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.
I know as well as any of you that I've been checked out lately, kind…
Peter Sagan has undergone quite the transformation over the years; starting as a brash and…
The Women's road race has to be my favorite one-day road race after Paris-Roubaix and…
Holy fuckballs. I've never been this late ever on a VSP. I mean, I've missed…
This week we are currently in is the most boring week of the year. After…
I have memories of my life before Cycling, but as the years wear slowly on…
View Comments
@Chris
Good lad, that's more like it (bit rich from one with a garage like mine!!)
@Dr C
Loved Inception despite that Leonard chap being a first rate twatwaffle. First time I saw it was on a plane which did it no favours at all. It need to be in sodding huge HD with big sound.
@Steampunk
You know what I'm talking about, Doc. Anyway, my 4000 year old dinos are so much better than those crap 300 million year old ones. They're the Di2 of extinct reptiles.
@frank
We were both having a laugh, big fella. Your science bona fides are impeccable, not that I would ever pecc.
@ChrisO
Good Lord, you nailed it - I'm defo winning the twatwaffle competition today! I did think it was impossible for such a horrific decline
I was going to say, this was here in her better days, but will leave the viewer to judge...
@ChrisO
Cheers! Now I know what to say when other staff here ask what I though of it.
@Dr C
Have you been hitting the laudanum again, Doc?
@Dr C
Typos are fine. A typo is a slip of the finger rather than clearly not getting it right. There/their/they're confusion isn't a typo. The problem, for mine, if there is a problem (and that's for the community to decide), is poor grammar, spelling, etc. And that's not typos.
How do you feel about overuse of punctuation, particularly commas?
As a favor, I would be grateful if we could drop the whole punctuation/proofreading conversation. One of the truly great things about being out of the classroom and on leave this year is that I don't have to correct papers. I'm actually getting violent shakes reading all this (4000 year old dinosaurs, for some reason, I can cope with"”pick your battles?).
It's all very simple. Typos happen. But attention to detail is a big part of la Vie Velominatus. I suggest a method of self-policing that involves hill repeats. But pointing out somebody's failings? Show a little class and don't be a fuckwit. When in doubt about whether you're being clever or classless, check out the below. What would Hugo do?
Inspiration Frank. Merci!
30+ years of the life. Heat (you know it's hot outside when you exhale and it cools your skin), cold, rain, driving rain, fog (you know it's foggy when you see your shadow as the odd car passes you: you know it's foggy when your damn certain your pushing the pedals but cannot tell your moving). Thank the Merckx for multiple bidons and clip on fenders....
But today is not of minding to suffer: it is of Wanting to Suffer.
Trapped by 4 walls for 6 days. Teased by the sole window to the outside world from 9.2 meters above. Seeing the sun rise from opposite reflections and set past the pillars of our evolution. Not breathing the frosty air of the outside world.
My days for these last 144 hours typically commences at 03:30 with the visit from the vampires. What is thy bidding today: 2, 4, or 6 vials? Then the vitals and the changing of the nourishment bag....and the waiting for results. The sounds of pain from near and far. But not from my room.
This temporary imprisonment will be slayed.
After 30 years, my addiction will pull me out this condition and back to my rightful place: out to my roads of sanctuary.
But spare time enables daily, sometimes hourly, cruising to the site of all good. And Franks latest masterpiece.
I hate the question: "So, on a scale of 1 to 10, what is the pain level?" Pain level? See Rule V bitch. Or my reply (in my head of course), you mean Time Trial pain, selection pain, leadout pain or the W pain (oh wait, that pain dissipates immediately!)??
So the topic of Minding to Suffer vs Wanting to Suffer hit a nerve with me.
At this point I look forward to the next worship in on mobile chapel or with the 3 drums of discipline.
Always a surprise and an inspiration, Gracie Frank!
(Please forgive the typos and missqueues, my Crackberry can do only so much...)