Category Archives: Cycling

I Do and I Am…Maybe

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Lacking any modesty, I use any opportunity to pronounce my new-found religion.  Meet for lunch?  Only if it’s nearby – I cycled to work today.  Give you a lift?  Sorry – rode my bike this morning.  Lost weight?  Thanks, yeah, 30 pounds now, riding my bike all the time.  This is typically greeted with a positive response – Really?  That’s cool. – followed almost immediately by one of the following.

You don’t wear spandex do you
This seems to be the primary concern of my friends.  It’s almost as if they’re afraid of catching some heretofore unproven-but-suspected sickness that might render them powerless against showing up at the office Christmas party or the Friday-night poker game in head-to-toe spandex.   Ken, completely bonkers downhill racer, a man I’ve known since before either of us could shave and never noted as a conformist rolled his eyes “oh gawd, you’re not wearing those black spandex shorts are you?”, the disgust dripping from his words.

In truth, I don’t but that’s not because I’m unwilling…now.  When I was 40 pounds overweight (as opposed to the optimistic 10 I am now), you wouldn’t have been able to bribe me into them in public at any price.  I rode in my cargo shorts with the stealth chamois shorts hidden underneath.  I thought it was perfect but then single-digit temperatures arrived.

It didn’t take too many mornings in the almost-freezing air to figure out I needed something to cover my knees if nothing else.  Enter my first stretchy-pants – the MEC winter cycling tights.  When asked recently if I wear those shorts I replied “no – I have stretchy pants, like tights” just to watch the reaction.  As predicted, my friend reacted with horror, disapproval and disappointment.  You’d have thought I’d just told him I’d been having an affair with the neighbour’s poodle.

It’s not like I’m asking them to join me in my new-found clothing choices.  I’m comfortable in my choice of clothing – I don’t need someone else to validate it for me.  Yeesh – it’s not even like we’re riding together and they can’t handle being seen with a lycra-clad rider in the group.  Doesn’t matter though – switching back and forth between the cargo shorts and the stretchy-pants leaves no doubt – stretchy-pants rule and stretchy shorts are a foregone conclusion when the temperatures relent.

You’re not going to be one of those guys
Jason and I went for lunch recently and the topic of my riding came up…because I brought it up.  Jason, who doesn’t ride and hasn’t expressed an interest to (yet) has no problems with my stretchy-pants though he expressed some degree of relief that I wasn’t wearing them in the restaurant.  Jason was supportive and complimentary, arguably the most supportive of my small cadre of friends.  He came from a different angle.  “Are you going to ride this winter” he asked, to which  I replied with an enthusiastic maybe.  “I’d like to” I told him “but we’ll see how much I want to when there’s snow on the ground and no room in the lane”.

“Noooooooooooooooooooo” was the immediate response, his head shaking .  “Don’t be that guy!  Put the bike away and just drive a car like a normal human”.   Now, I could see if I was his courier or pizza delivery service how my desire to pedal through the winter might cause him some concern.  Luckily for both of us, I am neither of those.  So, what’s the issue?  We don’t work or live in the same quadrant of the city and virtually none of our respective commutes or general travel overlap…so what if I ride?  The reaction is almost reason enough and Jason is not alone in his disapproval of my plan.  Well, not really a plan so much as an idea.

 

Now these are all friends that have eaten my food, who have fed me and my family.  They’ve taken their weekends and evenings to move me – in the case of Ken, 3 times in a single 12 month period.  These guys aren’t peripheral or fair-weather friends – they’re the real deal and I’m lucky to have them.  So what is it about cycling that makes even your closest friends hang their heads, cluck their tongues and nod disapprovingly?  If I’d bought a motorcycle and we were talking about leather chaps or riding in the rain, there wouldn’t be any such reaction – unless I demonstrated my predilection for wearing the chaps without anything underneath them.  What is it about bicycles that puts everything on its head?

Hunting Rabbits is for Everyone

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I know what you’re thinking – that  chasing rabbits is immature.  The domain of boys and men pretending to be relevant and attractive to 20-year-old women.  I’m not a woman so I can only offer two perspectives – that borne of knowing (sort of) what goes on in my own head and that of my observations of others (admittedly filtered through my own head which makes it mine…so that’s really just one perspective).

Unless you’re constantly surrounded by riders significantly more able than you and particularly if, like me, you ride 99.9% of the time alone, you begin to develop delusions of your ability.  I often find myself thinking “yeah – that’s right, I did just pass you like that, because I can”, while completely ignoring that they’re pushing their bike with a flat tire, thereby reinforcing my imaginary super-cyclist powers.  My favourite though is to be howling along the path with a wicked tailwind while watching all of the on-coming cyclists suffering, struggling mightily to keep above a jogging pace as their headwind acts like molasses.  This really inflates one’s illusory talent.

So with all of this pent-up talent inside, it’s only natural that I would want to find another rider and pass them.  In the beginning I was content to ride down anyone and took great pleasure in the pass irrespective of the age or condition of the rider.  Of course not being able to catch the rider towing a two-child trailer up a hill…that’s not something we need to re-visit.  Or visit.  Where was I?  Oh yes, chasing rabbits.  As my condition has improved over the summer, passing riders who aren’t trying has lost its reward.  I still try (well duh – they’re on a bike, I’m on a bike, they’re in front of me – who wouldn’t try?) to catch and pass them, but when I pull up beside them and notice they’re wearing a heavy wool trench coat, their high-heels and are riding a Townie it’s not the win I was looking for.  Unless they’re all sweaty and out of breath.  Hey – a wolf doesn’t pass up a meal just because the rabbit is missing a leg.  Not that I’m a wolf…

With the cooler weather comes the dwindling traffic  thereby causing an increase in the percentage of more serious riders.  This means fewer opportunities, but better chases.  I’m still not certain that I passed Bearded Single Speed legitimately because he finally cracked or if he simply didn’t want to ride beside me any farther.  Of these more serious riders, I routinely see two women, always going the opposite direction to my own.  Given their velocities I suspect I wouldn’t catch them if we were travelling in the same direction and that they would catch and drop me with relative ease.

One in particular who, for reasons I can’t fathom, reminds me of an acquaintance I met when we hired her to work our motorcycle booth during the Stampede.  Taisa rides but recently left town thereby removing the last 1% of possibility it was her.  When I see this unknown-yet-familiar rider, she is always riding hard and fast – determined.

Which brings me to my point…finally.  I was fighting my way home in the omnipresent headwind the other day trying to talk myself into finding some positive benefit to it (the wind, not the ride).  I’d earlier passed one of the aforementioned casual riders but had had the path to myself and my wandering mind for the bulk of things.  As I approached the Trans Canada, a rider appeared coming towards me in full tuck, in the drops and pedaling furiously with full advantage of the tailwind and I was immediately envious.  I took this all in within the split-second it took for her to appear.  Right on his wheel.

You’re probably asking yourself how I knew she was on his wheel rather than having just been passed.  Two things.  First, the path at that point is a blind, slightly uphill S-bend with a relatively narrow path and a fence on either side.  Second, she had a heretofore unseen gigantic grin on her face.  If he’d passed her on that bend, it would have been a totally uncool move by all measures and she would not have been smiling.  No – that was the enormous, predatory grin of a successful hunt.   The grin of a predator who knows the kill is at hand and the prey theirs despite their thrashing about.  It was, in the purest of moments and expressions, everything that hunting rabbits is all about.

The chase is not a male thing at all.  It’s a for-those-with-drive thing.  It’s awesome.

The Quest for the Holy Cyclist Grail

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I rode to work with a headwind today.  I rode home with one too.  That is decidedly uncool – one shouldn’t be forced to ride with a headwind in both directions.  I keep telling myself it will amount to excellent training come the change of season from windy to still windy season.  It’s not the speed of the wind that’s changed – it’s the direction relative to my own – which is suddenly causing me grief.  I’m looking forward to the days of mostly tailwind both directions.

So it was that I was heading home and thinking that I’d not had a good rabbit chase since the weather had taken a rather permanent turn to cold mornings and cool afternoons.  The less determined / smarter cyclists have parked their bikes and returned to their BMWs until the sun returns and warms things up in the spring.  The reduced volume means reduced opportunities.  It also means when the opportunities come, the object of the chase is likely to be that much more determined to drop his (or her) pursuer.  Such is the position I found myself in this evening as I tried to reel in the rider in front of me.

I spotted him as his path from downtown and my own  both turn to head north but are separated by the canal.  At this point he had the advantage as his path carries on straight and I have to cross the canal before tucking in behind him.  He had a pretty good pace going and I wasn’t sure whether I was up to the chase however being me I quickly determined that I was unable to ignore the fact that he was out front and not dropping me any further behind.  I was able to put a half-hearted and half-assed effort into playing the game.  It occurred to me more than once that he might be one of those who enjoys allowing himself to be painstakingly  reeled in and then dropping his pursuer when they finally get close.  We would see.

I managed to maintain my half-assed effort and was rewarded with half-assed results – go figure.  By the time we got to the Trans Canada, he was roughly that distance away – him under the north overpass, me under the south.  He looked back to check my position as he wove through the train gate and headed up my nemesis hill.  As I made my way through the gate it occurred to me that I was feeling pretty good though still skirting around the zone and never quite in it.

I stepped up my effort and found my lungs, which is to say I worked up a good panting – as I continued to chase him.  I’d almost dismissed the idea of catching him given my particular relationship with this hill but I kept at it if for no other reason than to knock some of this hill off.  As we reached the end of the climb he was less than 10 meters in front of me.

This was as close as I would get to him sadly.  I’d all but exhausted myself and had to watch as he slowly drifted further and further away, putting another cyclist between us.  It took me more distance than I care to note before I caught the intermediate rider and I was not over-joyed to see I’d had to expend great (non-zone) effort to catch a bearded guy riding a single-speed.  Maybe I should grow a beard.

A recent commute home had also been in a stiff headwind with some sprinkling rain here and there in less-than-warm temps if I recall.  Rather than being disappointed about it, I put my head down, my man-pants on and got to work.  I pedaled as fast as I could for as long as I could and ignored the rest of the world.  When I got home I felt fantastic and was certain I’d just laid down a solid time for the trip.  I was shocked to find it was in fact typical of my miserable headwind rides.  Genuinely.  It didn’t bother me in the least however, just left me surprised.  If you were to ask me “how was the ride home”, I’d respond “awesome!”.  Question is, how do I make every miserable headwind-plagued ride an awesome ride in the zone?