When you’re digging deeper into Rock and Roll, you’re on a freight train headed straight for the blues.
– Jack White
The analog for this in Cycling is that as we dig deeper into cycling, we’re headed for The Mountains. Suffering is the altar of our sport, and Rule VV emphasizes the experience: the pain never lessens; the only indication we have that we are getting better is that the pain simply doesn’t last as long. Like some kind of voluntary Stockholm Syndrome, we find ourselves captivated by mountains, fantasising about riding roads that represent nothing but hours of misery.
I sat in a small dual-prop plane this morning, staring at the imposing and breathtaking view of the series of volcanoes that line the coast from Seattle to Portland. So beautiful, yet incomprehensibly destructive, I’ve never seen them in a row like this, a panorama only possible on a clear day aboard a small, low-flying plane. (I’ve got a thing for volcanoes.)
But this twisted mind of mine could hardly allow me the beauty of what I was seeing; in the valleys directly below the plane were wispy ribbons that cut across the hillsides in a complicated web; ribbons I knew to be mountain roads. Snow-covered dome followed snow-covered dome along my journey, scarcely noticed as I made a silent vow to worship these roads in the only way I know how: to submit to suffering upon them.
Which begs the question, why do we subject ourselves to this? We claim to love our sport, but the word “suffering” doesn’t convey nor imply pleasure. I’m not a religious man, so I’m making a lot of assumptions about the details, but when we say that Jesus suffered upon the Cross, I am fairly certain that we aren’t to take from that the idea that he found it to be in some way exhilarating, that he had a desktop wallpaper of his Cross #1 and a screensaver which rotated through all his Crosses – the ones for good weather and for bad, in different types of wood – along with up-close shots of the beautiful joinery work.
The difference is that on rare occasion, the suffering doesn’t feel like suffering. It feels like freedom, like control over ourselves in a way we can’t find off the bike. Yesterday morning, I stole out for a ride before work. Almost absent-mindedly, I chose the route that snakes its way north, climbing and descending along the Puget Sound coast. Summer mornings in the Pacific Northwest can be almost mystical, with the Marine Layer causing the lower-lying lands to be shrouded in fog while the higher areas are experiencing a spectacular clear morning with views of mountains on three sides and water on the fourth. This was such a day.
Ten minutes into the ride, I was rolling effortlessly along Shilshole Marina, ensconced in a blanket of fog. The masts from the countless sailboats formed hypnotic silhouettes as they gently swayed in the waves, tied to their piers. At the end of the marina, I swung right under the railroad tracks, and rolled onto the first climb of the day, the climb to Blue Ridge from Golden Gardens.
I settled into my rhythm and hit the first switchback moving faster than usual; I swung wide and cut into the turn aggressively so I wouldn’t sweep into oncoming traffic on the exit. I reveled for a moment in the fleeting pleasure that comes when I have to coast through a turn on a climb, then slipped the chain onto the little ring as the gradient kicked up and as the climb started its more determined journey to the top of the ridge.
This is where I always take my seat in the Hurt Locker; the middle section is not terribly steep, but the gradient fluctuates and the pavement is bad in places. As such, it doesn’t suit my ‘strengths’ as a (bad) climber, and here I ask the agent for an aisle seat in the hopes that the pain might be less suffocating there, but instead I find my normal seat in the back row, next to the overweight nose-breather.
I pushed through the steep section in a state of simple, one-dimensional suffering. This is the state consisting of the customary leg-burning, lung-searing pain that I feel every time a gradient kicks up. Where the suffering takes on some complexity is when the gradient eases and I am rendered powerless against the urge to drop the chain into a cog with a tooth or two less. But then something unexpected happened; rather than the usual onset of square pedaling, I found that while the pain levels stayed the same, the speed increased. That can’t be right, so I tried again, another tooth less. The same story, the speed increases. I don’t like to look down, but I forgave myself a quick glance to make sure something wasn’t amuck, like that my chain was missing or some such thing. Sure enough, there was a problem: I was so far down my block that I was about to Schleckacnical.
I did the only thing that seemed reasonable under the circumstances: I moved Sur la Plaque. Again, the speed increased. I swung onto the last stretch of the climb, where the gradient increases again. Out of the saddle, and I was over it before I even realized where I was.
As I reached the top, I broke through the clouds and was bathed in sunlight. The change in light broke the spell, and the magic was gone at once. As I began the descent, I realized that what I experienced was a visit from La Volupte; that was as good as I would feel the rest of the ride, if not the whole season.
She won’t visit again soon, but one short visit from La Volupte is enough to remind me that those fleeting moments are worth countless hours-long sessions under the iron crush of the Man with the Hammer.
There is a place where my soul rests, and that place is in the Mountains. To climb well is to walk for a moment where angels fly.
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View Comments
@eightzero
Worth every cent. Taken from the top a few years back. A must do.
@eightzero
Wow that looks mindblowingly beautiful, almost like someone has airbrushed the road onto the hill - one for the to do list for sure - here's a vid of the climb in 4 minutes...
Stelvio in 4 minutes
even on video, it's like the world just opens up the further you climb - leaving all the pressures of real world behind - no wonder we love this sort of thing
By the way, how long does it take everyone to loosen up? - I can't get my guns firing until I've done at least 10 miles and a 1000ft climb - is there some way to bypass this, as it is hateful suffering, albeit transient - after that, whatever comes next is fine, throw it at me, but Merckx do I suffer until then, but not in a pleasant way..... any advice welcome (apart from Rule 5 suggestions)
@Dr C
Nup.
I think that's the secret. You can't unlock the secret closet (unpack the suitcase of courage?) until you pay the price.
I find the deeper I'm willing to push on the first 10 minute climb of my sunday ride, the better and faster the rest of it comes.
@Buck Rogers
A+1 to that brother.
It is interesting to contemplate the similarities between cycling and climbing.
Climbing is what I took up with a passion during my 10 year cycling hiatus. Though I could never consider myself particularly gifted, I did love the difficulty of it; the facing of your deepest fears and the gifts bestowed upon you by the sublime beauty the world has to offer when you just 'pay attention'.
Mountaineering writing does have the consistent thread you refer to when speaking of Voytek Kurtyka. The suffering, and the amazing ability to forget its impact and indeed romanticise it after the fact. It's life fully lived.
Or...
Maybe we're all just deranged.
@mouse
guess you are right, no such thing as a free sufferjoyfest - just wish it wouldn't take so long - II suspect I am not riding often enough at the mo - 2 x week only, must get out more
just bought a Specialized Crux Cyclocross bike yesterday, to make n=3 - looking forward to some slidy falling off into bushes entertainment over the winter!
@eightzero
if the clicking is only when you are putting some wattage down, but not when lightly spinning, might be a bottom bracket issue?
@all
Great conversation; I'm missing it because I was on my way to Wisconsin when I wrote it and been out here with my folks in Cycling Nirvana in the Missisippi River Valley.
@eightzero
It's what I call the Northern Loop - it's not very long but has some nice (short) climbs. The climb described here is all of a few km's max; short but beautiful. The short duration of La Volupte only serves to emphasize it's beauty. In "Tomorrow, We Ride", Bobet describes having that feeling all the way up the Col d'Eze...that would be amazing. Maybe I'll have it all the way up Haleakala next time. Not likely.
The route I have on MapMyRide is out of date; I'll update it and post it. I'd also be delighted to hook up for a ride together and I'll show you. I've got about 3 really great routes that I spend most of my time on, doing variations of them or all of them together in one monster deathmarch.
@all
Beautiful posts from everyone on their favorite climbs/rides. The Mountains truly seem to be our most hallowed ground. All these great notes really put in relief the need for the The Rides section. It's coming; I just need to find the time to build it up.
@Dr C
Depends on your physiology. For me a short easy spin gets me loosened up enough to enjoy being on the bike, but I don't get power in the guns until I've stressed them first; I usually get stronger on the later climbs in a day.
The VMH takes for ever to warm up, but Merckx, then she just goes and goes. I have a little theory going that people who take longer to warm up are more like diesels and can motor over very long distances without showing much fatigue or slowing down much at the end. Riders who warm up quickly are better over shorter distances. I bet Evan's needs a long warmup.
I have almost nothing to base this theory on, by the way. But on the sample size of those I've ridden with throughout my life, it seems to be pretty accurate.
@mouse
And +1 more. Interesting to me that I did the exact same thing during my 'retirement'. I love the suffering I guess. I've been to the top of a lot of volcanos (and it's with some degree of envy that I've not climbed overseas), and most times swear that I'll never do it again. The 2am alpine starts, the nagging headaches, the slow slog across glaciers. But then the reward. Getting to the top and not just for bragging rights. I'm by no means a religious man, but that is my church. Wether on a bike, ski's, or two ice axes and a set of BD stainless' strapped to the boots. Good stuff.
@harminator
Amazing. I'm fascinated by Mountaineering. Talk about a hunkering down and focussing on the long-term. Sitting in a tent for weeks, waiting for the weather to shape up. Amazing fortitude; risk,. Ed Viesturs (who lives in the Seattle area and is also a cyclist, btw) has some interesting reads that I've gobbled up, particularly as regards K2, which is for me the most fascinating mountain - much more so than Everest, though all the 8,000 meter peaks are, of course, incredible. I also think Viesturs might be a bit full of himself, but he does write in a way that makes someone like me, who knows little about Mountaineering, enjoy and understand what he's after.
There might be some parallels as well, in terms of how we view doping versus how Mountaineers view using Oxygen. We did some riffing on postulating on the The Acceptability of the Method for anyone who cares.