The Janus of Suffering
I came strongly into the Fall, stronger than in other years thanks to a late-season objective to do well at my first Heck of the North gravel classic in Minnesota. I was light and I had built good power and endurance by riding the steep gravel roads that pepper the North Cascades and suffering through brutal interval sessions on the windswept stretch of road along Shilshole Bay. I was good at hurting myself.
With the race behind me and the first of the next season’s objectives many months away, I entered into what in many ways is my favorite time of year to ride: Winter. The months between objectives at that time of year provides a kind of serenity on the bike that is hard to find when goals are looming. Focus shifts away from building a sharpness in the muscles and towards putting in long base kilometers at steady speeds. There is no need to push hard on the climbs, just slip into a nice tempo and explore the beautiful quiet of a steady rhythm.
With that serenity comes a different kind of suffering; not so acute but where the cold winds and rains harden the mind against the long hours of discomfort and somatic pain. Simply staying on the bike all day, riding from sun up to sun down, is suffering in itself. The willpower and discipline needed to hold the course and do the Work is itself an entirely different but very real kind of suffering – even if the suffering is not intense at any given moment.
But as Winter slowly loosens it grip and the days grow longer, so too do the objectives for the coming season loom nearer. It is time to pull myself out of steady rhythms and once again build towards the sharp sensations of a hard effort. I find I’ve nearly forgotten how to do it; my body resists the signals coming from the mind; its first impulse is to employ the Scotty Principle, I’m givin’ ‘er all she’s got captain! It seems my mind has forgotten that whenever it gets that message, there is always another 10 or 20 percent left to to be taken from the body.
Janus is the Roman god of beginnings and transitions; he has two faces – one looking to the past and one to the future. I’m transitioning from one kind of suffering into another; the work I did yesterday will make tomorrow’s ride a little bit better. My mind navigates through the mixed signals it receives, and the body responds and adapts. To transition is to explore the boundary between two seemingly separate entities. Science explores the boundary between ignorance and knowledge; art explores the boundary between reality and imagination; Cycling explores the boundary between the mind and body.
We are Cyclists. The rest of the world merely rides a bike.
@Doug ISLAGIATI is worthy of the name ‘sufferfest’. Holy crap, what a ride. BTW you can use the video with trainerroad.com and get power metrics added.
@frank Man, Gene O is excellent. One on One is as highly regarded as anywhere in town, and Gene O treats the messengers that go there really, really well.
I think Rule V and its logical extensions are the ones people who merely ride bikes get to ignore. For most of my friends, bikes are nice, relaxing tools for not-too-strenuous fun, commuting, or beer runs, and I think that’s awesome… for them. On really beautiful September Sundays, though, I see a lot of people on S-Works with Zipps, Dura Ace, and full Rapha (or worse, one time I saw a fucking USPS kit WITH the matching Maillot Jaune. Oof.) nervously coasting down hills on their hoods at 40kmph. There’s neither a kit nor a bike that could possibly mask such peoples’ lack of V. I like that.
I also like the way you write. I care about reading, writing, and English as a language a great deal. Your thoughts on cycling (and Gianni’s, and Brett’s, etc…) have brought me back here daily for about a year, but you write like you love words as much as cycling, and it makes reading your work a lot of fun.
@wiscot Ugly though it was (3 days with sub-Martian wind-chill indexes), there were always a lot of us working, and we were all in it together. Honestly, the solidarity friendships I made with coworkers and colleagues this winter was worth it, and I worry I’m just crazy enough to let hindsight turn these past three months into a fondly remembered obstacle (rather than a costly, painful bloodbath.)
Good on you for choosing to ride! I ride because I love to, but it’s impossible to feel like I love it all the time, especially when it’s -0F. Seeing other people tearing it up on the iced-over roads of Hoth and elsewhere always reenforces in my mind that riding is all kinds of wonderful, and people will ALWAYS put up with worse just to bike, because biking is the shit.
@Fozzy Osbourne “was” rough? I’m guessing winter might end this year around about August up in your parts ? Maybe ? Damn I sure give ya credit for riding / working right thru this season’s arctic polar plunge freeze in the great white north. And a Big Time Cheers from the Deep South, RC
@Joe
Yes, Griffith Park. Love that circuit. Give Encino Hills Drive a spin. Catch it off Havenhurst…south of Ventura Blvd. Take it up to Mulholland for one great view.
@wilburrox Hahahaha yeah, it’s snowing here right now, but wearing one pair of socks tomorrow and knowing the snow will be gone in a few days makes it all better. The windiest days up here were when it was both coldest and really really icy, so you’d choose a line on any given road (for a few weeks, there were almost no dry roads), and literally be slid diagonally by gusts shooting through buildings or across the Mississippi. Snow can suck, sure, but the terror phase seems to be over, which makes everything feel a little like spring.
@Optimiste If I admit it, does that mean I’m not crazy? In any case it’d be a shame not to be at least a little nuts, and I know most here agree. You guys are a slightly different breed of crazy than I (I’m just now saving for my first-ever road bike having ridden nothing but fixed for almost five years, I use mountain-bike pedals/shoes, have a beard, and wear jeans/jorts more often than not), but in principal, I can see that you sarcastic bastards and I (a fellow sarcastic bastard) get a lot of the same things from cycling. If I ever stop breaking components, maybe I’ll save up enough for a Cogal-ready bike and join you guys. Trying to keep up on a track bike would wreck my legs for a month.
@Fozzy Osbourne
No. Still crazy. Yet somehow I think you can do more with 1 gear than many of us can do with the inordinate range of gears at our disposal. (But keep the eardbay on the ownlowday. There are somethings we don’t speak of, but if we must, only in hushed tones of contrition)
@cyclebrarian
I am truly fortunate, in that I leave my stuff on top of the washer, the VMH runs the wash, and then directs me to hang the items I wish to not melt in the dryer.
@frank
Yes, this is the epitome of what I hate to love about cycling!
Speaking of this suffering…. there was some talk a while back, maybe perhaps on several occasions, about asthma. What I thought my being a pussy, and needing further meditation on Rule V, was actually asthma (brought on by the thing I was doing, exercising). My doctor has assisted me in figuring out this heinous death-is-imminent symptom, and now my suffering has shifted to a new category. So, at least I can breathe while I suffer, without the need to bring my steed to a stand still.
@VeloSix My sympathy to those who suffer from Asthma, there are many things in life that are optional. Breathing is not one of them.
@VeloSix
Its not a joke, asthma is a serious shit. I almost died as an infant from this, and it continues to hit me as an adult, although I’ve learned how to control it (for me its a reaction not to exercise but to environment.) Training in the cold months, even with an inhaler, is like strength training for the warm months when I don’t need to dilate my trachea anymore!
@frank
Slightly tangential but did you know cats can have asthma… mine’s seems to have shown up when I sent him to London. Guess the dry air of Dubai had hidden it.
He is a very biddable cat and I would do anything for him but I don’t fancy trying to get an inhaler on.
@frank
I have never had the attacks like my Grandmother a father both would have. On a few occasions as a kid I had mild attacks brought on by mowing the grass, and a few times as an adult during fall allergy season which amounted to a bit of wheezing.
The experiences on the bike were much different. They certainly made it a struggle to breathe, but more so from the perspective I just couldn’t take in the deep breathes I could while at rest. So it was lots of short rapid breathes. It also made it near impossible to recover once hitting a certain threshold. If I experienced this on a climb, there was never a way to ease up and recover, I had to just stop. Humiliating when riding with my race buddies on a race recon ride.
I’ve now had two rides where I’ve used my inhaler pre ride; as instructed by my doctor. Once on a climbing day, and the other a weekly club training ride. Both very hard days in the saddle, each for their own respects. I really thought I was being a pussy, and felt I just don’t have the motor for this. It makes me such a different rider (and I don’t mean this sarcastic in any way) but I’ve prepared myself to be asked “What are you taking?” by the guys I ride with regular, who after the two rides, must notice the sudden difference.
I “grew out” of my asthma as a kid, but then like an idiot I hit the cancer sticks for a few years during college, and now I’m stuck with occassional symptoms during cold weather of when I get sick. Advair works for keeping it under control for me. For my family it’s a way of life–I have it, my wife has it, and 3/4 kids have it. I kinda forget how terrifying it can be if you don’t really know what’s going on!
@The Oracle I became rather fixated on my HR monitor once I figured out what my red zone was. It was definitely a rev limiter for me. It was nice to realize that paying little attention to it Tuesday (on what is likely the hardest I ever rode), and later review the ride to realize how hard I pushed it, but still recovered without being spit out the back. There is a new joy brewing in regards to my riding.
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as Tintin et la toison d’or (IMDB has Tintin et le myst.
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Heck of the North is going to hurt me this year. But I guess that happens no matter how much training one has done.