Any return from time off the bike is always met with a peculiar mixture of anticipation and apprehension. I will be excited to return to the bike, but on some level I’ve become accustomed to not getting on my bike every day. Not riding is easy, and we are creatures of inertia – once the rhythm of the daily ride is broken, it takes a push to slip back into the current that carries us to fitness.
I will be apprehensive to discover how much of my form has left me; I was strong before the break, and some of that strength will have left me. I can always hurt my legs, if for no other reason than to prove to myself that I still can. But pain feels different depending on which side of it you’re standing; in fitness, suffering feels farther removed, as if we somehow control the pain. When fitness has deserted us, however, we are at its mercy; we are in a hole from which the only escape lies through withstanding the suffering being heaped down upon us in shovel loads from above.
After a week off the bike to rest a knee annoyance incurred during my Festum Prophetae Hour ride, I found myself riding in the early morning rain. This was a wispy rain rain of lukewarm water, the kind of rain we normally find in a Seattle summer. I chose a route with few climbs, so I might not force my legs. The route started with a dozen or so kilometers of gradually rising road before dropping into a valley where the road pitches steeply upward for a short while before continuing on its way down to the seaside. My legs felt magical on the climb; I could push on them and the bike would go. This is why I love Cycling; how can something so rich and complex be so elemental – all we need do is push on the pedals.
I fell into a beautiful rhythm as I rode easily along the twisting road, unusually aware of how good I felt. There must be a tailwind, I thought to myself, as I rose out of the saddle to push over a small rise in the road. Not long after, I reached the turn-around point and found unequivocally that indeed there had been a tailwind. I lowered my chin in resignation to the work that lay ahead to return home. It occurred to me that this, a headwind, is the only kind of wind they have in Flanders.
On most days, I would fixate on the speed that this headwind was wringing from my machine; the most frustrating thing about a headwind is the small return in speed for the amount of pressure in the legs and lungs. But today, I had no designs on speed. I had no designs on returning home at a certain time, for that matter. There was only me and the bike. It is only on rides like these that we may truly appreciate the gifts of dimension that La Vie Velominatus can provide when we are willing to receive them.
Riding into a headwind, with the air swirling about your head and rustling the nearby forest and meadows, forms a lovely orchestra of woods, reeds, and winds. If it wasn’t normally so frustrating, it might be my favorite kind of riding.
Vive la Vie Velominatus.
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Nice one Fränk, you deserved the rest! The tailwind/ headwind dichotomy is also the litmus of rested/fatigued BFG's.
Nice one, I'm smack bang in the middle of an enforced break from the bike thanks to some bike fit/baby lugging neck issues. Physio guided bike fitting session is booked in for Thursday week, by which point it'll be upwards of 3 weeks since last turning a pedal in anger. Combine that with quite limited riding since Sebastian arrived at the start of May & I'll have quite a slope to climb before any semblance of fitness is attained, but the best part about is that it only comes from more riding.
Oh, the inevitable (dreaded?) Wind Peaking, where you feel you're having a great day until you head for home and realize the wind had been ushering you along the whole time and that no, you don't normally cruise at 40kph+ down the road. Sometimes after starting a ride into a headwind, I convince myself there's not a tailwind and I regularly ride 40+. Somehow, it is mentally relieving after slogging into a nasty wind.
To hear an orchestra in a headwind. One more way in which the practice of cycling asks us to be here now, to practice mindfulness and accept what's happening in this moment now. I say this in real humility and cop to my habitual deep irritation at being caught out in the rain today. Again. I hate the rain. And my hatred of it is the second arrow.
Cycling loves paradoxes. The interplay of polarities form a whole: left/right, push/pull, up/down, inhale/exhale, exertion/rest. Mysteriously, they do not negate each other. They are interlocked. Cooperative. Inward polarities unify pain and healing. Outward polarities build on solitude and community. And upward polarities turn suffering to glory.
@freddy
Which is why even those of us who are too fat to climb learn to love to climb.
Had really strong headwinds on parts of the ride today. I think of them as Dutch Hills and then don't mind the added effort.
I'm glad one of us is inspired getting back on the bike. I did a 3-day / 5 stage race the first weekend of the month, which marked the end of the season for me. I forced myself to take a week off the bike, which I hated, then did a couple of social rides with mates as wind downs when I felt as strong as an ox. The weather's come in, the trainer's come out, and it's only really in the last four or five days I've got back in the saddle and wrestled again with the building up a base / not peaking too soon / not riding too soft and letting all me strength from the stage race turn to noodles conundrum. My neck hurts, the bike feels like it belongs to someone else, and I'm as weak as a kitten. Better start enjoying it again soon...
Did a 100km ride on Sunday (I am but a neophyte). Terrain around here can well be described as "dutch"- flat, with rivers higher than the fields. Even one of the two noticeable rises (too small to be called a hill by any reasonable person) contributed by being a wall. Should be pretty easy though, nice fast riding on flatish straight roads in a group.
Mother nature of course had other ideas, with a howling wind on the front for at least 2/3 of the distance that splintered the group. Attempting to work with others was futile. Did the only thing I could do. Dug deep and went for it.
I like the term "dutch hills". The strong wind on flat terrain is a particular form of pain bringer that doesn't get enough respect. It is hard to plan for. Sometimes even forecasts can't quite prepare you for what you'll face.
A common factor for most rides; it's blowing one way or other. I find the headwind to be the hardest part of cycling. Relentless and usually there's no way to avoid it. One can't suddenly change direction, especially in a race. Give me a hill/mountain to climb anyday over a headwind. At least you know the hill will finish at some stage. I can't recall riding into a headwind up a mountain though.......may be I was too knackered to notice?