It’s the ride you’ll do the most. The hardest ride you’ll ever do, too. You’ll do it so often that it should be easy, but it never is. Its frequency is such that it really should morph into all the other rides of its ilk, therefore negating the actual nexus of this necessary, evil ride. But it never does, it’s always stuck out there on its own, no matter what the duration between it and the next one is, could be months, could be only a week, but it’ll never leave, like that mate who stays for a couple of nights yet really should be paying rent after the first month, or at least offering a 20 for some food. This is the modus operandi of the First Ride Back.
As you get older, the FRB becomes more regular, unlike yourself. Jesus, my latest FRB really shouldn’t have qualified for its status at all, but such is the fickle nature of fitness at an ‘advanced’ age that just six days off the bike is enough to send one into panic, that the hard earned fitness is somehow leaving the body at a rate many times faster than it was acquired. Even with a pretty solid few months of riding under the belt, the effects of six days off, caused by an errant finger meeting a spinning disc rotor, sounded a death knell to me. A couple of opportunities came and went, adding to the mental mire as well as the (mainly perceived) physical one. Jumping back into the Tuesday night jaunt brought the daunt. Begging for hostilities to secede always falls on deaf ears, and plea bargaining for no hills is as well received as a stripper at Sunday school.
I recall reading an article by recently retired Baden Cooke some years ago where he spoke of his own FRB, an annual rather than weekly or monthly occurrence for him. Unlike mere mortals, he would no doubt have a pretty good base to draw upon, and even after a month or two off the bike (and probably partying hard as Cookie was known to do), he would still have the kind of condition most of us could only dream of. Yet he suffered the same mental and physical barriers as a normal rider does, but with a distinctly different approach, namely a 300km ‘hell ride’ from which he’d return some seven hours later with a sense that his season was now ready to start. A 50km jaunt with a couple of efforts thrown in seems almost laughable by comparison, but mirth never seems to enter the equation until the bike is racked and the celebratory beer is poured.
By the conclusion of the FRB, everything always seems much better, no matter how badly you’ve suffered, how far out the ass you were, what portion of your lungs you’ve coughed up. Just when you think you could take no more, the surVival instincts kick in and wring one, two, three last droplets of the Essence of V from within, and gives pride a swift kick up the ass for good measure. The next day you are renewed, and can’t wait to do it again.
Just not any longer than a week away, ok?
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@Buck Rogers
I can relate to that too. Per my post/photo elsewhere fortunately on my breaks from the bike do not lose me fitness courtesy of "skinning up the white stuff" however there is always the "my arse is going to hurt after this" when I get back home and get out the bike again. I think I'll avoid asking for suggestions of how to keep the arse hard while away from the bike. Oh damn I just did.
@Buck Rogers
Talking of which I once read an article about why newsreal items in the US are a max of three (3) minutes whereas in the UK they max at 5 minutes......
FRB. Rule #5. End of discussion.
Haven't read the other posts, but I feel like this entire season was a wicked blend of being both stronger than ever (I could do anything on the cobbles at Keepers Tour, if felt like) and then having periods of great training followed by forced time off the bike. Then coming back, training hard, and off again.
After the Heck of the North and riding with a 1/4 of slurry in my chammy for 7 hours, I was forced off the bike for a whole month to let things heal.
Coming back is just part of the beauty of being a Cyclist; you start off feeling weak, then slowly you claw back. For me its the same every time; I hold back, don't push hard on the climbs and then suddenly, I'll go on a ride and just be ready to kill it and bury myself. That is the beginning of the form at that point and its such a rush to feel that way and then to feel the pain and puked lung at the top of a big climb and be able so tell yourself that you're back on the path.
Its a process I've come to cherish. But I cherish it less than being in koont-krooshing form, as William calls it.
@uptitus
Very effective to use Period.
@frank
Also referred to as Lung Burn.
@unversio
hmmm but that would kill the essence of the site if we can't discuss ourselves into oblivion?
@unversio
Thanks! It'll come, and like Frank was saying, one day, you start a long climb after some time off and you feel the urge to bury the pin. I suppose what's interesting about that first time (all over again) is that I leave the house with a general direction in mind, but something deep down, and without conscious thought leads me to the hills. Usually the longest steepest ones around town. A little doubt sets in when first turning onto it, then the rhythm sets in and you just keep pushing harder. And harder. Do I turn off at the midway and skirt the hillside? Nope. Gotta hork up a lung or get the dry heaves if I'm doing it right. Quitting is for pu.....quitters........ Then I know I'm back on the path........
@xyxax
Ha! That's really funny actually. The answer was "you don't have to intubate anyone ever, you only do it to free up your hands so you can do other stuff". The point of the exercise was to teach the medic that it's more important to move air than to get a ETT in.
Seven days without riding makes one weak. FRB tomorrow.
@wiscot
Spot on.