Fitness. The rhythm, the feeling of precision in our movement, the sensations of The Ride. The temptation of knowing we might in some way control our suffering even as we push harder in spite of the searing pain in our legs and lungs. The notion that through suffering, we might learn something rudimentary about ourselves – that we might find a kind of salvation.
Cycling, like Art, is based on the elementary notion that through focussed study, we might better understand ourselves. But to describe Cycling as a an Art does it an injustice. An artist, they say, suffers because they must. A Cyclist, I suggest, suffers because we choose to.
This element of choice, what psychologists refer to as the locus of control, is part of what allows us to feel pleasure through suffering. Through this choice unfolds an avenue of personal discovery by which we uncover the very nature of ourselves. Like Michelangelo wielding his hammer to chip away fragments of stone that obscure a great sculpture, we turn our pedals to chip away at our form, eventually revealing our true selves as a manifestation of hard work, determination, and dedication to our craft.
Having chosen this path, we quickly find that riding a bicycle on warm, dry roads through sunny boulevards is the realm of the recreational cyclist. As winter approaches, the days get shorter and the weather worse. Form tempts us to greater things, but leaves us quickly despite our best intentions. Its taste lingers long upon the tongue and urges us to gain more. Even as life gets in the way, we cannot afford many days away from our craft before we find ourselves struggling to reclaim lost fitness.
To find form in the first place, and to maintain it in the second, is a simple matter of riding your bicycle a lot. This simple task asks of us, however, a year-round commitment to throwing our leg over a toptube in heat, cold, wind, rain, or sleet, lest we spend months fighting to reclaim last year’s lost condition.
But with riding in bad weather is revealed a hidden secret. It is in the rain and the cold, when all the seductive elements of riding a bicycle have vanished, that we are truly able to ensconce ourselves in the elemental qualities of riding a bicycle. Good weather and beautiful scenery, after all, are distractions from the work. Without them, we have only those elements that we ourselves bring to The Ride: the rhythm, harmony between rider and machine, our suffering, and our thoughts. As the rain pours down and all but the most devoted stay indoors, we pull on extra clothing and submit into the deluge.
We are the Few, we are the Committed. We are those who understand that riding in bad weather means you’re a badass, period.
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Hear, hear! Back in my racing days I used to train in some pretty shitty conditions. Cold, wet and windy. I used to console myself that my competitors were likely staying home in the dry and warm. My results were often pretty good - especially in the early season - as those miles paid off before everyone else caught up.
As the long-deceased Shug Donald of the Regent CC used to say with regard to bad weather and appropriate gear, "the only thing that keeps you dry's the hoose!" (There may have been an expletive or two thrown in there too.)
Finally, damn, Fignon was stylish. Just look at the adherence to the three point system and that even in abysmal conditions, he still looks magnificently Pro.
I've said it before but I actually like riding in the "off" season more than in the sun and dry roads of summer. Being kitted up and out on the road when all the pussies are warm and cozy gives me a sense of "sanctification" i.e. being set apart for greater things. Yesterday I was getting kitted up and my wife asked why there was bare skin showing between the warmers and the socks. I explained (once again) the concept of the "pro look" and that the warmers should stop right at the widest part of the calf. In the past she use to roll her eye but now she's coming around and she gives a knowing smile when I explain the ways of the Velominati.
T-minus 8 days until the V-Gillet. Then my life will be complete.
Well said, bro. And I love this picture of the Professor. I'm not sure I've ever seen it. I've just started "We Were Young and Carefree" so this is timed well.
Wholeheartedly agree with this - there is nothing as good as being the one dishing out the pain and if you choose to ride through the winter rain and grit your reward is a depth of suffering that lesser competitors can't understand.
That said - the best bit about not racing anymore is not training in sleet and snow for 5 hours with just an energy bar for company.
If only it wasn't so fucking dangerous. Suffering need not include sliding on wet pave to one's doom under the wheels of a bus.
"It dawns on me that there is but like 2 square centimeters of rubber connecting me to the gound, and this tiny little helmet. I just don't want to die out there today. But nobody said being a cyclist was going to be easy..." -Jens
This is something I need to work hard on, especially with my commitment to not lose fitness over the winter like I did last year. The trainer is OK during the week, but I told myself I need to do at least one good weekend ride out on the road every week this winter, no matter what.
Riding in the rain can be fun and exhilarating for me if it starts while I'm already out, but starting a ride while it's raining takes a bit more mental fortitude on my part. Hopefully I can HTFU and not back out of these weekend rides as the weather turns sour, as I'd only be cheating myself - with the results being delayed suffering to get back into 'form' (I don't know if I'd call my fitness level 'form') in the spring, which is what a dearly want to avoid.
Thanks to a century and the Whidbey cogal, I did more kms and more vertical meters than any other months so far this year, so I'm off to a good start for winter. Hopefully I can keep it up...
@eightzero
But that is half the fun when people are like, "Isn't that dangerous?" Yes, yes it is, but it is one of the most enjoyable things I do.
I wrote this for The Ride Journal some times ago, hope you enjoy.
In Autumn club rides are fantastic for 3 reasons:
first the weather conditions are less extreme than in August or July when the hot temperature and high humidity are a constant.
Then, since days are becoming shorter and shorter and in a few weeks we'll be in the dark, we try to enjoy every meter of the ride.
Moreover, the countryside in the Southern outskirts of the city under the low sun of the 18:00 o'clock succeeds in persuading us that we are not living in a big and polluted city in the industrialized Northern Italy, Milano.
Our is actually not a club ride ... I mean it is not the ride of one club, it is the biggest gathering of all the amatorial squadre of Milano.
To be a bit epic, it's someting that could resemble the summit of all the gangs in 'The Warriors' film, as the group easly reach the 100 units every Tuesday and Thursday during the Summer season.
Now the name: we are quite famous in Milano, you have to ask for the Giro dei Manetta that could be translated in 'the ride at full throttle', and there's no need of further explanations.
This is actually an unregulated race on open road with the same curse since many years. And since my first attempts to complete the loop in the '80's, I've really changed the way I'm part of it. I've started enjoying the adrenaline of the competition, the roller coaster course, the high speed and all the macho-muscular-boaster poses that I thought a racer should have. Now, even if apparently nothing has changed, - or maybe thanks to a better training which allows us to go faster - I'm really enjoying what cycling is all about: not the adrenaline that you can find in almost every sport, but the act of pedalling, the speed, the behaviour of the bike at 50km/h, the mental process to find the right moment to jump. In a nutshell, now I'm more appasionated because I can enjoy every aspect of the ride, I enjoy the ride itself.
A funny thing is that some Manettas say that for them having a good result in these rides is as satisfying as in a real races, no difference at all.
Even if there's no reward for the winner, everyone really fights to obtain success because in that case he gains respect from the group, which is an important thing in the non written law of cycling.
Be competitive is very difficult and just to complete the loop is a good result because, a part from the high speed, dirty tricks are common, playing with traffic lights is mandatory, taking short cuts could be a way to slow down the heartbeats and then attack when into the group again... it's really a carousel and, lucky to say, accidents are very rare and, thanks God, so far never serious.
Very rapidly we'll be in Winter and the usual evening ride will be performend in Milano in a sort of closed course with virtually no crossing and a short flyover to simulate a slope. The number of partecipants will be in an inverse relation with the temperature and I know that at one point (usually when we reach 0 degrees C) I'll be alone... but it's in that precise moment that I start thinking and dreaming about how it'll be exhilarating when it is Spring again and the 'ride calendar' will be full again of dates marked in red: those of the Giro dei Manetta.
Ah, and this is the flyover...
Fitness. The rhythm, the feeling of precision in our movement, the sensations of The Ride. The temptation of knowing we might in some way control our suffering even as we push harder in spite of the searing pain in our legs and lungs. The notion that through suffering, we might learn something rudimentary about ourselves - that we might find a kind of salvation
Anyone reading this would think we are all barking (including me until a year ago)...... but it is soooo true
I often wonder, given the fact the Sunday morning run seems to be the toughest and best attended of our club runs (well, non-novice anyway), if this is actually some sort of religion?
Riding in rain, if it's like last weekend over here, is shit after a while, but a little bit of rain and a strong tailwind certainly does bring you right down to a small moving cube of existence, which is a bizarrely peaceful and beautiful place - that said, group riding suddenly removes the joy as you eat roadshit off the guy's wheel in front
It's odd, but I've taken to riding more and more by myself - maybe that's an off season thing??