin Marauders. In bailing, I also managed to keep my biking buddy TK from riding as he had planned on my driving him and his bike to the start line. I hate bailing. It haunts me for days afterwards. I took my little Suppenküche expedition to try to blow off the scent of my shame … and it worked, I suppose … but here I am laying bare my sorry soul for all to see. I hate bailing. I always regret it.
So why? Because yesterday, I had an emotionally brutal ride that was certainly physically challenging but not more than I routinely physically challenge myself. Back to that ride in a minute.
I’m a sick road cyclist. I’ve been on a bike since I was 10 years old, but in 2013 I decided it was time to up my game … I had turned 60, my dog died, and my dad died. Seemed like a liminal moment. So within a year, I bought a Trek 520 touring bike and took it to Europe for a 10-day tour in May 2014, and I bought a Trek Madone 4.7 road bike and took it on my first AIDS/LifeCycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles in June 2014. Since then, I ride ca 4000 miles a year, over hill and dale, mostly hill.
So yesterday’s ride … click on my mug to see the Relive video …
I look happy enough, but it was a tough ride. 70 miles, almost 6000 feet of climbing, all of which is well within my wheelhouse. But I was slower than most of the 20 or so folks I was riding with … over a 10 mile climbing stretch, maybe 10 minutes slower … but being behind all day was enervating. And it was hot and kept getting hotter. I especially didn’t enjoy the 12 mile stretch down Highway 1 with it sharp rollers and the frequent impatient buzzing cars and trucks. I don’t know. I just got myself in a funk. And then my left quad and my right hip started barking … the inevitable result of a 68-year-old pushing himself to keep up with faster folks. I just got myself in a funk. More cranky than exhausted.
Beware getting yourself in a funk. When I contemplated the planned Marin Marauders ride on Sunday, another climbapalooza up Mount Tam and then back via Alpine Dam, I just couldn’t see it. So I bailed. Now the bailing led to a productive day. I Dremeled into submission a bunch of sub-gravel filter media for a refurbished 40 gallon aquatic terrarium I am putting together. I got out the shovel and worked further on the big hole I am digging for a bunch of California fuchsia I have acquired. And I’m writing this blog post. I had a nap. But all of that was overlaid by the aftermath of the funk, to whit the bailing.
What is it about road cycling. To be worth it, it has to be grueling and painful. Road cyclists actually use the word suffer to indicate goodness in road cycling. When your legs are burning, your lungs are bursting, your thoughts are swirling, that is when road cycling is at its best. I measure success not by distance but by altitude climbed. In 2019, the year before the pandemic, I climbed the equivalent of eight Mount Everests, which is pretty damned good for a 60-something pretend-athlete.
That is the joy of road cycling … alone, even with others, on the road, headwinds in your face, a cruel climb on the horizon, the electricity of your legs up and down, the sweet responsiveness of a sublime machine, the road unrolling endlessly before you. Every mile forward, every meter climbed, those are my legs and my machine and the road, no assist, no motor, no fraud. Real effort, real being, real doing. That’s the joy.
But today I substituted a wild boar hash for the pain of a Mount Tam climb. Perhaps the right decision because sometimes you gotta take a break, but I still feel guilty and figure I missed out on something I should not have. That sort of calculation is par for the course for me … self-doubt is my constant companion, regret my shadow, while all the while promising to do more to make it all up.
Sheesh, wouldn’t unbridled optimism be an easier psyche to manage? I guess I’ll never know. Perhaps I’ll contemplate that on my next bike ride, or even on my next expedition for wild boar.
Up next: some thoughts on the Vuelta
Coming soon: Afghanistan and Ibn Khaldun