The Goalden Fleece
Happy living in our stressful lives is all about organization. For instance, I like to sort the tasks first by priority and then group tasks of equal priority into buckets of minor priorities. Software developers creatively call this approach to organization a “bucket sort”. This helps break down what appears to be an insurmountable mess of work and separate it into consumable, understandable units.
Being the optimist that I am, after prioritizing, I start by sorting my activities into those which I would rather consume a cyanide tablet than tackle, and set a goal to work through those first. Once I’ve completed those, I feel a sense of accomplishment that helps build the morale needed to tackle the remaining items. Having completed the “cyanide” bucket, I feel better about tackling the “wrist-slitting” bucket and working my way gradually towards “beating myself to death with a rusty hammer“, which represents the least appealing of the tasks.
It’s all about using the momentum gained from the last activity to drive the next, which is also how I approach my training. It can be hard to find the motivation to remain disciplined in your training when the days are dark and wet; when your goals are many months away it is far too easy to find other priorities when there is nothing immediate towards which to drive. The training becomes erratic, and our progress is stunted. Without a clear plan, we react to our schedules and external demands rather than working around them; goals force us to prioritize our lives in a way that leads us towards success and the secret to Training Properly is to cascade your goals in a way that allows for steady progress that builds toward the greater objective.
However much we love Cycling, getting better at it requires routine hard work and suffering, an endeavor whose most reliable variation is marked by an unplanned visit from the Man with the Hammer and very few glimpses of his lovely wife, La Volupte. We need small successes to fuel our desire to climb back on the bike to continue The Work despite the cold rain lashing down. For the last year, my training has been focussed on the Heck of the North, which I will sadly be missing due to unforeseeable circumstances at work. Missing out on the opportunity to compete in Northern Minnesota finds me deflated and reluctant to get on the bike and suffer despite the excellent form I’m enjoying at the moment. But as one goal is passed by, another settles into focus, and my sights are already shifting around the bend towards the 2015 Keepers Tour, which will be returning to Belgium during the Cobbled Classics.
The days are shortening and the sun hangs low in the sky when it isn’t blocked out by a thick blanket of clouds. The morning mist keeps the roads damp and drives a chill into my bones. A few weeks ago, I was dreading the change. Today, I welcome it. The wet is coming, and I have my goal set. I look forward to tapping out my rhythm to the metronome of raindrops dripping from the brim of my cap.
Vive la Vie Velominatus.
Nicely put @Frank. I know that, for me, having an objective is the most potent motivator. And it works both ways. The suffering during training is sustained by thinking about the objective and when the big days arrive the suffering is sustained by reflecting on the training.
Bummer about Heck of the North. You’ll have to avenge somehow. A sick-day solo base session perhaps? I have no motivating objective right now. I’m struggling to make the early sessions, getting slower and fatter…Keepers Tour ’15? I might be a starter…
Funny you switched the lead pic to this as I was typing. My last big goal was the Gavia Mortirolo loop. The Gavia went very nicely but the Mortirolo took me places in the pain cave I could never have imagined.
Dude, that fucking blows.
@Nate
Yeah its not like I’ve been training for this for 359 days or anything. And I’m in cracking form too.
I am inspired by cycling in 1988.
If you’re free on Saturday we should go for a ride. Then we can complain to each other about missing the Heck.
Nice, Big Fronk!
I wonder where those wheels in the background live today. Surely handbuilt tubulars have still been passed on and passed down?
It appears the Keepers Tour coincides exactly with the already booked family spring break vacation to Turks and Caicos …
@unversio 88 was very inspiring, as was 1980-
@GogglesPizano So the question is, are you observing Rule #11 or not?
@Frank- Are you going to put that cracking form to use at the Falling LeaVes Cogal?
@Haldy
So was ’70.
Not to mention ’68,
And 2001.
And 2002.
Which brings up the question: Cancellara and Boonen are the two riders who have dominated the cobbles for the last decade. Only one of them has race them during the classics in the wet, only one has raced them in the we during the Tour.
Only one has bitched about how wet cobbles are no place for racing in the wet.
Assuming my Heck sacrifice results in a wet cobbled season, which of them do you think will book their next Paris-Roubaix?
Boo-boo-BOONEN!!!
@Frank..let’s not forget 1994.
or better yet…1984, and the reason why my son’s name is Sean-
@frank
As much as I like Niki Terpstra( given his amazing turns of speed on the 6 day boards this last winter), it pained me to see him ride off and win Roubaix this year…I was dearly hoping that Boonen was going to take it!
@frank
Yes and aren’t you all sponsors? fuck that shit.
@Ron hilarious in all the times I have looked at that photo I have never noticed the spare wheels there.
@Frank You got the first 3 letters right.
I love it when the day’s ride coincides with a great article. 50km commute home, 10°C, unrelenting headwind and rain the last 10km. Not exactly a #9 ride, but a reminder the weather is turning here in the northern hemi.
Between the ride, Frank’s musings, and the inspiring pics from #9 races, the goal is decided — Hell of the North Salt Lake (the day before Paris-Roubaix). I’ve felt a vague foreboding as the days shorten, but seem to now feel the pre-race butterflies and am eager to plan milestones from April back to now with clarity and purpose.
@Haldy I’m a big Terpstra fan and happy that he got a PR win but that finale was massisve demonstration of anti V. 10k from the line and the fucking who’s who of Classics hardmen all together and not one of the fuckers tries to match Terpstra? What the!
We’re on a different planet, it seems, when it comes to the weather – but at last I’ve seen temps dip under 20c at night and there are clouds out of my laboratory’s windows, so it seems like by the end of the month arm-warmers will finally become mandatory equipment again. Oh-fucking-yeah!
I can unpack my revered and loved warmers, jerseys and gilets, the knee-warmers and belgian booties, the windproofs and the warm gloves. For a cyclist in the land of eternal summer, it seems I’ve amassed unbelievable amounts of Rule #9 gear. I guess that’s just envy…
In Israel, when it rains it pours buckets, visibility is non-existant and the roads are flooded (and oily), which means I dare to ride a lot less than I should. Gran Fondos and other closed-road events in the winter? Sign me up! Group-rides with a blinking support car? Alright. But barring those, I can always get a quality turbo session with the VMH with wide-open windows looking outside.
Great article Frank – and just in time for the first few days of single digit degrees in Ireland. We have had an unusually warm September and I have been eyeing the arm/knee warmers wondering when they will come out.
Heading into my second proper year of cycling I have gotten a coach and set out a training plan with a view towards bossing my local club rides and stronger performances in next season’s gran fondos.
I do take pleasure in making deposits in the V bank on cold wet December nights knowing I can draW doWn come the spring.
Sorry you can’t make it to this Frank – there are upsides in that I’ll finish a place higher on Saturday.
The beer here is surprisingly good by the way. The jet lag – not so much.
@ChrissyOne
I’ll start the complaining right now. I was registered before work intervened . . . even my back up gravel ride is in jeopardy. First world problems, etc,. etc
@Frank As some have already commented, the article is wonderfully timed. Yesterdays ride in to work and back, NE UK was a reasonable 19c. This morning I was smuggling peanuts under the jersey in a fucking freezing 5c. Still, the sun was shining, the winds were low.
Frank, Haldy, please continue, but the Rule #9 image selected is 1988. Mostly inspired by Franco Chioccioli’s effort to continue without gloves or a jacket. He paid a price that day but did not back down.
I look forward to the impending Michigan winter…..while most will have hung their bikes up hoping to dodge the Man with the Hammer, I will out there willing and ready to receive the punishment only he can bring. The commitment must be year round to avoid backsliding…the purifying effect of a bitterly cold winter morning amongst the calm and stillness is unmatched by any other season. There are rewards to be had but you gotta pay the piper…
@Cog Is there a temperature limit that you hit ?? 28 FËšuck is where it stops for me.
@Cog
so true – the treasures of cycling in the cold, silent darkness of winter are worth the price
@unversio
Here in the hinterlands of central Indiana, the lowest temperature I’ve begun a ride at was 7 F. Last winter gave us plenty of opportunity for Rule V & 9 rides.
How can we not have good ol’ Uncle Paul’s photo here.
http://www.velominati.com/anatomy-of-a-photo/anatomy-of-a-photo-agony/
And LeMan as well
With no goals I become a fat slob. Gained 4 kilos over the last 2 years. I have found that I HAVE to have short term and long term, concrete goals or I become amazingly non-motivated. It never was a problem earlier in my life as I was always chasing some dream but the last few years I have become, alas, pretty content and contentment, while nice for a few weeks, breeds complacency. Looking forward to a few great events next year and started training IN EARNEST a few weeks ago on the bike. Feels good to be hurting in an old familiar way again!
@unversio
single digits are rough, but its that damn wind-chill that will kill you…generally if I don’t see any birds then I know its too F’N cold….
@Haldy
If I still have it, abso-fuckin-lootely.
That route kicks my ass every time.
I really hope we get to ride on wet cobbles next Spring…
@unversio
Air temp of 25 for me in Wisconsin. I figure I generate some wind chill that takes it a bit further down.
@Buck Rogers
That picture of LeMan says it all as to why he’s a champion. Face covered in shite and still looks happy.
PS If LeMond had been riding this year’s Tour would he have moaned about stage 5? Would he fuck.
What I find interesting, as someone who has come to cycling late and almost without noticing it was happening, is that the goals don’t need to be big or momentous. Getting more miles in this month than last, shaving a few seconds off the commute to work, pushing the weekend ride just a little bit further, or taking on a hill that last time past I turned away from in fear or (worse) had to stop half way up for a breather. It’s hardly the stuff of legends. But it’s enough. It takes me on. My Cycling Sensei, ten years my junior, and a decent club rider, takes to Strava after each ride to see if he’s collected KOM trophies. I do the same, despite being ranked in the hundreds on most local segments, to see if I’ve beaten my previous PR.
Seeing my own development makes a massive difference, and testing myself against challenges that I’m not sure I can complete is the greatest feeling. It has led me into taking on the Eddy Merckx challenge on Strava this month, and that in turn led me to putting in my longest ride to date today in order to try to keep up with the schedule to complete the challenge. And it will be that which impels me (compels me?) to ride this weekend even though the weather in the UK is now predicted to take a turn for the Flemish on Saturday morning. But I’ve still got another 260km to ride before next Thursday, and there’s only so far you can extend a commute.
Who cares whether I complete the challenge or not? Who will even notice? Probable no-one but me, and perhaps my Sensei, but that isn’t the point. I have no-one to compete against but myself, and there’s no way I’m going to lose to that bastard.
@ChrissyOne
I’ll be busy looking for answers in the bottom of bottles.
@Haldy
Such a great shot, but here’s a much less famous one:
And please lets not forget RdV Parting The Waters in ’73.
@frank
@frank
As a former resident of Oak Harbor…I am intimately familiar with the middle 1/3 of the route…expect a flurry of attacks there… ;-)
Awesome freeze frames of glory days…
Nothing gets me out of bed and on the bike in the dark like knowing you have a target, and that even one week off will hamper the build of form to that end. It can take 4 months for me to build (I have a poor constitution and ability I now assume), given the inevitable sicknesses that interrupt training (thanks kids!).
My buddy and I always set a target event in spring, which means we still need to drag our asses out through the entirety/eternity of the dark, wind and rain of winter, when all the fair weather summer riders are still asleep, getting fat.
It’s constant checking of forecasts, thinking about adequate attire (there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing choice) and the dread that despite knowing it is going to rain and blow, you better get your ass out there or else the fine but fickle Goddess of Fitness will desert us..
@leftsideoverhere
I will only add, that those who cheat only cheat themselves, to what must be a very hollow podium.
@Optimiste
Mission accomplished! Awesome goal, that should see you through the mess!
@Harminator
Those guys rocked that day. Look at Nibbles back there digging in. So awesome.
@tessar
Half the fun is in the gear. Some for cooking, by the way.
@rfreese888
We’ve had such a great year, I have an amazing tan. I haven’t even looked at my cold weather kit in months and months. Most summers in Seattle are good, but I’ll always ride with arm warmers a bit…not this year. Amazing.
Congrats! Just remember to keep it fun and light.
Races are won in VVinter.
@Cog
Are you doing any fat bike work up there? I have a fantasy for a fat bike with drop bars.
@unversio
10F/-12C is doable if its dry. If its wet, then the freezing point is the coldest you will ever be in your life.
@Buck Rogers
Quote of the month right there.
@piwakawaka
As is that! Two in a row!
@Beers
Sean Kelly: “You can’t tell how cold it is by looking out the kitchen window. You have to get dressed and go out training and when you get back, you know how cold it was.”
@frank
As much as I would like to spend the week hanging around with a bunch of too fat to climb, peaking in two months velominati riding, drinking and freezing our asses off all over the cobbled countryside, something inside keeps telling me that if I chose that path I would no longer have any Rule #11 conflicts or have to worry about staying below the S-1 bike limit. I will likely be watching the internet feed on the poolside/beachside on the iPad…..
1988