Gravity
Gravity is the most unavoidable force on Earth, with the possible exception of Stupidity. And like with Stupidity, you can take measures to reduce its influence on you, but you won’t get rid of it completely, assuming you’re staying on this planet. From the very moment we’re born, Gravity takes its unrelenting hold on us – which isn’t altogether bad because I learned from watching Despicable Me that as soon as someone is smart enough to invent anti-gravity serum, someone will be stupid enough to leave a skylight open.
We Cyclists protect a secret from the rest of the world: we can defy gravity. Riding allows us to float a few meters above the ground, suspended in a cloak of V. Add a little speed to the mix and a maybe few sweeping switchbacks and we are as close to achieving human flight as we will ever get.
Once we trade flat roads for the hills, Gravity reveals its true secret to us: the mind can overcome physical limits when we form the cohesive unit of bicycle and rider. There is a symbiotic bond that forms; Gravity pulls us down toward the bottom of the hill, and we require our strength to counter its force and scale the heights. The strength required to achieve this takes a heavy toll on our body, and it is only through focus and determination that we keep the legs turning over smoothy. Riding back down the other side, we learn to fool Gravity and explore the intersection of centripetal force, friction, and our old friend Stupidity.
With practice, we learn that our mind can drive us to overcome the the physical limits of not just our bodies, but Gravity itself. Its hold on us remains, but the effects are greatly diminished. In defiance of Gravity, we rise to touch the heavens and ride where angels fly.
Vive la Vie Velominatus.
Great piece as always, nicely poetic. Little known fact: the higher above sea level you climb the lighter you get (yes, ok it’s negligible but still lighter). Go high enough and the O2 gets thin, allowing stupidity to take hold.
@Ccos
^This
And a bit of this -> http://www.velominati.com/racing/the-perfect-amount-of-dumb/
Is this “Vive la Vie Velominatus” on the V kit — a meaningful design element ??
Can I buy a stupidity meter that will complement my bartape?
I envy your brain Frank, you never cease to amaze with your analogies, gravity and stoopid – Genius!
Since I have left the land of hills and now do not wrestle with the man with the G’s I am really curious as to how it will be when I head north and am thrown into 80km rides with 1200m of climbing? Last weekend on an imperial century I think there was 20m of elevation. Since we were on the S. FL grid system of roads the wicked head wind for 60km seemed to be a good substitute for hills but I’m not sure?
Gravity. My everlasting nemesis. It binds us all, yet we fight it with all the stupidity that can be mustered.
@UnfilteredDregs
Give the newb a prize!
@Dan_R Don’t fight gravity, embrace the suck. I like talking to the hill as I’m riding up it. The people I’m riding with don’t tend to like that part, though.
Very nice! True also, but especially nice, because original.
A little shot of the valley. Total of 104kms completed, 1500m of total climbing, sunburnt and torn hamstring after the second ride of the year here…… After the snow disappears you understand….
@Marvellous
Doesn’t get a lot better than that.
Well said!
Ah, Despicable, the Velomigrommies fav movie…
Ah, Hills, almost vomited at the top of one of the regulars this morning, marvellous realisation of mind over body
Timely as always Frank..
Gravity NEVER sucks as bad as stupidity
Hills are good for the soul.
I think we’re well placed for an article on Stoopidity
Frank, I think you forgot to mention that if you believe you can defy g-r-a-v-i-t-y, your hair turns awesome
I like to think that there’s a micro and macro level of gravity to be had as a cyclist. The definition of gravity helps bring this into perspective: Gravity is the force of attraction that occurs between any two objects that have matter.
On a macro level, it’s the earth, the road, the climb and the eternal tendrils of gravity that do battle with my muscle fibres.
On a micro level, it’s the genuine love I have for my bike, and its reciprocal love for me.
Great piece, Frank. Cheers.
@Beers
I had to choke one back myself yesterday. I thought at the time of how weak I must be, but your comment has made me feel so much better. It was actually a mind over body win. Shut up body!!
@Marvellous
Can you feel the depth of my envy from here? That looks like a fine and pleasant misery of a climb. Sweet.
@Marvellous Oh man what I wouldn’t do to ride up and down and around that scenery. I can only imagine I’d probably be going awfully slow for a couple of weeks just taking it all in. Beautiful.
So I’m riding with this young lady tonight:
as she prepares for her first ever crit as a licensed Jr racer this w/e. A local race festival called Sunny King. And we take a last climb up a hill from where we’d parked, turn back to head down and she says, “Can we go fast?” Needless to say, I believe she gets it. Because that my friends is when we embrace gravity! After all, going down hills is the reason for climbing ’em in the first damn place. Cheers, all, RC
‘The mind always fails first, not the body. The secret is to make your mind work for you, not against you.’ – Arnold Schwarzenegger
In the same veign, this is my favourite V-article.
By the way, as you wonderfully alluded to, zero gravity is a bad thing; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNQdSfgJDNM
Cyclists require an abundance of stoopid, but in return are wiser above earth
If Mr Newton and his mate Mr Galileo werent such smart arses maybe gravity wouldnt exist, thereby enabling me to climb hills much faster !
……. but then if that were the case would I descend as quick as I do, which for me, is the exhilarating bit about going uphill in the first place.
“I don’t think there are other sports where a normal trained person can climb mountains and feel great. Someone well trained, when he climbs a mountain, feels like a god.
This is the magic of cycling.”
– Valentino Campagnolo
@Barracuda
But you would need dead straight hills (well straight everything!). You may not have seen this I posted elsewhere…..
@wilburrox In my case the last one of the day is to get home as I live on the top of a hill. Though it does mean that I can arrive at the top and have zero reserve – bar getting up the stairs to have a shower.
@Rob I’ll take hills over a headwind any day of the week. At least gravity is consistent. It doesn’t change strength or direction on a whim. Conquering a hill gives me a sense of achievement. Wrestling a headwind just annoys me.
@Barracuda
I’m sure they got it wrong. They defined it as a constant and I’m absolutely sure it is not and that it a) increases with the length of a ride and b) further increments with the length of a climb. It’s the only reason I can think of as to why climbs seem worse at the end of a ride vs the start. It can’t have anything to do with my fitness.
@Teocalli
Absolutely spot on but you forgot to mention that if they’d got it right, either time spend ascending would equal time spent descending or they’d have linked speed to suffering and we’d go faster up than we would down.
@Andrew Christensen
Stupidity in itself is just a state of mind that left alone merely allows us not to be troubled by our limitations and insignificance in the grand scheme of things. As such it cannot suck. It is only through blending stupidity with external influencing factors such as gravity or alcohol that we begin to get ourselves in trouble.
@Chris Nice one.
@Andrew There should be a link to the Darwin awards. It is obviously a primary mutation otherwise it would have naturally selected itself out long ago.
@LeoTea
Gravity is easier to overcome than aerodynamics.
If you go twice as hard uphill you go twice as fast.
To go twice as fast into the wind requires eight times the effort.
Apparently it’s physics.
@silentC
Not cycling, but a good indication that there’s some Rule #5 flowing through my youngest. His school selected him to run in the under 10s category of the regional cross country championships even though he’s only 8 to give him some experience of bigger competitions. Coming up a hill about halfway through he didn’t look like he was having too much fun but kept upping his pace to stick to a bigger lad. Afterwards, I commented that he’s looked a bit uncomfortable to which he replied. “I could taste sick in my mouth and was trying to work out whether I should stop if I needed to vomit or carry on running while vomiting”.
@Chris
Ace lad! Did he really say “vomit” at 8?
@Teocalli His vocabulary surprises me at times. Unfortunately, so does his grammar which leans towards the chavy at times. “It was the acclivity wot like made me egurgitate”.
To date we haven’t had any “innits”, though.
@Chris
Up to that point I was going to say that he obviously goes to a “Jolly decent school old chap”.
@Teocalli He does, but they haven’t had him for long.
@Chris
Ha ha. Nice. Yes I guess not at 8. Most of my school memories are around sport in some way or another. So glad my parents made the financial sacrifice as I’d never have got the same quantity of sport elsewhere.
@Teocalli Indeed, it was all about sports at my school but there were other benefits that I would never have enjoyed had I ended up in the state system; 20 years of enjoyable gainful employment despite a stellar underachievement in my A-Levels would probably be top of the list.
@Frank Gravity is a lot like friction: there are times in life when we do our best to counteract its influence as best we can and other times when we try like hell to seek it out.
@Chris
Ha Ha! We could have been twins! I presume that also included a fair amount of causing your parents to tear their hair out over just scraping through exams. One of the best reports I remember was “If David put anything like the effort into his academic studies as he does into his sport he’d be a straight A pupil”. However the one that was clearly wrong was “David must learn that he cannot go through life relying solely on his natural charm” – that one has worked so far…………
@Ccos
I had one of those last night, fortunately I was in the car on the way to going cycling and not actually cycling. Suffice it to say that everything in the back of the car ended up in the front of the car but I did manage to avoid the idiot who drove out in front of me and no damage to the bike gear that flew from the back of the car.
@Teocalli
Sssshhhh, we’ll be found out!
@ChrisO
I believe the force of stoopid is also a cube function.
@wilburrox
This photo, and her question, just made my day! Thank you for sharing. Awesomeness.
And great article, Big Franck!
That lead photo is bonkers too. It almost looks fake!
Brilliant writing, again. Seeing the emotions of cycling – the suffering, the joy, the exhilaration put into words here keeps me coming back. LVV!
@Teocalli
Well that also describes my 17 year old son who goes to a very good school, contrives to speak like a sarf lonnon gangsta and seems to think the world is just waiting to prostrate itself at his feet.
It’s comforting to know he’ll end up like you two.
Now, how do I break this to Mrs ChrisO…