Not REAL Women

There's a Wed night ride that meets across the street from an LBS nearby. It's a recreational club ride considered to be at a B pace: short mileage, relaxed pace, social, a warmup to the recreational ride that is scheduled shortly afterward (which is also considered to be a B ride).

This ride meets a couple blocks from home, has a late-afternoon start and end before supper; and it gets me outta the house during the week to socialize at a time of year that I don't much care about being social. It's a nice, easy spin that works out the kinks in the legs and the brain. This past week, we arrived back at the parking lot after the ride with about a half hour until the next ride started up. As we chatted, an LBS shop ride was beginning to gather across the street.

I always feel a few pangs when I see a spirited ride readying--a shop ride used to be an easy one for me. I'm still amazed at the fitness a racer has in comparison to Joe Average Cyclist...even the mediocre racer class that I fell into. I still had the fitness for a few years after I quit racing and, while on shop rides, I enjoyed watching the shop-ride guys expend a ton of energy on a training ride. Knowing when to bank energy, knowing positioning and how to subtly push a shop-ride guy out into the wind were advantages I had, and I enjoyed playing a few games on the unsuspecting. They tended to be a bit amazed that a skinny girl could ride so strongly. It was partly that, of course, but it was also partly riding smart.

I like to think I've still got the smarts, but the riding strongly part? Not so much these days.

One of the women in our group looked over to the readying shop ride: Oh wow, there are a couple women on that ride.

Those aren't REAL women a guy in our group quipped. Normally, I'd have taken offense to the comment and flung some shyte at him: the insinuation that women athletes aren't totally feminine chaps my hide.

Instead, I looked over wistfully.

- The not so in shape Old Bag kinda missing being "not a REAL woman" this season

Of Blessed Tegaderm and Favored Jerseys

I have a beautiful long-sleeved jersey. It's red. It's slim. It's sleek. It's pretty. It’s fast. It's got an M. C. Escher-ish print on the front. It's my fav. It goes with the bit of red on my shoes and ties in well with the silver helmet and black tights old racing saying: if you can't be good, ya gotta at least look good. I wear it whenever I can, but its days are limited to those few chilly spring and fall rides after winter is gone and before summer heat.

I headed out the door last night wearing Escher...the temp was a sunny 70. Thirty minutes later, I walked back into the house: You OK? Wheel asked.

Yeah, I just overdressed. I grabbed a short-sleeved jersey from the pile. It's one that I can't wear often -- doesn't breathe well when it's toasty out, but is perfect for 70. It's one of those bought-it-so-I-wear-it-when-I-can items. I'll even wear it mountain biking, and I always wear my old stuff mountain biking. It's far from cute. Far from my fav.

I dropped my favored, beautiful, red Escher onto the table as I headed out the door.

~

I just don't spill on the road bicycle. Sure, I gathered my share of road rash during my racing days, but really, given the mileage I was putting in then my percentage of biffs was low. Ideally, it would have been zero, but I was a pretty aggressive cornerer and caught a pedal in training once on an off-camber corner. The other time I was taken out by a teammate who couldn't hold it together after being bumped during a crit. I tried holding her upright, but the bicycles ended up in the curb and we slid off along the sidewalk, right past all the parking meters, street signs and coffee carts.

Back then I learned about Blessed Tegaderm genuflect. It's a bit of heaven, in the form of medical Contac Paper, for road-rashed bodies. Without it, a person faces a month of dried, cracking scabs and a lifetime of scars. With it, new, pink, moist skin forms underneath a protective cover and is one day free to face the outside world again, basically scar-free.

During those racing years, I also taught a beginning racing skills course put on by our club. I worked with the group that really didn't intend to enter into racing; and basically, people came out of class being in more control of their bicycles rather than the other way 'round...pack riding, physical contact, wheel touching, cornering, etc. I came out of it all with some decent riding skills as well...when compared with Joe Recreational Cyclist, at any rate. It's all about about the efficiencies of riding: those subtle position and weight shifts that make cycling safer and easier.

So, I get a bit haughty when it comes to others biffing on the road during a recreational ride. I'm supportive, but in the back of my head, I'm always thinking there's no reason for him to wipe out because of gravel in the corner...she ended up with a broken pelvis because of a paceline blip and she picked a spot she shouldn't have....

~

When I showed up back at home early for the second time yesterday, Wheel wondered what was up. I did a Superman I told him. My past spills: a Barnum and Baily arse-over-teakettle and a Roller Derby shove from the side. This time, as a friend and I were blabbing, my front wheel caught in some deep sand overwash where the trail curved. It's a spot that's always a bit hairy, but I typically don't think twice about it. I don't exactly know why it happened...probably too light a touch on the bars due to miscalculating the sand depth.

The front wheel immediately pivoted to the side and I launched over the top, except at the slow speed we were going it wasn't spectacular...more like the old Laugh-In bits with the guy on the tricycle. I slowly tipped forward and to the side, arms out to break my landing (luckily nothing injured there). Landed on my stomach of all things. Scraped an elbow and a knee. Humbled.

At home, I showered and began applying the Blessed Tegaderm genuflect. Wheel looked at my jersey: Oh, that's too bad, your jersey is ripped!

I grabbed my favored, beautiful, red, long-sleeved M. C. Escher jersey still sitting on the table from my earlier change. I smiled.

No it isn't!

- OB whew!

Understatement

party last night
chatted up some old racing buddies
some leaving racing
some still in
one selling her ride can you do that??
made me miss it
the camaraderie
teamwork
drew us together
but isn't enough
to keep us connected
as we sustain other lives
but we meet fondly
catch up
share our struggles
how we now ride
with groups
that don't really know
what
riding together
is

- TOB is there a twelve-step program???

Millimeters

Most days this summer (which has been all of five days for me) I've been riding with The Sweetie to work in the AMs. He's only got a six-mile commute into downtown so I get a 10-12-miler in before heading home to join my classes online. It's been a nice way to start my "work" day, wakes me up, gets me breathing. Often I do the same at the end of the day, but with this week's 90-degree days, morning has been the time to ride.

The other day on the way home I felt an ache on the back of my left leg behind my knee, a subtle reminder of the slight ache that started last Saturday in the hills of WI did I mention I hit 51 that day? I got off and dug for my multi-tool to make what amounted to be about a three-millimeter adjustment in my seat height.

Relief.

In my early cycling days I had a hybrid that I just couldn't get set up right. I visited the PT, did my exercises, learned a bunch about fit, adjusted what I could. Considering I was just getting back into cycling I had wheeled the bike as-is out of the LBS yep, this feels good! can I have wider bars???, fine tuning came months later and meant the adjustments involved a new seat you mean, I just take off the seat that came with it? do they buy it back? and a longer stem so THIS one just goes into a drawer?? along with different toe cages that allowed my foot a bit more movement. After finding I liked doing some distance, I also found my lower back complaining...so I got aero bars...put 'em on the hybrid yep so I could finally stretch out. I read magazines and learned about the relationship between knees, cranks and bottom brackets. I kept stats: miles and average speeds. They increased by leaps and bounds each season. I read about the slight changes one must make when adjusting anything, especially seat height, but that went by the wayside the day I'd had it and yanked my seat up in frustration and finally felt relief. Fine-tuning wasn't so fine -- changes were in huge increments, inches even.

When I got the first road ride, at 21 lbs., I was riding air and air didn't need as many adjustments. Since I knew more that time around, LBS and I spent more time setting it up. In the weeks after riding away from the shop I got a women's specific road saddle with longer rails and dialed it in. Early on, I changed-out the stem from a 110 to a 100. Fine-tuning this time around was in centimeters.

That same bicycle took me through most of my racing years. I took and then taught a beginning racing skills class. I kept stats on my training: miles, average speeds, routes, numbers, grades, intensity, fatigue, attitude. Without realizing it I was filing away other sorts of stats as well: the dynamics of riding with a tight group, the patterns of body language in teammates and opponents, and the sounds of purpose and fake-out. I used to take hills with a straining grip on the bars until coach said just try it with your hands here instead. I learned the subtleties. I got Betty which was a perfect fit almost from the get-go. With the amount I was training and learning, any adjustment in fit or technique had the potential to send something else out of whack or edge me away from being a strong rider toward being a good rider. Fine tuning was subtle -- changes were in millimeters.

I've been back to recreational riding and grocery getting for awhile now, but it's different than it was in '92 on the hybrid. I don't keep stats. After a couple summers without, I finally replaced the cyclo-computer that I lost, but I didn't zero it out this past January...and I regularly ride a bicycle or two that don't have one at all. If asked how many miles I've racked-up so far this year I couldn't even hazard a guess. What's my resting HR these days? Dunno. My longest ride this season? I'm at a loss. Cadence? Please. Those are practically inches.

Last weekend a cycling friend told me she was working on pedaling more efficiently and asked if I had any suggestions. She's a strong rider, but not a good rider...a little squirrely in a paceline, a bit of side-to-side movement when she pedals.

Well, first you need to know about millimeters, I said.

- The Bag's racing was always measured with a yardstick!

The Storm: Photos

This is what we were enduring prior to the women's #3 stage:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5

photos from cyclingnews.com

- TOB really, it was scary

So, Like, the Hail and All?

So we, like, ride our beater bikes from my house down the trail to watch the downtown criterium? because, so we wouldn't have to mess with rush hour traffic and parking a car? and it's like only five miles from my place to get there and we're bikers and all?

So we get there? and we're having a beer and listening to this Irish band on the plaza when the thunder? and the lightning?!?!

And so we run under one of the tents but it's not really a tent but a tarp stretched over some tables? and then the hail?! and we're, like, wondering where hail comes from on an 87-degree day in Minnesota? and we're watching it plop into the pond that's on the plaza and we're all huddled together with these people we don't know under this tarp with, like, tables and chairs?

And then the marble-sized hail?! it starts pelting us? and stuff from the trees starts blowing around?! and we can see sheets of rain and hail and leaves blowing sideways and it piles up on the ground and the rain? it can't drain off the concrete plaza? and it was like over an inch of hail and leaves and water piled on the plaza and the pond was, like, alive and jumping with all the hail?! and now it's not so funny anymore?

But we didn't hear tornado sirens and the sky wasn't green, because I know that's what comes before a tornado so I knew it wasn't a tornado? but it was still really scary? and someone in Orchestra Hall saw all of us and finally opened up the lobby and we all, like, ran for the building!

Oh
my
God!

So, the women's race started all late and stuff and was shorter? then the men's race started and 15 minutes into it, the sky? it gets really dark and it's only, like, 8:00 and it's really dark and the thunder again? and then the lightning bolts light up the sky and it's so cool when you're downtown? and the rain just pelts us and the guys only get to race for 18 minutes before they call the race? and so they had to be really bummed because this was for points and stuff?

- so, like, OB

Looking for Trolls

In my Cat. 4 years I just rode. I did a sprint now and again. Got on my bicycle. Put in lots of miles, got fast. It was a throwback to my competitive high school days -- that feeling of being pushed to the limit and beyond was exhilarating.

I’d always been a decent athlete, but never exceptional, in whatever sport happened to be on the calendar at the time. But, I was also a flute player and a painter and a back-stage hand. It was all so cool!

And there was so much of it!

The plight of the easily-distractible: as soon as I got a handle on something and got comfortable with it, my fascination would wander whoa! What is THAT? I want a piece of that! When I was eight it meant endless hours walking the four blocks home from school because of bugs and sounds and people. In the early days of Title 9, I suddenly had the world of sports opened unto me. Me. Shooting hoops in the spring? That’s track season! Besides, right after practice I had to be in the auditorium for rehersal.

So, there I was 20 years later: Cat. 3.

I hadn’t realized this group would be that much faster than the 4s. Man, I was toast. I wasn’t getting better by accident or happenstance. I should maybe train. This was a new concept. Training. Purposeful riding. Staying away from junk miles. Sticking within a certain zone and staying out of others. Spending time riding junk miles meant I may as well be standing around eating donuts oh man, donuts with those little sprinkles. Intervals. I did intervals. I rode with the team. The bicycle lived in the car and the car lived on the freeway which took me to the team so I could train. The bicycle lived in the car.

But, I lived for the ride. I couldn’t quite seem to figure-out how to keep cycling inside constraints. I loved being on the bicycle, but I wanted to be out all day, stopping for coffee and lunch and donuts. I enjoyed looking at the various numbers tick back and forth on my heart rate monitor. I found myself fascinated with the HRM display and how it functioned rather than with the numbers themselves and what they meant for my fitness.

I started sneaking-out.

I would ride recreationally every now and again. At first I didn’t like it. Who were these Joes who couldn’t hold a line, who didn’t understand a steady paceline? And their legs! With hair!?! They’re all out here fighting the wind on their own? But there’s a crowd of people around! All they need to do is get organized MAN, LOOK AT THOSE HORSES BESIDE THE ROAD! THE WAY THEIR MUSCLES MOVE WHEN THEY RUN!

And the trees.

I couldn’t help it.

I turned 40 couldn’t help that either.

Tiny flowers at the base of the fenceposts.

I did a supported tour, just one, since I hadn’t in several years.

My mother had heart surgery.

I bought a fixer-upper.

I wanted to race. I loved racing, but I just couldn’t shake that soul at the core. The one who’s been with me from the start looking out the window during math class making sure I didn’t miss anything important...the one whose desk wasn’t a holder of books but was a multi-leveled underground home for trolls.

I just never know when they'll show up again.

- and The Bag sure doesn't want to miss them

Threads

exhilaration defeat freedom exhaustion selflessness
camaraderie trust friendship
fibers thread strings into ropes net
binding yet loose enough
for one to slip
through

- tob