Waiting for the Man

Big Mig, waiting for an appointment with the Man with the Hammer.

You have three questions going through your mind:
How far to go?
How hard am I trying?
Is the pace sustainable for that distance?
If the answer is “yes”, that means you’re not trying hard enough. If it’s no, it’s too late to do anything about it. You’re looking for the answer “maybe”.

Chris Boardman, on The Hour Record, Rouleur

Cyclists, whether on the start line of a race or at the café before a group ride, are a chatty bunch. How’s your training going? The legs feeling alright? How do you like Di2? I could never go electronic, need to feel the cable, you know – need to be connected to my bike.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “substantive conversation”; we are more leg than brain, after all. But no matter how good the form has been, we are always worried that it has somehow left us, and worry tends to make the mouth go. Chatter distracts the mind from the doubts that should have been nagging us the last month about our training, but who only turned up about ten minutes before we arrived to the start, long after there was anything we could do about it.

The Contre la Montre, on the other hand, always shows a different rider. No matter how dominant the rider, they are always deep in thought, never chuckling, never grinning. There is no one to lighten the mood, no distracting the mind from the pain and inherent uncertainty of the body’s ability to cope with the suffering that is to come. There is an appointment with the Man with the Hammer somewhere on the road you are about to travel down; he is as unpredictable as he is ruthless.

The rider who waits on the start line of a time trial is a rider who is squaring up with the reality that no matter the state of their training, they are waiting for the man.

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

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View Comments

Buck Rogers says:

Sep 1 2016 at 5:36 am

@Oli

Got twenty-six dollars in my hand…just in case I need to stop at a cafe.

You got me again, Oli. Which famous cyclist said this??? (and that famous cyclist better not be Oli!)
Buck Rogers says:

Sep 1 2016 at 5:42 am

Fucking fucking awesome piece, Frahnk. One of the best. Esp loved this bit as I had not seen it before:

"You have three questions going through your mind:
How far to go?
How hard am I trying?
Is the pace sustainable for that distance?
If the answer is “yes”, that means you’re not trying hard enough. If it’s no, it’s too late to do anything about it. You’re looking for the answer “maybe”.

Chris Boardman, on The Hour Record, Rouleur"

Always racing on that "Razors Edge" of sustaining the highest effort/power that I can for the estimated time/distance required.

When helping to coach my 15 year old son (who is now running sub-5 minute miles--yes it is so fucking cool to see your kiddos do well even if you probably have NOTHING to do with the results!!!) I have drilled and drilled this concept into his head about running on "The Razors Edge".

Fuck, he probably will punch in the mouth the next time I mention it to him b/c he is so sick of hearing it and then run away b/c he can sure run faster than I ever could but I think I could still kick his butt in a sparring session if I managed to catch him!
KogaLover says:

Sep 1 2016 at 6:09 am

@Buck Rogers

@Oli

Got twenty-six dollars in my hand…just in case I need to stop at a cafe.

You got me again, Oli. Which famous cyclist said this??? (and that famous cyclist better not be Oli!)

Bowie, and he's dead. Didn't know he rode a bike though...
RobSandy says:

Sep 1 2016 at 6:23 am

@KogaLover

@Buck Rogers

@Oli

Got twenty-six dollars in my hand…just in case I need to stop at a cafe.

You got me again, Oli. Which famous cyclist said this??? (and that famous cyclist better not be Oli!)

Bowie, and he’s dead. Didn’t know he rode a bike though…
ChrisO says:

Sep 1 2016 at 6:48 am

@RobSandy

Ooh, there's some nice lumpy bits around the Gower.

I was gutted I didn't get to ride there this summer. We had a cottage out near Rhosilly beach for a week, but I had some clients in town for three days so I was only there for a couple of days and without the bike.

@Buck Rogers

I'm pleased to say it works the other way occasionally. At my last TT a few weeks ago, a 50 miler, I won the Veterans section (where they adjust the times for ages over 40) by 6 seconds. And I'd made a real effort in the last quarter to make sure I had nothing left so it was a nice payoff - I would have been gutted to have taken it a little easy at the end and lost by a few seconds in a 2 hour race.

I really do see why its the Race of Truth. You can't blame position in the bunch, missing the break, being chased down by another team or blocked in the sprint. There are no excuses in a TT.

I sometimes find that I try to negotiate with myself, especially in that final minute. But once the clock starts all bets are off.
RobSandy says:

Sep 1 2016 at 7:06 am

@ChrisO

@RobSandy

Ooh, there’s some nice lumpy bits around the Gower.

I was gutted I didn’t get to ride there this summer. We had a cottage out near Rhosilly beach for a week, but I had some clients in town for three days so I was only there for a couple of days and without the bike.

This is my mate's Strava file from last year - https://www.strava.com/activities/386446469

There are some whippets on the startlist, too. I just hope that when I get dropped some of my team mates are dropped too so I have company!

Giles Hartwright from Dulwich is riding, too.
Harminator says:

Sep 1 2016 at 7:17 am

Yes. Great piece, Fronk. I remember looking for this Boardman quote a while back. It speaks all kinds of wisdom. I've only raced a handful of TT's - all on the same 38k rouleur's course (Calga, NSW). Brutal for all the same sentiments expressed here. I get a little pavlovian bowel shake just thinking about it. Not kidding.

I think the same can be said for approaching a big climb or a day on the pave. When you set out from home or roll through the approach, it's hard to ignore the fact that you're about to plunge into the pain cave. You want it, you don't want it, you want it...
litvi says:

Sep 1 2016 at 10:53 am

C'mon guys. A quote from Boardman in an article about the Hour? A profile shot of a forlorn looking Indurain? Snippets from pre-ride conversations @frank has with @Haldy about the cables on his track bike? This isn't about time trials.

This is obviously a thinly veiled icebreaker about two things: another attempt at the Hour is on the horizon, and @frank needs a fourth and fifth question to run through his head as he turns in lap after lap. Boardman's three questions are terribly lacking in number. He needs V.

Something along the lines of:

4. Should I have rebuilt this as a left-hand drive after I tore it down for a VLVV paint job?
5. Which hand is the Left, anyway?

or

4. Why am I doing this?
5. No, seriously, how much farther is there to go?

You get the idea.
universo says:

Sep 1 2016 at 11:03 am

@litvi

C’mon guys. A quote from Boardman in an article about the Hour? A profile shot of a forlorn looking Indurain? Snippets from pre-ride conversations @frank has with @Haldy about the cables on his track bike? This isn’t about time trials.

This is obviously a thinly veiled icebreaker about two things: another attempt at the Hour is on the horizon, and @frank needs a fourth and fifth question to run through his head as he turns in lap after lap. Boardman’s three questions are terribly lacking in number. He needs V.

Something along the lines of:

4. Should I have rebuilt this as a left-hand drive after I tore it down for a VLVV paint job?
5. Which hand is the Left, anyway?

or

4. Why am I doing this?
5. No, seriously, how much farther is there to go?

You get the idea.

Frank needs only to calculate the Coefficient of Difficulty for himself -- then he'll need his powers of abstract focus to see the number { coefficient } -- which ideally is V or V.2V
wiscot says:

Sep 1 2016 at 11:07 am

@Buck Rogers

@ChrisO

I think it’s because you just know what’s going to happen in a TT.

A road race can unfold in a hundred different ways. A TT will be either brilliantly painful or horribly painful and not much in between… spot the common thread.

It’s also that you have that stone cold minute when the rider in front has gone. You roll up to the line, wait for the 30 second call before clipping in and having the bike held and then the final five second countdown – all your thoughts are bouncing around in your pointy helmet.

And at the end I hate it when you’re a few seconds away from some benchmark. In three of the five open TTs I’ve done this year I’ve been one place off a podium or prize money, and the gaps have been 3, 4 and 9 seconds. In hindsight it’s always easy to think you could have gone 5 or 10 seconds faster but it’s bloody hard to think of that on the road.

There is one great thing about TTs which deserves a mention though – the minute man.

I love having someone to chase. I still stick to my gameplan but it’s fun seeing whether you are catching them up and going past someone early on is quite uplifting.

On the other hand I hate being caught.

Really great insight and thoughts.

I agree with loving having the rabbit out front but I, personally, live in pure mortal fear and dread of the guy coming up from behind!

And yes, I have won the Wooden Medal more than once over the last few years and it so sucks, doubly-so if you are only a few seconds back!

This. From 81 to 90 I must have ridden hundreds of open and club TTs. In the early years I was the one being caught, but gradually got a better number and did some catching. A good (full field) TT will have the fastest 11 guys at numbers 120, 110, 100 etc, and the next 11 fastest at 115, 105 etc. In between are the rabbits!

The worst thing is a chatty timekeeper. You want to warm up, collecting your thoughts for the effort ahead and get your mind right. Nothing worse than a timekeeper or holder that wants to converse.

Every TT should involve pointing your bike directly at the entrance to the pain cave. How deep you go in is up to you, but you have to go in nevertheless. I remember finishing some rides feeling lightheaded. Those were the fast ones. Happy, happy days.