Cycling is a unique sport in the sense that suffering is a badge of honor. Greg LeMond once said, “It never gets easier, you just go faster.” Cyclists love to suffer – it’s a badge of honor. Bernard Hinault claimed that as long as he breathed, he attacked.
At a primordial level, cycling is about the locus of control. Cyclists love to suffer because they choose to suffer. Because it challenges your mind. As Jens Voigt – my all-time favorite cyclist – says, “When you go hard, your body says, ‘STOP!’ and your mind says, ‘BODY, SHUT UP!’ And, sometimes it works! And then you GO!”
Cycling is about the glory of suffering, which is something few other sports can say. The men and women that race the Tours de France (yes, there’s a women’s race and no, they don’t play it on Versus, and yes, it’s every bit as exciting as the men’s race) suffer for 21 days, 6 hours a day, over the most challenging terrain and awful weather you can imagine – and they race hard. Through this suffering, one develops a third-person relationship with your legs. You become detached from them, I suspect because they cause you so much pain that you don’t want to associate with them. Cyclists don’t refer to their legs and “their legs”. Cyclists refer to “the legs” as though they are a separate entity from themselves. Something to tame but not to control. We can control our mind, but we can not control our legs. “We’ll have to see how the legs are today.”
Cycling folklore speaks of “The Man With the Hammer”. He is a man who lurks around any corner and will unexpectedly bop you on the neck with his hammer. He will cause you to go from smoothly spinning your pedals to pedaling squares and putting your bike in “reverse”. The Man With the Hammer strikes when your mind takes more from legs than your body can provide.
Most endurance sports refer to this as “bonking”, but a bonk is something you can control by eating and measuring your effort. But in cycling – because we don’t control our legs – we percieve this to be out of our control. Cyclists can avoid him temporarily, but all cyclist are hit by him at one point or another in their careers. Eddy Merckx on the climb to Pra-Loup when he lost the Yellow Jersey to Bernard Thevenet. Bernard Hinault when he lost the Yellow Jersy to Greg Lemond at Serre Chevalier. Lance Armstrong when he nearly lost the 2000 Tour on the Col de la Joux-Plane.
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I. LOVE. THIS. ARTICLE.
This is why I ride.
I want to push my boundaries, and I can't do it from my office, with my fucking chair, and my fucking laptop, and my fucking clients. I can't do it from home, because of my very own wife (she really isn't a velomihottie... she is the cycling antichrist, who's favourite phrase is 'that fucking bike') and my adorable, lovely, beautiful two children. But I can do it from my bike. When I get on it, and I clip in, I like to imagine my personality disappears - all rational elements, all empathy, all emotion, all control just... goes. Instead, it is replaced by roadslave, an entity that is focused on riding hard, riding well. I'm a science fiction fan... go read Jon Steakley's "Armor" and read about Felix and 'The Engine', the machine he becomes when he goes into battle against the bugs that protects him and saves him against all probability because the 'engine' is so ruthlessly efficient.... that's me, in my own little world. I love the idea of a world in which I can refer to 'the legs' as a separate entity, with pride, with awe... until then, I'll keep trying to ignore the pain, to keep pushing, and to harden the fuck up.
And I climb very well for my weight.
@roadslave
Hey! Me too!
Well written, roadslave. And thanks, Frank.
I played a lot of sports growing up and then played just one in college. I was focused on that sport for around twelve years, every day, no matter the weather or how I felt. I practiced a lot of hours alone, honing my skills that would help me during the games, which was a team sport. I LOVED practicing on my own, knowing it would pay off.
After college I did a little of this, a little of that athletically. I even joined a fucking gym. Ugh.
Around seven years ago on my way to work I realized I was a total dick, waiting for buses and trains to come. What a waste of time and an unnecessarily long commute. I spent way too much money converting my old mtn bike into a road-like bike. Stupid. I also realized all those bastards on road bikes were just crushing it, flying by me as a I chugged along. I sorted out my standover height, since this is the only thing you need to have to fit a bicycle well, and picked up a used Cannondale.
At first I was a commuter. Then I started to ride on MUPs for fun. Then I found some ancient Performance shorts with a fleece chamois at a thrift store. $2...and I'd joined the Lycra Legions, though with a gross second-hand chamois.
As I sit here in 2010, with 2011 approaching, it is hard to believe how far I've come. I ride daily, going as long as my schedule allows me. I have found my lifetime sport, something to challenge me and something I love being committed too. It keeps me young, keeps me healthy, and keeps me straight with all the Rules I have to follow.
My Cannondale is still too big for me, but as my first road bike, still is revered. It's my bad weather bike these days. Thankfully I have some nicer, and better fitting, road bikes I ride on other days. Carbon & steel, with my eyes on a Ti frame in the near future.
I'd like to think I'm a Velominati. Either way, winter is coming and another seasoning of riding outside in all weather conditions should continue to help me in the process of HTFU as I continue to progress in my develop as a cyclist. I can't imagine my life without cycling, bicycles, The Rules, and all those miles in quiet solitude. This grand sport has given me a new passion, both on and off the bike.
@Ron
Very well said. Sentiments I share. Your arc to cycling is eerily similar to mine. I am grateful to have found a sport which caters to both the social animal and the solitude seeker in me; which provides opportunities to compete against others and to compete against myself; which keeps me healthy without breaking me; in which my body type is an advantage rather than an impediment; which I can do until I am too old to do anything; which I can obsess about in the company of other obsessives; which is beautiful; and which, almost best of all, means I have a perfect excuse to never, ever, set foot on a golf course...
@Ron , @G'phant
A-Merckx, gents. Fully agree.
Great posts! Makes me want to ride
@Ron, @G'phant, @Nate, @Mr Haven
Well said, guys! Ron, Chapeau and thanks! Oh, and just technicality, but Velominati is plural; Velominatus is singular. But it certainly appears you are a Velominatus.
Really awesome article! As Vince Lombardi once said (not sure this is the exact quote but it's close), "a man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he is, is that moment when he has worked his heart out and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious".
While most sports have a discernible opponent, it's a bit of a dichotomy for 'cyclists' because, unless you're actually paid to race, the only opponent you really ever face is yourself and your own limitations. So... to achieve that victory, you have to essentially kick your own ass or face allowing those limitations to stand over you, victorious, as you lie defeated. As the outside world looks upon us as little more than masochists on two wheels, only other cyclists understand that continuing on as every fiber of your being screams out for you to give up and call for a ride home is what makes a ride great. It's not the miles ridden or the meters gained... it's riding until you're sure you can't ride any more but continuing on anyway and still making it to the end of your route that allows us to lie exhausted upon our field of battle basking in the warm glow of victory.
Nice! :-D