Disease Riders

Written a few years ago just after the annual November El Tour de Tucson, this piece made the good folks who train Team in Training uncomfortable and defensive. In theory, those riders are taught exhaustively about road safety and pack etiquette. In practice...

Don't get me wrong. I admire the thousands of cyclists who collect pledges and attempt long, hard charity rides. I think it's great that people use cycling and other athletic events to raise awareness and money to combat disease.

Many of these people do 100-mile rides after decades of smoking, drinking and TV-watching - and five non-consecutive weekends of training. They're examples to us all.

Not only do they get out and get themselves into shape, they help countless others. They support medical research. They keep many annual charity rides alive. They support the bicycle industry. They are the salt of the cycling earth.

They scare the s--t outta me.

No Sigourney Weaver film frightened me the way a "pack" of disease riders can. In the theater, no matter how afraid I am, I know it's just a movie. On the road, stuck in or behind a gaggle of disease riders, I know the danger is real.

Let's say I'm 65 miles into a 100-mile charity ride. I'm sharing the road with hundreds of bicyclists. It's a narrow road, or merely a single lane set off by a row of orange cones.

In the coned-off lane, I'm rolling at a conversational pace, a typical pace for a fit cyclist who’s not on a mission. I'm catching a cluster of people in disease rider jerseys going somewhat slower - not quite two-thirds my speed.

You can read their home states on their jerseys. They’ve come from all over. You're aware that they've raised money for a worthy cause and conquered their personal fears of tough physical challenges. They're here to celebrate those victories. They deserve our congratulations.

I admire these people. I'm petrified of them.

I have to pass them; Jeez, they're going 11 mph. Spread completely across our narrow path, they're laughing and chatting, unaware I'm behind them. They’re oblivious. I have to ask them to move over so I can pass.

I wait for the right moment to request passing clearance on the left side of the group. Surprising them is not a good idea. Anything might happen.

Eventually I ask. Though I speak in an unthreatening tone, I watch the group wobble and weave in the road. I pray no one locks bars with his buddy; no one brakes suddenly; no one screams and freaks and takes down Western Civilization.

I pass that group safely. I feel relieved, but my relief is short-lived. There's another group just like it up the road, as sure as patch glue dries in the tube.

Danger pedals with the disease riders, I think. A chill runs through me. There's no hospital for miles, but I smell antiseptic. Smells like Urgent Care out here.

Don't get me wrong. I'd never want to discourage even one of those fine people from collecting pledges, attending training sessions and coming to Tucson for the big ride, the big finishing medal and the big feeling of accomplishment.

But I wonder: Has anyone mentioned to them that there will be OTHER people on the ride? Has someone suggested that some of the other people will be faster and some slower? Has anyone told them that the road will not be exclusively theirs, and that they should devote a tiny bit of attention to safety?

Evidently, no one has so much as whispered the word safety to the hundreds of disease riders we welcome here every November.

Their trainers teach them about eating and drinking. They learn about pedaling cadence. Surely someone on their training staff could introduce the idea of safety. It's a foreign concept for sure, startling, but worthwhile, huh?

Someone should mention that it's good to be aware of what's going on around you. Someone should mention that it's good to look behind you once in a while, good to practice looking back over your shoulder without veering across the lane. Someone could be gaining on you.

Someone should mention that if you aren't (honestly) going very fast, you might want to stay to the right so people can pass you without watching their lives flash before their eyes.

Someone should mention that creating a lane-wide rolling roadblock is not all that courteous or safe. And that while your group is having fun bonding, doing the brave, hard thing together, others are cycling that narrow road too.

If you (in your joy, fraternity and disregard for safety) contribute somehow to one or more of them crashing, those real people may sit rocking slightly on the road, hugging themselves around their knees and bleeding.

It's great to raise all that money. It's great to come to Tucson or wherever and do the long, challenging ride. It's great to hang with new and old friends, good folks from everywhere America who've done the same unselfish good things.

Those are great things, but they're not the ONLY things.

END