On Rule #9: Love the Work
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.
@Marko
Just how fucking class does a national jersey look with no advertising on it???
I know realistically it’s never going to happen nowadays but god it’d be great to have some rider just say nope, I’m wearing the flag (or the rainbow) & thats it!
@Mikael Liddy
Except for the tight 70s’ le Coq Sportif logo. As the French like to say, the exception that proves the rule.
Also, why the fuck isn’t Bernard in the Big Ring?
@Nate
He was letting time catch up.
@Oli
A Fucking Plus Fucking One.
@Marko
+1
@everyone
PLEASE KEEP POSTING ABOUT RUNNING. I WANT MORE PICTURES FROM OLI.
@frank
Grewals only Awesome Moment. But talk about Rule #5. Check out how he’s pedaling here at about 2:30. I felt like this yesterday.
@Nate
You kidding me??? So want a vintage le Coq Sportif jersey.
They’ve just done a L’Eroica inspired range that’s the dog’s bollocks. Couple of issues though, only for sale in Europe (1st problem) & is priced to rival Rapha for affordability (problem number 2). Good thing I’ll soon be taking delivery of the kit to end all kits…
Re: Bernard’s non-big ring, I can only assume he’s just letting Freddy back on purely for the joy of attacking him & dropping him again.
@itburns
Getting ready to offer him the bidon, no doubt.
@Mikael Liddy
Sorry if I was trying to be too clever — adding the little logo makes the jersey kick even more ass. I’ll admit to being a Rapha wearer, but that jersey eats Rapha’s plate for lunch before starting on its own.
@Nate
Much better! Check out le Coq’s website at the moment, hopefully they’ve still got the L’Eroica story up there cos there was some seriously pretty kit on show.
@Nate
le Coq Sportif L’Eroica
You know who’s good at running? Me. I’m fucking awesome at running.
Pics please.
Actually I’m shit at running and I hate doing it.
Jacky Bobby, who BTW beat Boardman’s IP record on something like a 110 inch gear. That’s a sprintah’s gear for 4km.
Fuck yeah.
@Minion
I’m not falling for that ruse!
One of my favourite tour finishes, Gerdemann winning stage 7 of the 2007 tour. Up some hill. One of the few stages I caught the end of, Gerdemann’s frothing at the mouth, cramping and settled in on the couch of agony. This photo doesn’t really show how hard he worked for that win.
@Oli
My best running anecdote? At high school we had a deputy principal who was more round, than tall. A student asked if he was going to run the school cross country race, which at the time was a strange question. When the deputy principal said no, and started winding up to give the kid a bollocking, the student shot back with ‘why not sir, you could stick your head between your legs and roll down the hill’.
Haha!
Get your hands off them bars son.
Not wanting to be a pedant but you said we need to be ARGUING about running to get photos. All I need to do is convince Marcus AFL is for poofs and, well, we’ll all be here for a while.
Actually that’s BS I love being a pedant.
No you don’t!
This one’s for my sins.
Yeah! Double Jan, I was uploading that at the same time!
Great minds huh.
You might have a great mind, but I certainly don’t! I note though that your Jan is in despair after crashing in the final TT of the ’03 Tour putting the seal on Armstrong’s victory, whereas mine was when Ulle was putting Lance to the sword earlier in the race.
That was the only year der Kaiser raced for Bianchi? I’ve seen video for that TT and it’s painful to watch.
If I was Lance I’d be checking under the bed at night, given the look he’s getting from Ulle.
@minion
It’s not AFL – it’s Australian Rules Football you fucking dunce. And u should give thanks for it’s presence every day to your personal god. Because if it didn’t exist maybe more
Australians would play rugby.
ARF? Seriously?
@Marcus
Fuck, Marcus. Golf?! Really? As if lycra wasn’t enough, in your remaining leisure time you don tartan plus fours and a pastel polo shirt and head off the club house for some pink gin? Let me guess – as your day job you’re a circus clown?
Golf? It’s the old cycling, Mate.
Oli – post some more pictures, please.
@Marcus
And things are right in the universe again. Don’t doubt for a second that emaciated outback inbreds cause rugby players to lose sleep.
How fucking tall are you anyway, 4 foot 1? Short man’s syndrome is something you have to assume with most Australians but it’s all over you like white on Kevin Rudd
@Oli
Actually, being an Australian sport, it’s full name is probably Bloody Australian Rules Football …
@G’phant
Surely just “footy, mate”
@G’phant
Chuck a crikey in there and we’d be about there.
@minion
Did you just call me tall? Cool.
@minion
Actually no – you called me “fucking tall”. And didn’t you start this one by asserting that “AFL is for poofs”? What does that make you, my little devoted servant?
@itburns
A-fuck’in-plus comment of the day right there.
Running is for criminals
@Buck Rogers
Seriously. The Texans are in fine form over here, and not going off on tangents about high school football. Meanwhile are you lot really arguing over the different ways Aussies like to beat each other to a bloody pulp over an oddly shaped ball? That would only be worthwhile if it induced @Oli to post yet more photos.
@Cyclops
@minion
Yes, it was ’03. I sat on his bike before the Galiac ITT.
I gave the security guard a sandwich and he let me sit on the bike. Obvs, Ulli swapped out the front wheel before racing.
Here’s the pic I snapped of him ripping everyone to pieces. He was the only one still in the aero bars at this point of the climb.
@Cyclops
Even in cyclocross?
@frank
No shit? That is amazingly cool.
@minion
Good ol’Bob Roll, what a goofy mother-f#%ker.
@Marko
All that I can think of every time I see Hinault with a bidon is the Phil Anderson bidon sharing story. Cracks me up every time.
…just because I can…
@Buck Rogers
Because you asked for it…
Anderson and Hinault finished 27 seconds after Van Impe, and while the Australian stood proudly in yellow, Hinault had nothing but contempt for Anderson ‘daring’ to challenge him. It was even worse when Anderson just sat on his wheel – still hoping for news of Bernaudeau who had been long dropped – until Peugeot directeur-sportif Maurice De Muer told him he could work ‘a bit’ at the front. “It was just as well, as Hinault was going off his block,” said Anderson, who had four other riders with him in the front group: Van Impe, Belgian Claude Criquelion, and the Spanish pair of Marino Lejarreta and Alberto Fernandez. Without knowing it, Anderson was to earn even greater wrath from Hinault by naively offering him a swill from his bidon (drink bottle). The Frenchman, taking the gesture as an insult, promptly swiped it from Anderson’s hand. “I didn’t even know who Hinault was. I couldn’t even pronounce his name. But I was there with him and when I gave him my bidon. I was only trying to be sportsmanlike. I figured something was really up when he hit it away. I suppose I should have been intimidated by it all, but I wasn’t. Heck, I was Australian and couldn’t even spell Hinault, let alone know who he was,” says Anderson.
@Oli
And whilst this will not help you in your quest to know that the APS is, Anderson went to an AGS school (next door to my APS school). Understand now?
@Oli
Okay, you’ve completely got me there. Who, what, when and where? Is that RDV in a Brooklyn jersey in there?
@Marcus
Isn’t that the BEST story. Kills me every time. I think it also kills me a bit as I have fought with Aussie Special Forces guys in Afghanistan and also climbed with a crazy son-of-a-bitch from Australia in the Himilaya and that story is just so typical. Just love it.
@Marcus
APS – Australian Polwarth School
AGS – Australian Gromark School
As all things Australian, the schools center around which breed of sheep is the preferred shag and is the cause of much violence.
@Buck Rogers
Interesting photo!
One, it’s the 78 Giro as Moser won the World Championships in 1977.
Two, it’s reversed. Unless they rode really weird bikes in 78.
Three, I’m not sure who the Brooklyn rider is. It can’t be Roger de Vlaeminck or Johan De Muynck as both had moved on from Brooklyn in 78 – Roger to Sanson (and a teammate of Moser’s) and Johan to Bianchi-Faema. De Muynck won the Giro in 78 too!
Four, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a pic of Saronni in a SCIC jersey riding a Colnago. I always thought he rode Bottechia when he was with SCIC.
Fab pics Oli – thanks for posting!
@itburns
Most of the instructors are from Aberdeen (or so I’ve been told . . . .)