In my favorite scene from Lawrence of Arabia, T.E. Lawrence, after lighting a colleague’s cigarette, allows the match to burn down to his fingertips before snuffing it out. Having witnessed the stunt, the dim-witted associate attempts it himself, only to blow out the match before it gets anywhere close to burning down. “That damn well hurts!”, he states, barely concealing his amazement. “Certainly it hurts,” replies Lawrence with the cool calm of a man who is at ease with The V. “Well, what’s the trick then?”
“The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.”
The trick to becoming a better Cyclist depends, they say, on one’s capacity to suffer. Riding faster is easy, after all; all you have to do is push harder on those flat things attached to your feet. But that, as many of us have discovered, is the complicated bit.
Our ability to suffer is driven by our willingness to push ourselves, to resist the signals our bodies are sending – whether those signals tell us to stop an effort, to stay inside when the mercury drops, when the rain falls, or dipping into the cellar for a session on the trainer rather than for a bottle of wine. To walk the difficult path of becoming a better cyclist requires, in a word, willpower.
Many of the obstacles along that path require us to eschew the wisdom taught to us by our elders and society. Listen to your body, they tell us, when in fact our bodies are chatty things that have only a few sensible contributions to make. Stay inside when it’s wet, or you’ll catch cold, the folk knowledge claims, while in reality those who stay indoors are more likely to catch cold and if we were to heed that advice, we would rarely throw a leg over a top tube during non-summer months. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger… well, I suppose they had to get one right.
In practice, weakness breeds weakness and strength breeds strength. We may not allow ourselves to take the easy path, for nothing worth travelling to lies at the end of it. If we relent to the pain during an effort, it only makes it easier to do so again next time. Allowing ourselves to stay off the bike for today’s bad weather makes it easier to do so again tomorrow. On the other hand, enduring today’s cold steels us for tomorrow’s chill.
To claim we enjoy suffering, that we enjoy the pain of an effort, or that we enjoy riding in the wet and cold is a bit misleading. While I believe there might be those who possess a perversion that does indeed allow them to enjoy pain, for most of us, we have merely discovered that the burning of our muscles today strengthens them for tomorrow. We have learned that submitting to the deluge or climbing aboard the trainer in winter helps build towards a result that won’t be realized until our planet reaches the next equinox. Rather than enjoying suffering, we enjoy what suffering does for us and have learned through practice to associate current pains with future gains.
Personally, I enjoy riding in the rain more than most, certainly when it comes as a refreshing change from riding on dry roads. I enjoy the rain splashing up from the road, or the cold air in my face. But to say I cherish riding throughout the cold and wet Winter months is certainly an overstatement. During this time of year, I have to push myself to go for a ride every single time. When I am warm inside, there is no part of me that wants to pull on cold-weather gear knowing I will be cold and uncomfortable for the duration of the ride. Instead of thinking about whether I want to ride, I simply do it; focusing on desire or comfort does little to improve the condition. Quite the opposite, in fact – a frozen toe is better left not contemplated when one lacks the means to warm it up.
The trick to becoming a better cyclist doesn’t have so much to do with our capacity to suffer. Certainly we suffer; the trick is not minding that we suffer.
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@Oli
No, but just ordered some more on Ebay
@leadout
Well said @leadout - you are either a Medical Intern/Houseman, or you are in Beruit, in which case I hope you get released soon
It hurt to read this yesterday and again this morning. Yesterday I bailed on riding for the first time all year. Doesn't matter that I wrecked a couple times on Friday and more snow and ice came in since. Or that I put in the best, most painful interval workout of my life over the weekend. I suppose the next few days will have to hurt just a little more than normal.
@frank
Never made it through Dr Z. Bores me to death and I love old movies and have quite a decent collection of the Criterion films. Just, for some reason, Dr Z puts me to sleep.
Love the scene near the end when the French minister, Fisel and the English general are together and the younger aide has to leave b/c he cannot stand to watch the goings on and the French minister says, "There's nothing further here for a warrior. We drive bargains. Old men's work. Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men. Courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace. And the vices of peace are the vices of old men. Mistrust and caution. It must be so." Such a great passage. The whole movie is just amazing.
@Blah
What the hell are "school colours in this context? I'm lost as well (and I thought I was up on my Aussie-speak!)
Colours are a form of honours/recognition system for outstanding or consistently strong performances. The form varies from school to school. Sounds like @Blah's school was arty and liberal compared to mine. We could only get colours for sport.
At my school you could be awarded Full or Half Colours for a major sport (Rugby, Hockey, Cricket and Athletics) but only Colours for a minor sport (soccer, cross country, tennis etc). Half Colours and Colours in a minor sport allowed the the pupil to wear a different tie from the masses whilst each of the major sports had it's own Full Colours blazer and tie.
@Chris
Thanks, mate! I had no idea what the hell you were all talking about. Kind of like "lettering" in a sport here in the States, I guess.
@Buck Rogers
Not really up to speed on the Lettering system but the colours thing sounds like the Anglo/Antipodean equivalent. For most sports you would't get colours in any shape or form unless you were in the school team, or competing at the highest age group level. Outstanding performances at regional or national level would be the only way to get them at a younger age.
You must have that sort of thing in the military too.
@kiwicyclist: Frank, your article has given me an excuse to post this link to a recent article on consumate hardman Juric Robic which some of you may have seen.
Suffering is all in the mind apparently: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/sports/playmagazine/05robicpm.html?pagewanted=all
2 years ago I was part of a 4 man team that did a 1,000km race around Switzerland called the Tortour. Jure Robic rode it solo and if my recollection is correct my 4 man team only beat him by about 2.5 hours. We spoke to him after the race for about 20 minutes: My recollections- 1) he saw lights and answered to a calling very different to most cyclists- it seemed like he was driven by something very disimilar than the rest of us. 2) His guns were insanley large and defined...I have never seen so many veins (outside of that nasty thing Hincapie has on his calf) 3) He said he trained 6-8 hours a day every day of the year. 4)He was a very nice, genuine, but complex dude.
In the last year, I read J.Robic died due to a head on collision with a car on a downhill on his mountain bike in his home country in the rain. When I read that he had passed I had this strange feeling that someone very unique had left us combined with the thought that given his OCD lifestyle this was bound to happen.
@frank
Pendant? Deliberate, Frank... Or antagonistic to the rest of us pedants?
@jank +1 and welcome