Inspire, perspire
February 26, 2023 Comments Off on Inspire, perspire
Everyone knows the Edison quote that genius is “Ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration.”
But when it comes to cycling in shitty weather, perspiration is ninety percent inspiration, ten percent dedication.
Or as Fields used to say, “Anybody can finish a ride in the rain, but it takes a hard fucker to start in it.”
Today’s high was 37. It had rained all night and wasn’t letting up. There was no way I was getting out in that mess.
Then I read a great article about riding in Ireland. In the 1890’s.
What was it like? Constant rain and cold. Mud four to five inches deep. Roads paved, if at all, with stones that would destroy an ordinary bike so quickly that manufacturers had to develop an Irish version to handle the beating. No pneumatic tires. One gear. No freewheel. And average speeds of 6-7 mph.
Yet people rode by the thousands. Taking ten hours to go fifty miles was “easily” within the ability of a “lady.” Wearing a dress, of course.
This bit of history made me feel weak. Then it pissed me off. Then it inspired me.
I put on shoes, wool socks, sweatpants, rain pants, wool jersey, rain cape, heavy outer wool jacket, wool hat, and lined leather gloves. Objective: 6.5-mile ride to the grocery store.
I got there frozen and soaked. After shopping, my backpack weighed over thirty pounds. I crawled home in the freezing rain, marveling at the rare rainy sky, the raging Kern River, and the frosty peaks stretching out forever.
I got home with numb feet and unloaded the groceries. Thirteen miles, 900 feet of climbing.
It wasn’t much, but then again, it was.
—–
END
Super weekend
February 13, 2023 Comments Off on Super weekend
On Friday morning, Snykes and I hiked up the 5 Hills, then up to the big lookout. It was a 6-mile walk with 1,316 feet of climbing. At the bottom of the Big Hill, Snykes let me know that he was tired by lying upside down in a ditch.
But I knew he was just taking a break, so we continued on to the lookout, looked out, than tramped the 3+ miles home. He was super tired. He is a little doggie with short legs. Running up steep hills is hard. He does it anyway.
After a few hours I decided to go on a bicycle ride up Old State Road. It took me an hour and fifty-two minutes to go just over thirteen miles. The sand was deep. The road was steep. The melted snow made everything muddy. The road above Wagy Flat was washed out from the the snowmelt. Cars couldn’t go on it and they hadn’t, it months. There was a downed tree in the middle of the road. I pedaled very slowly but it was hard as fuck.
Finally I got to the snow. I tried to ride it for a few yards. I couldn’t. It was only going to get deeper, so I turned around. But dog it was beautiful. When you are high in the mountains it is so quiet. You can hear rushing water from the creeks and freshets below. An occasional scrub jay squawks; that’s about it.
That night Kristie arrived. We got up early on Saturday and went to Lake Isabella for groceries and bird seed. Snykes loves the car because he thinks we are going to McDonald’s. He also thinks he is a lap dog. He sits in my lap in the passenger seat, usually crushing my thighs and occasionally my nuts. I don’t mind. He is happy with his nose out the window. Snykes’s approach is good. He thinks we have to do everything together because we are pals. Pals are like that.
Next, we decided to enjoy the pre-game show, not the one that everybody else saw, but rather our own private one along the M-99 en route to the Johnsondale Bridge. I think we saw less than a dozen cars in three-and-a-half hours.
We decided to ride heart rate and I averaged 121 bpm for the whole ride, which although that’s only the top of my Zone 2, ended up being a really hard 52 miles with 3,100 feet of elevation. It’s the same ride I’d done earlier in the week but I felt great and rode faster, finished faster, and ended much less tired. It’s almost as if training works. And when you’re on a 30-lb. aluminum bike with fat tires, it almost feels like you accomplished more. Almost.
On the way back we stopped at Brush Creek to marvel at the little falls. Usually there’s hardly any water in it. We also stopped to check out a downed power line. The cliff fell over on it and buried it. SCE had better things to do on Super Bowl weekend than repair downed lines.
We got home and were really tired, but we both had that satisfied feeling of having done a hard ride. Coming into town I pretended I’d gotten clear on the Poggio and had made it alone to the Via Roma, only to be chased down at the last second by Merckx, Zabel, de Vlaeminck, Cavendish, and Kelly. Catching my breath I dropped back, then swung wide and hit out early, catching them by surprise and taking the first classic of the season by a tire width, right there in front of the adoring toothless lady standing in front of Charlie’s Grocery Mart.
On Super Sunday we were super tired. Snykes was not happy because he’d been excluded from the bike ride. He has always wanted to win Milan-San Remo, too. We decided to do a ten-mile hike up Cannell Meadow Trail.
There were two other people with dogs but we soon passed them and had the trail to ourselves. We made a detour before turning around, scrambling a half-mile up a crazy steep wall that ended atop a peak looking down into the river valley. Snykes loved it so much. He is a good little doggie and such a strong little hiker.
We climbed over 3,100 feet in five miles of ascending. It felt steeper than it was because of the hard ride on Saturday. The air was crisp and chilly but not cold. At times the sky cleared and at others it looked stern and wintry. Snowy Sierra peaks cut the skyline. We had the whole million acres to ourselves.
Back at home we all three collapsed for a long winter’s nap. During that time someone threw a football somewhere and lots of drunk people got drunker and half of them got happier and half of them sadder. I hope it all worked out for everyone in the end.
I know it did for us.
END
A hard ride
February 10, 2023 Comments Off on A hard ride
It’s the gravel season here in somewhat-southern-California, with incredible tales of pre-epic badassery, online malls of once-in-a-lifetime-til-next-year bicycle costume collections, finisher’s trucker caps, commemorative beer, and tens of thousands of fingers knuckling down to the amazingly tough job of posting everything on #socmed.
In my little corner of Redneckia I’ve settled for something much more mundane, that is, simply riding my bicycle upriver for twenty-five miles.
Sounds easy.
And not too long ago, it was.
With a mere 2,700 feet of elevation and no steep climbs of any kind, six months ago this was one of the two main throwaway rides, the other being a 38-mile sally around the lake.
But here’s the thing. When you are old, your fitness goes away with astonishing speed. Given my readership’s demographic, there are plenty of people who will read this and say, “Old? You’re only 59! Still in diapers, sonny!”
Alas, no matter how you parse it, muscles, hearts, lungs, and minds could care less about exhortations or about relativistic theories of aging. Fifty-nine isn’t the new thirty, it’s old as fuck. As I continually remind myself, by the time Mozart was my age, he’d been dead for twenty-three years.
So my modest goal was to modestly ride upriver, keeping my heart rate above 120, which is Zone 2. Shortly into the third roller I realized that I had my work cut out for me. It doesn’t matter how many hard rides you’ve done in the past. How fit you were. That race you won that time. Detraining is a real thing and it hits you like a hammer in the face when you confront it with actual work.
Last October, when I rode to Los Angeles on a fully loaded bike, I cracked out much harder rides with far less misery to show for it. Not so yesterday. By the time I reached the Johnsondale Bridge, two terrible things had happened.
First, my legs were fucking shot. Second, as I turned for home, it became clear that a bonk was imminent and the next food supply was an hour and a half away. Bonk. At 25 miles. Then I recalled that no one rides for an hour and a half on a bonk.
As the glycogen depletion set in, on the downhill no less, as the ride out is all uphill and the return all down, I considered my options. Hitch a ride? Try to catch and eat some raw fish? Cry?
That’s when I saw two anglers doing what anglers do best, which is be overweight in the sunshine as they smile with no fish biting. The overweight part brought joy because I surmised that these two fellows would not be out in the wilderness without snacks.
“Hey, man,” I shouted. “You got any food?”
They weren’t happy to see me because it punctured the illusion balloon that they were alone on the river. I also looked ragged and haggard and lost and rather desperate. “Lemme check,” the one guy said, climbing up the bank. He opened the passenger door and out plopped the mother lode: a full pack of Girl Scout peanut butter cookies swaddled in chocolate. “Take all you want,” he said.
All I wanted was all of them, but I gobbled eight and left the rest, leaving much thankfulness in my wake.
I got home wrecked. It’s going to be a long road back.
END
Morning: a definition
February 7, 2023 Comments Off on Morning: a definition
Morning: when the hope of a better tomorrow meets the memory of yesterday’s reality.
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END
Travelin’ man trope
February 3, 2023 Comments Off on Travelin’ man trope
One time I was listening to “Heard It in a Love Song” by the Marshall Tucker Band. I told my girlfriend that it was an old-time favorite, and sent her the link.
“Wow,” she said. “That’s a terrible song. What awful lyrics.”
Shocked and dismayed, I went back over the words and concluded that she was right. The song basically says “Hey, I’m leaving you for no reason, don’t have the guts to say it to your face so I’m leaving before you wake up. Oh, and by the way, I’m the kind of guy who does whatever he wants and is never satisfied with anything. So, bye.” Not much of an anthem to anything other than being a jerk.
It was shocking because the lyrics are so singable and the tune is so good. Then for some reason I thought of the song “Brandy,” the cheesy 1970’s mega-hit about a bar waitress in a harbor town who is in love with a sailor who’s never coming back. So I listened to the lyrics; I’d always liked the tune. Like “Heard It in a Love Song,” when you actually listen to the words, they’re awful. Here’s the summary: “You are cute and good for a one-night stand but I don’t love you and don’t want to marry you but here’s a cheap souvenir to remember me by in case I don’t ever see you again and I’m telling you at the outset that all I want to do is sail around and hook up.” Brandy appreciates his “honesty” and loves him forever, keeping a silver locket with his name around her neck that she wears through the dark streets, forever faithful to this ass-hat who is never coming back and who didn’t give two shits about her anyway.
The subtext to “Brandy” is of course the refrain, “What a good wife you would be!” because every woman’s dream is be a good wife to some dude who lives on a barge. Not to be missed as well is the line “Brandy, fetch another round!” reminding us that although she’s good enough to be a wife, she’s still a dog who fetches for her man, hey waitaminnit, SAME THING!
Next I began cataloguing songs of this type, which I’ll call the “Dumping you to play, bye!” genre. Amazingly, they are everywhere, littering pop music like roadside trash. Before I get to my main point, which is a dissection of the “Travelin’ Man” trope, I thought I’d list a few of the songs that come to mind.
See ya!
Ramblin’ Man, by the Allman Brothers. Perhaps no other song is needed, as this one is the apotheosis of the genre. We learn that the singer was destined to be a rambling man because a) father was a gambler, shot to death and b) he was born on a Greyhound bus. Genealogy firmly established, we are told in the refrain that when it’s time for leaving, “I hope you’ll understand, that I was born a ramblin’ man.” The only other action he engages in besides “tryin’ to make a livin'” is gallivanting off to New Orleans, where the Delta women think he is the shits (according, of course, to him). And when it’s time for leaving, which is going to be about the time he spends the last of his grifter’s paycheck, it will be time for leaving the New Orleans bordellos as well, but it won’t be because they understand his need to ramble, it’ll be because he’s broke and Suzie Q. don’t put out for free. Buried and unspoken in the song is the question, “Why does having a gambler for a father and a single mom make you a rambling man?” It seemed to make Clinton and Obama, you know, president of the fucking country. More importantly, it doesn’t take more than a second or two to reflect on exactly who was doing the birthing on that Greyhound bus. It was of course mom, who was abandoned by dad and left to care for a kid alone. Rather than a monument to her efforts, to say nothing of what must have been a dangerous, bloody, and embarrassing bus ride, the singer uses the circumstances of his birth to let all women know that he will use them and leave them. Why not? Them Delta women think the world of him.
Ramble On, by Led Zeppelin. If the Allman Brothers are down and dirty and direct about what they’re up to, like the sailor in “Brandy,” Robert Plant eulogizes the travelin’ man with a mishmash of misdirection, silly references to J.R.R. Tolkien, and by blaming the woman he’s leaving because she threatens the “freedom [he] hold[s] dear.” The message is the same, though. The singer is a travelin’ man who is going to travel the world to find his girl, which raises the question of why he’s leaving since he apparently already has one. But we learn that he’s actually looking for the “queen of all my dreams,” a mythical, non-existent woman who, upon not finding her, gives him the excuse to keep rambling, a/k/a traveling to another concert venue. The misogyny in this song is more thorough because it makes clear that any old woman won’t do, she has to be an unattainable ideal, kind of like a Cosmo model. All of this drivel, including his statement that every time he thinks about his baby he “has to part,” and his revelation that his OTHER baby, the one he really loved, got stolen by Sauron and Gollum (???), and is therefore the reason he has to keep searching, adds up to the travelin’ man’s reason for being: I travel, shorthand for hook up with other chicks, ‘cuz that’s what I like to do. If you’ve never read “The Missing Piece” by Shel Silverstein, now might be a good time.
Freebird, by Lynyrd Skynyrd. You gotta like Ronnie Van Zant’s elevation of the travelin’ man to something akin to Jesus. In this song, the singer is “free as a bird,” and “this bird you cannot change.” Then we learn that he must be traveling on now. Why? No idea. Is he coming back? He doesn’t say, but “free as a bird” doesn’t sound promising.What we do know is that if he stayed, “things just couldn’t be the same.” Sounds like he might have to get a job, start paying rent, help around the house, pay child rearing expenses, stop boozing at Harry’s Bar, get up before noon … all things that for sure wouldn’t be the same, especially when you recall that this is the same guy who crooned about his anonymous teen groupie in “What Was Your Name?” One element that “Freebird” injects, also found in “Heard it in a Love Song,” is the fake guilt, a key part of the travelin’ man trope. This is the part where the guy says he’s sorry but justifies it because he can’t help being an irresponsible dick. In “Freebird” it’s the line “Please don’t take it so badly, ’cause Lord knows I’m to blame.” Then he adds that dumping his gal is kind of inevitable because there are “too many places I got to see.” We know, we know. They are the same whorehouses frequented by the Allmans. The woman getting abandoned can find some other sucker to be a partner, or she can just make do as best she can with three small kids and two full-time jobs. I’m sure the kids will grow up to be freebirds, too, the boys anyway. The girls will eventually find work in New Orleans and maybe meet daddy that way.
Tuesday’s Gone, by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I hate to load up on Skynryd, but for a bunch of Jacksonville homebodies they really laid the travelin’ man on thick. Like 99.999% of all rock lyrics, these make little cohesive sense. He’s leavin’ his woman. He’s on a train. He doesn’t know where he’s going. He wants to be left alone.” BUT then we find out that his baby has actually left him. She’s got to be free. He has to carry on. Please come back to me baby. So which is it? And how can she come back to him when he’s on a train? And why should she, since he just wants to be left alone? The mumbo-jumbo is easily parsed, though: he has left her and now she’s “free” to carry on with rent and child support on her own. The train will roll on (trains do that) and he will ride his blues away. So dumb. Such a travelin’ man.
I’m a Ramblin’ Man, by Waylon Jennings. Leave it to the outlaw to come up with lyrics that perfectly state the case: I screw women and dump them. And I’m warning you that I’m a bad person. But I will be bad to you anyway. I travel all over the country “messing with” women’s minds in order to have sex with them. Then I leave them. Of course, I also have my bad points …
Movin’ On, by B.B. King. The plot line for this song is, guess what? He’s moving on. Why? Because it’s time. Why is it time? Because he’s lived it up and “done it in this town.” But don’t worry! You are you and he is he, so it’s all good. Gestalt therapy, anyone? Plus he’d like to thank you for the “ride” ’cause “there’s nothing we ain’t tried” except perhaps commitment and stability. Also, thanks for the memories and you can call him “Mr. Breeze.” Oh, and he’s going to Vegas or Hollywood to … fall in love again. How sweet.
Travelin’ Man, by Ricky Nelson. This 1961 classic really sums it up. He’s got a girl at every port in the world. He has girlfriends in Mexico, Alaska, Berlin, Hong Kong, Hawai’i, and they are all waiting for his return. Maybe he’s also the guy who hooked up with Brandy? Anyway, why does he have so many girls? Easy! He’s a travelin’ man. And travelin’ man means wham, bam, thank-you ma’am. Bonus trivia: who knew that there was a port in Berlin?
Travelin’ Man, by Bob Seger. Updating Ricky Nelson, Seger has a much better reason for his travelin’: he’s lazy! Finally a travelin’ man tells it like it is. Anyway, he “runs” away from friends and family when things get “too crazy,” that is, rent is due. Women, you see have come and gone, and you know what? They’re always trying to “cage” him! Like a pet. Even though he managed to escape their evil clutches, he appreciates the “traces” they’ve left on his “soul.” Even the traces of a court judgment ordering payment of child support and alimony? Whatevs. He’s a travelin’ man and sooner or later he’s goin’. So amazing and enviable and noble. And of course free!
Travelin’ Man, by Lynyrd Skynyrd. This song is full of surprises! He’s a travelin’ man! No woman puts her hold on him! You’ll see him once or maybe twice! But at least he’s … (drumroll!!)…free! Wow! Didn’t see that coming! Oh, fyi, he’s had so many women but shockingly none of them have lasted. Wonder why? Oh, I know! It’s because he left! Good ol’ travelin’ man! At least he’s predictable!
Key to the Highway, by Eric Clapton. So, he’s leaving to go down south where he is “better known.” Why? Because his girl drove him from his home. And when the moon comes up, little girl he’ll be on his way. Is she eighteen? Doubtful. Oh, and give him one more kiss because he won’t be back no mo’. Doesn’t it make you feel good to kiss the ass-hat who’s ditching you for some other women down south? ‘Course it does!
Leaving on a Jet Plane, by John Denver. Johnny Boy gets it all in this one. He’s leaving on a jet plane. You know, with wings. He’s already terribly sad and lonesome, but please wait for him because of course he doesn’t know when he’s coming back. Is that important? Just wait. It will be worth it, sort of, because he also admits to so many times of letting you down and playing around but you know what? “They don’t mean a thing.” No. Of course they don’t! That’s why he’s leaving. You mean so much he has to leave you. Get it? No? Oh, well, he’s sad anyway. By the way, when he comes back, whenever that is, he’ll be bringing a wedding ring! Wow! What a good wife you would be (like Brandy)! Hey, close your eyes and dream of me and those future undetermined days when I won’t have to leave you. It will be so awesome! Hugs and tears and ciao!
So where are all the travelin’ women?
I suppose there is “Me and Bobby McGee” by Janis Joplin, but, um, she’s actually not leaving her boyfriend, she’s traveling with him. Why is that? Could it be because single women traveling alone are inordinately at risk for violence? Or is it simply that mass culture reflects what the singers actually say: men are free to fuck and move on, women are not. And as soon as things get “too crazy” as Bob Seger puts it, they bail.
The only travelin’ gal song by a woman I’m aware of, though there are doubtless more, is “Little Red Wagon” by Miranda Lambert. The message is for the boy to fuck off and quit trying to tie her down. She’s out sowing seeds and chasing men and that’s just the way it is. Why does any of this matter? And what does it have to do with cycling?
Well, funny you should ask. One aspect of bicycling is freedom to travel, and from the very beginning women were told that bicycles were off limits. Early women cyclists were pioneers on multiple fronts, none moreso than Susan B. Anthony:
Bicycles came to symbolize independence amongst women representing the quintessential ‘new woman’ of the late 19th century. In 1895, suffragette leader Elizabeth Candy Stanton said “the bicycle will inspire women with more courage, self respect, self reliance” predicting the power of the bicycle. Echoing Stanton’s claim was Susan B Anthony who played a key role in the suffragette movement. She said ‘’Let me tell you what I think about cycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.’’
https://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2022/2/17/an-introductory-history-of-women-in-cycling
Nonetheless, misogyny kept women bike racers out of the Olympics for almost one hundred years; the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal in cycling was Connie Carpenter, in 1984. That misogyny continues full force today, with leaders in the professional male community continuing to denigrate women in cycling. As recently as 2021, Patrick Lefevere was still spewing invective against professional women cyclists, comparing pro women teams to welfare offices, and comparing Sam Bennett’s return to Bora-Hansgrohe with “Women who return to men who abuse them.” Needless to say, these offensive comments provoked outrage everywhere except inside cycling.
The message that women have always received regarding independent mobility, which is the essence of bicycling, is “Do it at your own risk.” The threats of violence inherent in being a single woman traveling alone, to say nothing of a ramblin’ woman in the vein of a Zeppelin or Allman Bros. song, are more than threats. Birthing a child on the bus is the least of your problems as a solo woman traveler. Of the most dangerous places on earth for a woman to travel solo, the good ‘ol USA ranks 19th, right above Ukraine and below Tunisia. A similar ranking by Thomson Reuters in 2018 ranked the USA as No. 10.
And where do American women cyclists have to travel solo when they are in the US? Surprise–in the US! And what is the definition of solo travel? It means going somewhere by yourself.
Fast-forward, or rather fast-backward, to gravel racing, or as I prefer to call it, “bicycling.” Suddenly the murder of Mo Wilson starts to make more sense. Rather than being an incredible anomaly among a peaceful, loving community, gravel events can be seen through the lens of society and the solo woman traveler as a whole. Mo Wilson was allegedly killed by another woman, but it happened in an extremely misogynistic culture that features sexism and sexual objectivization as its most obvious characteristic. Doubt it? Look at Michael Marckx’s key cycling couture product, “Le Bon Wagon” which is slang for “Nice Ass.” Marckx, by the way, runs the Belgian Waffle Ride and has done so since 2013. Female participation in his events, judging from the numbers, is an utter afterthought, and he’s not alone.
The fact that Mo Wilson’s murder resulted in no introspection, no review by anyone regarding the general atmosphere of these events, and no examination of what role the gravel “mystique” played in Colin Strickland’s alleged behavior that in my opinion was the linchpin in Wilson’s murder, shows how resistant gravel is to change, and confirms that its guys-only mentality isn’t going to change anytime soon.
Unfortunately, the silence of the lambs was deafening. None of the women gravel stars publicly pointed the finger at the gravel environment, just as professional women cyclists were generally muted in their response to Lefevere’s outspoken misogyny. Yes, there were a few sad-faced memorials, but none of the women tried to hold Unbound et al. accountable for the unmistakable fraternity-boy aspect of gravel events. This is in direct contrast to what some women were saying in private: that Strickland was a player, a douchebag, and that many people were aware of the terrible emotional triangle he was playing with Wilson and Armstrong.
Women can’t speak up as professionals because they are bit players getting scraps from an already marginalized, niche “sport.” It says everything about the structural misogyny of gravel that an alleged player like Strickland conveniently played the role of mentor to up-and-coming women, helping them get sponsorships, showing them the ropes, and at least with Wilson, showing her some night moves as well. So however obvious it is to the women involved, the rules are the same as they have long been in corporate America: once you hit the glass ceiling, be thankful you got that high and STFU.
Nothing happens in a vacuum, and history matters. A cultural license for men to take to the open road by car, train, or bicycle while women have to keep the home fires burning or be on highest alert for rape and murder, plays itself out throughout society, and gravel is nothing more than a microscopic slice of the songs, stories, events, legends, myths, and people that make up that society. Never forget that the song is Ramblin’ Man.
But you can’t change things until you can imagine a different outcome. Try rewording all these travelin’ man songs as if they’re sung by a woman. Doesn’t quite sound the same, does it? Especially John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane”: I’ve cheated on you tons of times with other guys and am leaving, don’t know when I’ll return but when I do I’ll have a wedding ring for you, future hubby! You can count on me!
I can even help you out with my new version of “Brandy,” rebranded as “Randy.” Hope you like it.
There’s a port on a western bay
And it serves a hundred ships a day
Women sailors pass the time away
And talk about their homesAnd there’s a boy in this harbor town
And he works layin’ whiskey down
They say “Randy, fetch another round”
He serves them whiskey and wineThe women say, “Randy, you’re a fine boy
(You’re a fine boy)
What a good husband you would be
(Such a fine boy)
Yeah, your eyes could steal a lady from the sea”Randy wears a braided chain
Made of finest silver from the north of Spain
A locket that bears the name
Of a girl that Randy lovedShe came on a summer’s day
Bringing gifts from far away
But she made it clear she couldn’t stay
No harbor was her homeThe woman said, “Randy, you’re a fine boy
(You’re a fine boy)
What a good husband you would be
(Such a fine boy)
But my life, my love and my baby is the sea”Yeah, Randy used to watch her eyes
When she told her sailor’s story
He could feel the ocean fall and rise
He saw its raging glory
But she had always told the truth
She was a truthful sailing hand,
And Randy does his best to understandAt night when the bars close down
Randy walks through a silent town
And loves a gal who’s not around
He still can hear her sayHe hears her say, “Randy, you’re a fine boy
Wanky Songbot, 2023.
(You’re a fine boy)
What a good husband you would be
(Such a fine boy)
But my life, my love and my baby is the sea
It is, yes, it is.
END
Why women hate gravel
January 28, 2023 Comments Off on Why women hate gravel
Judging from the sign-ups at big gravel events, women are staying away in droves, just like they’ve always done.
I remember the first BWR in 2013, when it was an invitation-only event built around marketing SPY eyewear. Invites were limited to one hundred, and they consisted exclusively of “bros” who knew the event’s creator. I recall one woman doing the event, Jessica Cerra, although there may have been one or two others.
That figure of 1-3% has anemically grown at BWR over a decade. In 2022, a piddling 82 women out of 823 starters lined up for the BWR in San Diego. If that sounds dismal consider these stats for the “wafflers” at these other venues: a mere 33 women at BWR North Carolina, 25 in Utah, 17 women at BWR Kansas, and an astoundingly paltry12 in Michigan.
At Unbound 2022’s 200-mile event, it was equally dismal: a mere 175 women competed out of a field of more than 1,200. The Rock Cobbler boasted 33 women out of 500 riders which comes out to six percent. Big Sugar did far better, with 109 women out of 660 riders, and Rebecca’s Private Idaho was by far the best, with a third of the riders made up of women, 108 of 361.
Each event has its own story to explain low female ridership. The BWR began with scantily clad women cheering the riders, along with overt and covert misogyny that earned outraged protests from women, ultimately leading the event to have scantily clad men along with the scantily clad women, as if you can erase sexism by expanding crass objectification to other genders. And of course the founder of the BWR now promotes a private label of bicycle costumes called “Le Bon Wagon.” Sounds French, but it’s nothing but the crudest slang for “Nice ass.”
In an activity that builds muscle mass on the glutes and thighs, something that plenty of women are already self-conscious about, pimping tight pants that nudge-nudge-wink-wink focus on a woman’s appearance from the rear says everything about where the true values of the BWR lie. As the Le Bon Wagon marketing verbiage tells you, “Get on it!” Uh, okay. Is junior high over yet?
But what about the other events? It’s possible that Rebecca’s Private Idaho has high female participation, though still dwarfed by males, because it’s promoted by a woman. Mammoth Tuff, also promoted by a woman, had about 1/3 women participants. So there’s likely something about the messaging at these events that’s different from the “Nice Ass” ethos at BWR.
But what about Unbound and Big Sugar and the Rock Cobbler? What’s their excuse?
The easy answer is that women don’t like getting covered with dirt and muck. Leaving aside the gross nature of the generalization, if that’s true then why do so many more women sign up for it at Rebecca’s Private Idaho than at BWR? Clearly, the idea that gravel is too yucky for women is wrong, not to mention sexist.
Messaging matters. And though it’s hard to say exactly why women avoid gravel in particular and bike racing in general, looking at the messaging for a given event can help understand what the promoters are looking for, what they value, and what they hope to accomplish.
What are you trying to say??
But before taking that dive, let’s note something: Moriah Wilson, the top female gravel star in 2022, was murdered last year, allegedly by the girlfriend of disgraced gravel star Colin Strickland. Theories abound, but the messaging is clear: gravel, like so many other communities organized by men, serves the ancillary function of a hunting ground for sexual predators.
The fact that neither the BWR nor the Rock Cobbler, both events that Wilson won and brought great prestige to in 2022, has done anything at all to honor her in 2023, to investigate the overall image of gravel, and to reorganize their events so that increasing female ridership represents an obligation instead of an afterthought, says everything. Likewise Unbound, which had the typical sadface memorial ride so often held for dead athletes, offered up the same miserable numbers of women riders in 2022 and has approached 2023 with the same business as usual messaging. Moriah? Moriah who?
Sweeping this terrible murder under the carpet and pretending that a few teary memorial rides have addressed the problem is horrible. But don’t look for any of the big events to permanently memorialize Wilson because her death reflects back on them and they know it.
Does the murder of Wilson and the gravel “community’s” refusal to examine itself, combined with years of bros-only messaging, affect women’s interest in gravel? It’s my opinion that it does.
So let’s start with what is perhaps the biggest face of gravel, which is the puff-and-poof spewed out by VeloNews, recently purchased by Outside, and now fully focused on the gravel craze and the ad revenue it generates. On January 27, 2023, Betsy Welch, the fangirl supreme for all things gravel, wrote a story called “Didn’t Make the Cut for Unbound Gravel? Here are five other June 3 gravel races to fill the void.”
The photo? An Unbound starting line filled with grimacing, hairy, aggro-looking men putting on the fakest race face they own.
The article, to its credit, begins with an intro to the all-women’s gravel race “Dusty Bandita,” a 200-slot event that exists to give women a chance to ride bikes away from the macho, Le Bon Wagon-ing ethos that typifies gravel. The remaining events make clear though that for the most part they’re not even races, much less events that have the kind of competitive opportunity and prestige of Unbound. The message here is that if you’re not good enough to get an Unbound invitation, you can settle for a nice bicycle ride somewhere. At best it’s confusing. At worst, it’s demeaning.
For the most part, Welch’s articles focus on the badassery of gravel, and though she’s sympathetic and goes out of her way to mention the non-macho aspects, like most every other hack at VeloNews, for Welch what’s significant is who goes fastest, especially the men. That’s okay perhaps if you’re a magazine devoted to men racing bikes, which Velonews always has been, but for gravel event promoters, all of whom exist thanks to the no-hoper hackers who sign up for a good time, there’s no excuse.
So what’s their messaging?
First and foremost, gravel pimps the message of badassery and toughness. The top message has always been difficulty, risk, and adversity. Of course whenever you want to understand what a brand really means, look at the diametrical opposite of the messaging.
Gravel riding isn’t badass. It isn’t tough. It isn’t amazing. And it sure isn’t conquering the unconquerable. Gravel riding is chubby older men on wildly expensive bikes riding various lengths at various intensities and concluding with too much beer, weed, and unhealthy food. To put in perspective how mundane and passe gravel riding actually is, think about this: when bikes were invented, all riding was “gravel riding” because roads weren’t paved. People rode penny farthings hundreds of miles on uninflated hard rubber tires with no gears or brakes, through shin-deep mud, and called it what it was: “bicycling.”
Whatever gravel thing you’re doing today is not new, radical, amazing, pioneering, or even remotely badass. You are riding a bicycle. Sorry.
If you want to win one of the big gravel races, well, it’s a different story at least to the extent that you’ll need to replace beer with plenty of performance enhancing substances, but equating the antics of a Peter Stetina with the antics of 99% of the other riders in the field is silly beyond belief. People don’t sign up for gravel to be put through the wringer. They sign up to have a good time. “Race in the front, party in the back” is a saying at gravel because it’s the fucking truth, and virtually everyone is, guess where? In the back.
Gravel is powder-puff bicycle riding in the extreme for most people who do it. The courses are stocked with refreshments, offer every variation of difficulty and length, typically allow you to do the fucking thing on an e-motorcycle, have sag if you get too tired, often have neutral mechanical services roaming the course, and when it’s raining mud and ice … oh wait, it never is because that only happens in the actual category of bike racing called “cyclocross.”
But despite its weed + beer + goodtimez reality, the messaging for many events tells a far different, and generally false story as applied to the average rider. Check out the following descriptions, all gussied up with cherry-picked photos to show how anyone who even dares to sign up for a big gravel event is like Neil Armstrong walking on the moon.
In their own words
BWR 2023: Replete with its silly delusions that a bunch of fat old men have everything in common with the pros who race Paris-Roubaix, we’re told the event was “Created as an extremely challenging race in the spirit of the great European one-day Spring Classics, BWR is an unusually difficult race. This is the original. It’s diabolical; the Hell of the West (Coast).” For anyone who did the original BWR, you know this is simply untrue. It was created in the spirit of ripping off Dave Jaeger’s French Toast Ride, a California invitation-only event for older, not very good, mostly non-racing friends of Dave. How do I know this? Because that’s what founder Michael Marcxk said at the first award ceremony, when he crowned the winner as none other than … Dave Jaeger. If the BWR was inspired by anything, it was a nasty meanness towards “Purple Freddies,” Marckx’s name for riders who “sat in” and didn’t follow some imaginary code of ride-at-the-front honor. To especially demean those who were not worthy, “purple cards” were handed out for egregious wheelsucks, custom-made cards with a picture of Eddy Merckx saying “Eddy don’t want no Freddies.” Contrast that with today’s noble language comparing the BWR to a true cycling monument. Nor is the BWR unusually difficult. If you want to win, it’s fucking hard, just like every road race, but it’s a pancake ride compared to the European classics it fantasizes it’s on a par with if for no other reason than the fact that the true monuments are raced by people called “professionals.”
Unbound 2023: Less delusional about its difficulty than BWR, Unbound’s messaging is one of incredible uniqueness, amazingness, astonishing badassery, and seeing if you have the right stuff. “From the moment you feel the crunch of the Flint Hills gravel under your tires, you’ll know you’re in a special place. The Garmin UNBOUND Gravel 200 is the marquee event that has earned Emporia, Kansas the name Gravel City, USA. This event will bring to life that indomitable spirit that lives within each and every one of you. Along your 200 mile journey, you’ll travel to the furthest depths of your psyche and unravel the reasons behind why it is you’re here in the first place. So many challenges will be thrown at you during your day in the saddle, and the UNBOUND Gravel 200 gives you all the opportunities to find just what you are made of. As you work through the beautiful journey through the Kansas Prairie, we know for certain that you’ll be a different person when you cross that finish line. And we will be there to welcome you home. Join us. Become, UNBOUND.” Wow. Who knew that 200 miles riding a bicycle made you a different person? I guess for those of us who’ve ridden, you know, hundreds of thousands, we’ve become hundreds of different people. Or maybe you have to do it in Kansas?
Rock Cobbler 2023: This event is the least pretentious of the top events. It emphasizes that it’s not a race because, like the other events, at its core it isn’t. They are bicycle rides. And unlike the other events, the promoter did make a last-minute effort to recruit women. But this is still a guy event made by guys for guys to be eulogized and emulated by guys. The marketing hype comes from none other than Peter Stetina and graces the home page in ragingly huge caps: “The Rock Cobbler is the kookiest bike race I’ve ever done. It’s unclassifiable. One minute you’re on nice surface and the next you’re slip sliding down a scree field, or just plain old riding through a field dodging cattle. There are 30 per cent run ups, WhiteClaw hand ups, ball pits, and it’s brutally difficult.”
Big Sugar 2023: Run by the same folks who run Unbound, Big Sugar is much lighter on the badassery but still lets you “Expect this to be one of the most challenging gravel courses featuring picturesque, rarely maintained, canopy-covered gravel roads with loose, rocky gravel, a few pavement sections and a few water crossings and bridges. If you like to ride in the dirt, venture off into stunning landscapes and share an experience with fellow cyclists, Big Sugar Gravel is a race reserved for you.” Of the big events, it’s lightest on the melodrama and maybe that’s why it has such significantly higher female participation.
What’s a girl to do?
What do these descriptions have to do with the dearth of women riders? Well, when you combine them with the photos of super fit-looking ex-pros like Stetina hammering through the gnar and bespattered with gumbo mud, it’s likely to be a huge turnoff to a lot of women, especially ones who are curious but not sold on the idea of mud soup as a fashion accessory. If they knew that it’s mostly a bunch of marketing drivel, that anyone reasonably fit with a functioning bike can do it, that you don’t have to fall off your bike, ride through a raging river, or dunk your face in muck, and that there are course events so short you can walk them, maybe the picture would look different.
This is to say nothing of having events dispense with the macho, tiny-penis insecurity messaging and talk instead about inclusiveness, preparation, and welcoming new women—by other women, not the players like Colin Strickland. It might also help if misogynistic in-jokes like “Le Bon Wagon” weren’t letting women know that in secret all that’s really going on is ass-watching.
Look no further for such a prototype than the mission that Bri Lui gives for her women-only event, the Dusty Bandita: “The Dusty Bandita is an event dedicated to increasing the presence of all identifying women at cycling events by providing a safe and encouraging environment where one can build confidence, push limits, explore beautiful places, and experience an invigorating camaraderie on and off the bike.”
Also note that Lui came up with the idea after attending a number of rides comprised mostly of men, and recognizing that women need a safe and encouraging environment. Reverse-engineer that sentiment and you’ll easily conclude, especially after having some sag-bellied dude in his late 50’s ogle your Le Bon Wagon, that most gravel events leave women feeling neither safe nor encouraged, cf. Moriah Wilson.
As you cruise the proliferation of gravel events, ask yourself how many of them communicate that their event is a safe and encouraging one for women? Certainly not the BWR, Unbound, Rock Cobbler, or Big Sugar. The only ones that do are, of course, run by women, Mammoth Tuff, Rebecca’s Private Idaho, Dusty Bandita. Maybe there are more.
Here’s what Rebecca’s Private Idaho has on offer for 2023. With much less badassery on display, the event is up front about the fact that this is supposed to be fun. “We hope you’ll join us on the wild and gritty adventure that is RPI. Remember, it’s not just about world-class terrain and the most fun you can have while challenging yourself on two wheels; it’s also about a big, communal party and raising funds to support bike-related causes from Idaho to Africa and beyond.”
Women can be encouraged to ride their bikes off-road, but you have to want them there as more than an afterthought, or as the objectified fantasy of your puerile clothing line. They have plenty of other things to do and places to be where they’re not forced to endure more mansplaining, more sexist messaging, and more life as second-class citizens.
In any event, gravel riding will continue for a while, even as the faux professional gravel racing scene evaporates due to lack of money, lack of interest, extraordinary dullness, and a complete absence of junior racer development. Indeed, as the big-time events gradually deflate to the local events they once were, gravel will come to be promoted for what it actually is: riding a bicycle for fun and health with your friends in pretty places, concluded with dinner.
And no one will care about your gender or what you wear.
END
Would someone put Strava out of my misery?
January 27, 2023 Comments Off on Would someone put Strava out of my misery?
I read that Strava hiked their prices and people got angry. Who wants to pay more for nothing? Turns out, millions do.
If you’re wondering what Strava does that your phone doesn’t, I can help you. But first, what does your phone do? With a choice of countless apps, many of them “free,” a/k/a they give you functionality, you give them deeply private data and read their ads, you can track everything you would ever want to know related to your performance.
When I say “performance” I don’t mean “doing something amazing,” I mean “engaging in activities slightly more vigorous than a slug.” Phone apps can measure your menstrual cycles, your heart rate, steps taken, watts expended, and fucks given. Phone apps can do everything that Strava can do, and far more. Better yet, when integrated with other apps, you can have a second-by-second printout of every performance metric known to science, including the performance of your farts.
Oh, and lest you get too confused, Strava also has a “free” version that lets you do an astonishing amount of data tracking as you slugify your way through the day, and it connects with devices made by Garmin, Apple, Fitbit, and others to create a truly complete picture of how much you spend to accomplish so little. As Dolly Parton used to say, “It costs a lot to look this cheap.”
So why in the name of Snykes would you pay $80 for something that’s already free?
Answer: Strava gots the biggest leaderboard.
The only reason anyone cares at all about paid Strava is because they care where they stand on various leaderboards, adjusted of course for age/weight/gender/lameness. The real leaderboard, called a “race result,” is too awful for the rank-and-file Strava-er to contemplate, so instead of competing and getting their asses whipped in realtime, Strava-ers compete in the comfort of their own anonymity on cherry-picked courses with wildly weighted handicaps so that they can exist on a leaderboard and confirm their awesomeness. Strava’s ultimate paeon to vanity is its ability to let you create that special segment that only you will ever be the king of, that is, the one behind your community’s gates from the driveway to the garage door.
In sum, Strava lets you win, or almost win, without ever being a winner. It lets you succeed as a failure. It tells you “attaboy” and “yougogirl” while you go nowhere, achieve nothing. Crucially, while you’re doing all this nothing, other people doing nothing (or their bots) can give you lots of kudos.
People who are trying to build health for the long haul don’t need kudos from strangers. They don’t need babying via silly leaderboards. They don’t get up in the morning to have another crack at the leaderboard. To the contrary, their only measure is “How am I doing today?” The baseline isn’t some doped-up yahoo on an e-bike crushing a segment with 50,000 attempts, the baseline is you.
Strava’s massive failing, or rather its successful sucker pitch to the weak-willed and perennially insecure is found in the case histories of the Great Strava-ers Of Yesteryear. These were the people you knew ten years ago who were crushing all the leaderboards, snagging all the K-QOMS, marinating in the kudo dopamine, badassing here, there, everywhere.
Where are they now? They aren’t atop the leaderboard and they aren’t out crushing it anymore. Most of their K-QOMs have been taken, and if they’re riding at all, it’s to the coffee shop. The fact is that once the thrill of the Strava chase wears off, you quit riding hard and basically go away. Of course you keep your Strava subscription for the same reason that ex-politicians always keep at least one dry-cleaned suit in the closet: never say never.
Strava is dumb and people who pay for it are insecure.
But Strava is not stupid and that’s why they raised their prices. Like the sheeple who raged at Starbucks for doubling the number of points they need to get a “free” undrinkable coffee, the Strava-ers who howled at the recent price increase were ultimately howling at nothing but the moon, because however mad they are today, they’re re-upping when the time comes.
Bank on it. Strava did.
END
Bikestalgic
January 24, 2023 Comments Off on Bikestalgic
Some people get all nostalgic about their bikes, so nostalgic that when it comes time to sell the thing, when it’s still only five years old and has some vague notion of a resale value on eBay but before it’s so old that no one would buy it for anything except giving to their boyfriend as a starter bike, rather than sell Ol’ Faithful they leave it in the garage where it literally rots to death.
I’m not that way.
First, bikes are for riding, and if you’re not riding it then you need to sell it or give it away to someone who will. Second, I’ve yet to see anyone ride two bikes at once. If you have more than one bike you’re doing it wrong, and for the last six months I’ve been doing it wrong. Third, if your bike has a pet name you are really, really, really doing it wrong.
My dear old cyclocross bike that I bought in 2018 and hardly ever rode except for tens of thousands of miles finally wound up on the chopping block. It was a good racing bike but a lousy commuting bike and an even lousier touring bike, though I fashioned it for both purposes. And even though it did a passable job with touring and bikepacking setups, it couldn’t quite keep up with my old age, weak legs, declining endurance, and sarcopenia.
It has been on eBay for a while and will be there a while longer. The seat stays have both been repaired and the big, black carbon patches don’t look sexy or reassuring, though the frame is now stronger than when it was new, thanks to those patches. It’s a bit of a Frankenbike, with aero Zipp bars, outsized brake rotors to handle heavy loads, a single front chain ring paired with a rear cassette that looks like a 16″ Lodge skillet, and a very tough pair of FastForward aluminum rims.
Still, all these modifications were intentional and functional, helping turn a beefy racing frame into an all-rounder for commuting, touring, bikepacking, racing around the hill (slowly), and of course for grocery shopping.
Each little thing about the bike reminds of something good. The cracked and fixed seat stays were one of the best things to ever happen to me on a bike, leading to a series of serendipitous meetings that the wildest imagination couldn’t have dreamed up; I should know. The huge rear platter was a requirement for numerous unforgettable hike-a-bike adventures in the Sierras, outings that plopped me smack in the middle of some of the most beautiful and quiet places I’ve ever even imagined. And of course the various nicks and scars remind me of other days, rides, of camping out, getting rustled out of my tent by the Border Patrol, camping under highway culverts, enjoying the infinite and infinitely bright skies of Fort Davis, the freezing mornings in Arizona New Mexico, riding to Texas to see my dad before he died, bumping up against the closed Canadian border during covid, countless rides through downtown LA, tall passes in the high and low Sierras, snowstorms, mud, heavenly blue skies, condors, eagles, raging torrents, icy seeps, giant boulders, skyscraping sequoias, catastrophic wildfires, descents that wear your hands out from braking, 117-degree temperatures, pedaling at freezing daybreak layered up like a fat bear, waves and attaboys from cars along endless climbs, nice folks sharing a candy bar and a drink, but you know more than anything else, riding that bike was this: believing I could do a thing, and doing it.
END
Living to die
January 22, 2023 Comments Off on Living to die
Most people live in order to get more life. Once they realize that death is not only inevitable but personal, they double down, then triple down on prolonging life.
As you age you realize that it takes very little to snuff out your life. A fall, a car collision, death becomes available at every turn. By the time you’re as old as I am, you have seen people die in just about every way, from disease, sudden conditions, random accidents, suicide. But the vast majority of deaths you will ever encounter are self-inflicted over long periods of time, what I call wasting death.
Wasting death assaults even the healthiest. It results from the moment you, as an old person, begin ratcheting down movement and risk. Whether choosing the seat of your RV, your car, a jet, a cruise ship, or your La-Z-Boy, the wasting death, once begun, almost never reverts to the previous state of sudden death.
Sudden death, where you place yourself in harm’s way because a certain amount of risk is inherent in the movement and activity required to sustain a meaningful, enjoyable existence, is the province of the young for the most part, and it’s this proximity to sudden death, while being mostly unaware of it, that allows youth to do what old age can only remember. In fact, that may be the definition of youth. The onset of old age begins with awareness.
People don’t choose wasting death consciously. They don’t wake up one day and abjure all risk. Rather, they begin to cut back. “No more road riding. Cars are so dangerous, I’m sticking to gravel.”
“No more gravel. You can get really hurt falling off the bike at my age. I’m sticking to walking.”
“No more fast walking. You can trip and break your hip. I’m sticking to the treadmill.”
Etc.
These and a hundred other micro-decisions keep restricting activity until you become the prototypical old person: stuck indoors, or stuck in an ever-decreasing circle of golf, walks around the block, indoor exercise, coffee rides, and ultimately nothing at all. Senility, and what’s worse, bone-deep ennui are all that’s left.
But you have a choice. You can choose sudden death. Not the self-inflicted kind where you wrap a belt around your neck and step off the chair, but the kind that accompanies a life in which you acknowledge that meaning and enjoyment require you to keep taking risks. Whether it’s the risk of a rocky trail run where a bad fall will badly fuck you up, whether it’s the hard labor of chopping wood where a bad swing will lop off the end of your foot, or whether it’s continuing to go as fast as you can on your bike outdoors, the continued proximity to bad outcomes is the only thing that will make life worthwhile.
Yet people generally prefer to hang on and get faux satisfaction from social media, lame activities, alcohols/drugs, TV, movies, eating, and shopping. Even reading is a cop-out: words on a page will never stretch your muscles, trigger flight-or-fight, push you into the discomfort that comes from proximity to risk.
And the irony is that the corollary of “The more you do, the more you can do,” escapes everyone, or at least they ignore it. The corollary? “The less you do, the less you can do.”
In business it’s axiomatic that you are either growing or shrinking; stasis is not an option. But you’ll look far and wide before you’ll encounter anyone who applies that to their own aging regime. When it’s your life, the physics are reversed, at least delusionally so, because the approach becomes “The more you do, the sooner you’ll die,” and “The less you do, the longer you’ll live.”
Neither is true. The more you do, the more you will live, however many days greater or fewer before you die. And the less you do, the more meaningless and worthless your life becomes, the emptier and more immune you become to the intensity of existence. A fulfilling old age is a vigorous one lived outdoors. A miserable old age is a couch.
Of course this is exactly the opposite of what marketing tells us. Marketing tells us that old age should be beautiful sunsets on a beach, arm-in-arm strolls through the park, romantic dinners with the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop. It makes sense because marketing only works when you’re going slow or seated, and slightly drunk. Pitching an old age that emphasizes a slow fade ensures you’ll pick up the carefully crafted messages designed to lighten your wallet as you mumble your way into oblivion.
It all comes back to death. Until you’re ready to die you will never live. People have known this for eons. It’s why the most horrible fate for a Plains Indian was farming. It’s why the most horrible fate for a farmer was working in a factory. And it’s why the office worker, put out to pasture with no point or purpose to live beyond another gray sky in a Groundhog Day existence, feels numb and bored and fearful of death. Grad school doesn’t teach you how to die, not even Harvard Law.
For that matter, neither does Harvard undergrad. A high school classmate who had gotten into cycling in college once told me, at the ripe old age of twenty-five, that he had a heart condition and further hard exercise would kill him. He had the venerable air of a retired general who had fought many campaigns, and proudly pointed to his disability and the fact that he “might” die as his honorable discharge from risk, adventure, and life.
Of course he’s still alive, has a family, and has succeeded in the grueling academic and scientific fields of pediatric cancer. But he’s been dead since age twenty-five, when he decided to structure his future years solely around getting more years. And yes, he was an undergrad at Harvard. And as far as I know, cancer remains uncured.
From a philosophical standpoint you could argue, and most would, that it’s better to live another thirty-five years by minimizing risk than to die at twenty-five of a heart condition. People make this argument because they imagine what a tragedy it would be if THEY had died at twenty-five. What they can’t imagine is the tragedy of living a normal lifespan afraid to use the body they’re born in. They can’t imagine the tragedy of the walking dead, where life is lived simply to have more of it, like an endless buffet at which you lost all appetite the second time through but at which you must endlessly keep grazing because the memory of hunger urges you to eat, never mind that actual hunger was sated long ago.
This is the crux of it. My friend’s death, your death, my death, are not tragedies. They are inevitabilities. You can prolong it with more sofa time but you can’t make it more enjoyable, and while injury from getting hit by a car while cycling is possible, injury and disease from sitting is a certainty.
Barriers to moving abound as you age, yet the biggest barrier is physics. In order to slow the decline and stimulate your shortening telomeres, it takes far greater effort to achieve less and less effect. It doesn’t get easier, you just get deader slower. And as the effort and intensity and duration required to maintain optimal functioning increase, so does the risk of injury, leading to greater fear and less activity, not more. The one thing you have to do more of is the one thing you do less.
I experienced this when I quit racing bikes. I didn’t like the doping free-for-all, but more than that I feared getting hurt. As time goes by I calculate risk with much greater care than I used to, even though I know that the risk is where the quality of life resides.
The insurmountable difficulty of dying well is demonstrated by a vigorous death’s most eloquent exponent, Dylan Thomas. The author of “Do not go gentle into that good night” did exactly that, pathetically expiring at age thirty-nine from the wholly pedestrian, sedentary, and unrebellious act of drinking too much. Far from raging against the dying of the light, he submissively expired in a pool of his own vomit, later to be joined by such artist/poets as Jimi and Janis, who similarly confused the befuddlement of too much alcohol with pushing the envelope of human experience. Going over Niagara Falls in a barrel is limit-pushing. Standing under a falling piano is not.
It’s Sunday morning. The day is young and you are not. Act accordingly.
END
A day at the mall
January 8, 2023 Comments Off on A day at the mall
My girlfriend and I went to the South Bay Bike Mall yesterday, behaving badly as is our wont. When we go to the bike mall we usually do it for intervals or for climbing, but just like at shopping malls, most of the other people at the mall aren’t there to shop, but rather to do anything but shop. Here’s what we saw:
- Showing off Christmas gifts to self. Our first sighting was a portly fellow in a Rapha matchy-matchy costume that coordinated arm warmers, jersey, shorts, socks, gloves, and helmet with the color of his bike frame. This $1000-plus ensemble was something no one could have gotten for him, and he couldn’t have been happier showing off his gift to himself, pedaling slowly up the tenderest of grades.
- Looking at each other. Our next sighting was a group of four riders from Klub Badass, pedaling slowly up the tenderest of grades, as they chatted gaily and cast admiring looks at each other’s bicycle costumes. No one was sweating, or, because it was the mall, had sweated, or was going to sweat.
- Late-day cruisers. Two mall boys, clearly having slept in and scarfed a 5-pancake breakfast, pedaled slowly up the tenderest of grades as they made a reconnaissance of the bike mall, taking their obligatorily bored pedal through the neighborhood before they returned home in time for the main afternoon events of TV and alcohols.
- New fashion trend. A couple of short years ago you couldn’t go to the bike mall without seeing hordes of cyclists wearing The New Bike Costume Brand That Was Going To Dominate The South Bay And Change The World And Be The First And The Last Word In Bicycle Badassery. However, TNBCBTWGTDTSBACTWABTFATLWIBB was no longer in fashion; now no one was flying its colors and its costumes were now all relegated to the discount 99.99%-off rack.
- The formerly popular group now seems leprous. A couple of short years ago, the hordes that weren’t wearing TNBCBTWGTDTSBACTWABTFATLWIBB costumes were wearing chub club Team Little Fuschia costumes. A quick canvas of the South Bay Bike Mall, however, showed that hardly anyone belongs to Team Little Fuschia anymore. More startlingly, the Team Little Fuschia costumes aren’t even fuschia; they’re mauve. Is there a new costume designer over at Team LF?
- Effort is for losers. The only people who were racing up the tender grades and positively flying up the steeper ones, were old and young riders alike who had dumped the work-intensive, old-fashioned bicycle in favor of the Electric Motorcycle With Optional But Never Used Pedals. We surmised that the reason for their roach-like ubiquity was the total absence of effort required and the Smug Face Kit that comes with each elecrtrocycle purchase. Also, they don’t have to wear bicycle costumes and can enjoy motoring around in pj’s and a motorcycle helmet.
- New Year resolutions. We saw lots of these, squeezed into lycra straitjacket-costumes and positively busting out all over, especially in places you really wished they wouldn’t be. Pedaling slowly up the tenderest of grades, the mall was alive with suffering riders who wished that all the things they’d said yes to over the past month would somehow go away by simply putting on a new costume and riding slowly somewhere. #sadface #theywont
- Cute boy at the mall. We saw one Cute Boy arc, wearing his finest Saturday bike mall costume as he cruised slowly down the tenderest of grades, likely coming home from the mall’s Donut Ride shop. He gave us that look: “You Freds have no idea what amazing stuff happened over there an hour ago. It was truly historic and life-changing and will never be seen or experienced again in the history of bike mall riding. Until next week.”
END
Cycling in the South Bay 