Distance

Cyclists who share roads with cars suffer abuse from the drivers of those cars. Who knows why? It's been that way long as anyone can remember, since WWII certainly. Since before SUVs and in-car gadgets, before cell phones and text messaging.

Drivers imagine that the roads belong to them. Trying to understand why they feel that way, how they got that way, won't help us much. Abuse from drivers is like gravity; it sucks whether you understand it or not. 

Driving makes most people feel rushed even when they have plenty of time. They're in a hurry even when they aren't looking forward to getting where they're going. It's a disease and it's epidemic.

Though drivers hurry, traffic seldom does. So drivers sit tense, frustrated behind the wheel, anger barely suppressed, primed, tight-jawed, ready to act out that anger.

Cyclists are different. We feel unjustly persecuted on the road, abused by callous motorists. So we ride tense, anger barely suppressed, tight-jawed, primed, ready for someone, anyone, to offend, so we can act out that anger. 

Clearly, cycling in such a wound-tight state does nothing for our health, happiness or fitness. Why are we so tense? On some level we choose to be. 

We choose to react to each motorist offense as if it were personal, as if it were directed at us as individuals by someone who knows us. As if the offense were committed on purpose, and we, you or I, were chosen to be its victim. 

If we didn't take each offense personally, would we fly off the handle, screaming and gesturing the way many of us do? We'd never get that upset over motorist stupidity and carelessness directed at somebody else. Would we? When it happens to the other guy, it's no big thing. Right?

In moments of clarity, we know better than to take motorist abuse personally; we know it's not personal, but we forget ourselves. We lose that precious distance, that gap between the thing that happens in the instant - the driver cutting us off, maybe - and our reaction to it. 

I do better, I know, when I can keep that dash in there, that instant of detachment. 

During that instant, I remind myself that, sure enough, still another driver has acted stupidly. No doubt drivers will, after all, occasionally act stupidly. I try to remember that no screaming, gesturing cyclist has cured any driver of acting stupidly. Not yet.

If we each could detach for just an instant, we could defuse those personal explosions in traffic. We could watch the action from a distance, as if we were in a car two freeway lanes away, watching one driver cut off another. 

We could shake our heads at driver stupidity; gosh, they really do stupid stuff. 

We could remember that we drive too, and we've done stupid, careless stuff. That once or twice we've scared ourselves, not seeing a cyclist until almost too late. We could remember being surprised by a daring urban cyclist with limited imagination and thinking: that guy's crazy.

If we could keep a little distance, we could remember that people in cars don't know us or hate us as individuals. They lump us together: all the same, always in the way, clogging their roads.

If we could keep a little distance, we might remember that we too sometimes lump individuals into categories, pigeonholes, so we can dislike them more conveniently. We can dislike them without the bother of getting to know them.

If we learned to keep a little distance, we could relax on our bikes. Cycling friends would see that we're no longer so ready to yell at drivers. When they'd ask us what happened to calm us, we'd explain about the distance. Many things might change - if we could keep just a little emotional distance.

Can we change drivers in any way? Not likely. We can change ourselves. We can relax our jaws. We can drain our pools of standing resentment. We can ride looser, physically and emotionally. 

We can stop wasting energy resenting people who don't think or care about us, individuals who share nothing but an unreasoning, angry need to get someplace 15 minutes away in 10 minutes - without focusing on what they're doing.

Remember, we cyclists came from the same places drivers did, went to the same churches and schools, had many of the same life experiences. At times, you couldn't have told us apart. Honest.

Our paths split when they chose to continue traveling in dirty, shockingly expensive, lethal steel and glass cages, listening to shock-jocks and traffic reports, breathing the AC, picking their noses, talking to themselves or merely staring out tight-jawed at the world.

While we evolved.

Waving Back at Marty

Recently, Marty Jemison, great guy and fine ex-pro, posted on Facebook that he is surprised by how many cyclists do not wave -- even when waved at.

First I was outraged that any dork on a bike would fail to wave at what amounts to cycling royalty. But as I thought about it I decided that many people are simply unaware that cyclists have traditionally exchanged greetings...or salutes -- that we acknowledge one another.

We bike riders like cyclists. We respect a cyclist who's out there on his/her bike for whatever reason, but we especially like and respect sporting cyclists, racers, ex-racers or never-racers, out there for fitness and training and the simple love of rolling on two wheels. We've always ridden. We intend always to ride.

We figure that if we see a rider wearing Lycra on a pro-style bike, that person is a bikie like us. We wave and feel a moment of dismay when he or she doesn't wave back.

We forget that thousands of folks who couldn't tell you what GC means or have never heard of an echelon ride bikes like ours and wear outfits like ours. They've never watched a Tour stage. The only racing cyclist they can name is Lance. They ride bikes but they are not bike riders.

They don't know how things have always been among bike riders. Probably they don't want to know. They ride for weight loss or cheap victories on the bike path or because cycling is somehow cool and all their friends have Strava too.

They feel no comradeship for cyclists beyond their circle of friends. They and we have nothing in common, despite the similarity of our appearances. Is it any wonder that they do not wave? Many will not make the slightest gesture, say the merest triviality, spend the first dollar....without knowing that what they are saying or doing or buying is cool -- accepted among their peers as cool.

Evidently: Scowling is cool. Acting too cool for school is cool. Authenticity that can be purchased is cool.

Waving at us? Uh-uh. Even if we're Marty Jemison....

I Ride Motorcycles Too!

This was written before Lance Armstrong's Fall from Grace. It ran in CityBike in the SF Bay Area and in Motorcycle Sport and Leisure in the UK. 

Until a few years ago, I did not follow motorcycle road racing, not US racing, not World Superbike, MotoGP or the 500cc class in the two-stroke era. I didn't know what I was missing - a lot of great racing, dammit. Thanks to an old friend who raved about guys named Rossi, Gibernau and Biaggi, I thought I'd watch just one race through to the end - even if I got bored. 

I did not get bored; I got hooked and I'm still hooked.

I should explain too that I also write about bicycling and ride my motorcycle as support in top-level bicycle races. So I've come to know lots of people in bicycle sport, including star cyclists. In the '90s I came to know and like Lance Armstrong, both before and after he got sick. 

Every year in his hometown of Austin, Texas, Lance promotes a 100-mile charity bicycle ride, not a race, called the Ride for the Roses - to raise money to fight cancer. I rode the first one in '97 or '98. Lance had gotten better by then. He was back on his bike but a Tour de France win was not in the cards. No way. Everyone agreed. 

He'd nearly died from the cancer. He'd been weakened by the disease and the treatment. And he wasn't a Tour de France kinda rider. No one would have bet on him to finish on the podium in one Tour, let alone win seven of them. 

Because I was in Austin and known to Lance, I was invited to a group dinner at his favorite Mexican restaurant. We sat at a long table in the somewhat noisy place, one of those situations where you can't really talk to anyone more than one seat away. It was all cycling people, or so I thought, all friends of Lance's. I couldn't tell who was local and who'd come from out of town, like me.

A guy sitting next to me asked me how I knew Lance, meaning how I fit into the cycling picture. I'd rather not tell people I'm a writer. So I told him that I ride a support motorcycle at major bicycle races; that's how I connected with Lance. A guy sitting next to that guy overheard our conversation, leaned forward and asked how motorcycles are used to help out at bicycle races. I ride motorcycles too, he said. 

Seemed like a good guy to me. Lean and tanned, he looked like a cyclist, a riding buddy of Lance's, probably. 

I was not, in hindsight, acting like a hotshot motorcyclist at that table. I was explaining what jobs guys on motorcycles might do in bicycle races. Most bicycle race fans aren't aware of it but there must be a dozen job descriptions for motorcyclists at big-time bicycle races.

As I described what the motorcyclists (or their passengers) do in the races, the guy one seat away seemed especially interested. I thought: He's a local bicyclist who also rides a motorcycle. He'd like to help at races and see the action from the best seat in the house. 

What's your name, I asked the guy. Kevin, he said. I live not far away. I'm a friend of Lance's. 

At that point, his face started to look just the least bit familiar. I couldn't place him, couldn't decide if I'd seen him before or if he just looked like someone. We talked a bit about what I do in the races. I think I told him about how surprisingly fast the guys go on their bicycles on technical descents and how hard I had to ride to keep up. I'll bet that's right, he said. 

I really liked talking with the guy. I felt I'd made a friend I might have for a long time. He had that knack, the rare knack that probably can't be learned. He's more interested in you than you are in him. As we talked, I became surer that I'd met him or seen his face at races...or somewhere. 

So I said, hey Kevin, what's your last name. Schwantz, he said. 

My heart went to my mouth. I wondered if I'd bragged about my motorcycling skills or experiences to Kevin Schwantz. I decided I had not. Not that I knew who he was, not really. I knew he'd been an outstanding rider. After years of paying no attention to motorcycle sport, I did not know who he was in context and what he'd done in context - ride the wheels off some of the fastest motorcycles in the world.

I knew he was a racer and saw he was a good guy. I did not know, so help me, how many motorcyclists would lop off a limb to be sitting where I was - and relating to Kevin Schwantz as just another friend of Lance's, eating Mexican food with the guys.

After dinner, the group of us went to Lance's house, nice place on the lake. I hung out with Kevin. We leaned on the wall and talked about this 'n' that, perhaps noticing as we did that there were numbers of quite attractive young ladies at Lance's that evening. 

Anticipating your curiosity, I don't think we talked about motorcycling much. I remember feeling later that I'd met a super guy, a guy who might never let you know where he'd been or what he's done until you knew him quite well. A guy who seemed to have no need whatsoever to impress you. Who never dropped a name.

What motorcycling story could you and I tell that Kevin Schwantz couldn't top - if he had the slightest desire to do so?

I've thought about that evening a hundred times in the years since. When I see that Kevin Schwantz is going to be a guest here or there or I read something about his racing school, I wish I could be there just to say, Hey Kevin, remember me? We hung out at Lance's. 

I didn't know who you were at the time. I figured you were just one of the guys. I was right.

END

Facebook "Notes" and this blog

An old friend told me a week or so ago about Facebook "Notes," a function of FB that allows the poster to put up longer blocks of text than would be usual in a normal post. The writer writes or pastes the text into Notes. FB publishes the title and first line or two in the usual box. Friends see it. If the topic or something in those first lines is of interest, he or she clicks on the box and the piece appears, looking good on the screen, proper spacing observed...first class.

I have found that Notes allows me to share stories and thoughts effectively. When I contributed some of these stories to magazines, regional or national, I got an occasional letter or email from a reader. With FB's Notes, I get immediate feedback. I love it.

So I am going to place my thoughts and articles in FB...in the Notes area. If you have been following my blog but are not a FB friend, please send me a friend request. You will be offered opportunities to read stories old and new. Thanks for caring enough to read this!

Maynard Hershon

Here's an old story that ran in Winning Magazine back in the Reconstruction Era, shortly after the War Between the States...

The Sweater

I threw away my old blue cycling sweater yesterday. I’d had the thing so long I can’t remember being without it. It wasn’t the first jersey I owned. The first was a light-blue and white one I thought looked like Felice Gimondi’s Bianchi team jersey. I gave that one away years ago without a second thought. The sweater though, was tougher.

I think that sweater was made as the top half of an old-fashioned Italian warm-up suit, one of the ones with pants that looked like pajama bottoms. No one bought those pants; if I think about them I can feel sorry for all those rejected baggy warm-up bottoms. I wonder what became of them and hope they’re doing all right, wherever they are.

The shop where I bought that sweater closed not much later. I remember it as a kind of unfocused shop, one you’d seldom find a reason to visit. My girlfriend had bought one of the sweaters there for $15, a bargain even in those days. I stepped right up.

The label, printed in Italian, couldn’t be decoded. You couldn’t tell if it was wool or synthetic or a blend. I treated it like wool for 10 years.

The full-length front zipper made that sweater easy to put on and take off. If the day got warm you could unzip it part or all the way. Or you could take it off and twirl it by the sleeves and tie it around your waist. Perfect.

That girlfriend and I rode together a lot. I see us in my mind in matching blue sweaters, riding side by side (only when safe, of course) down foggy, wooded country roads. We looked alike and I think we thought alike, then.

She and I rode centuries and group training rides. We took moderate-length tours together. She liked to wear a railroad engineer’s hat. I was learning to wear a cycling cap Saronni-style, down over the eyes in the front, perched impossibly high in back. Saronni, that year, was still being driven to races by his mommy.

Eventually, though I learned to wear the cap perfectly, the girlfriend departed. The sweater stayed on.

I recall once on a late fall ride I got caught in a cold rainstorm. I got soaked but the sweater kept me warm. I remember wringing water out of it in a restaurant bathroom and having to drop it on the john floor for lack of a place to hang it while I dressed. It was still so wet, even after the wringing, that it flopped loudly when I dropped it on the tile. That’s a warm sweater.

I remember it covered in frost down the arms and across the chest on those painfully chilly, clear mornings there are never enough of. I remember how the cuffs frayed after the first couple years but never got worse. I can remember the blue of it bright and the new smell still in it. That sweater was new then and so was cycling. I had yet to discover I had limits.

In those days I felt it was important to wear clean, newish cycling clothes. I saw that some people who’d been at it long enough to own old bike clothing wore their mended, tattered stuff with no embarrassment. Not me though; no patched tights for me.

I thought that if I wore less-than-perfect jerseys or shorts or whatever, I would be considered casual or uncommitted to the sport.

Years passed and I was still riding. I got less impressed by emblems of dedication one could merely buy. I became more aware of subtle signals, like class on the bike, that earlier I might have missed while looking at some turkey’s jersey.

I won’t say I’ve let myself go completely and ride in rags. I did begin to lose interest in woollen (later Lycra) perfection. I came to find certain articles of clothing (and equipment) pleasantly familiar and effective. I didn’t want a new whatever, thank you. I liked the old one just fine.

I liked that blue sweater especially fine as you may have perceived. My new girlfriend found the hole in the twice-mended left shoulder too shabby. She asked me repeatedly not to wear it.

I explained to her about the old girlfriend and the rainstorm and the frosty mornings. I tried to recreate the sound my sweater made slapping the bathroom floor. She was relentless.

I was too classy a guy, she said, to wear a sweater as ratty as that. It was giving a bad impression. So I threw it away. Hey, it was for my own good.

END

Comparative Drafting, pt 2

Last week, I posted about drafting in cycling, and why some riders are so much easier to follow than others. It’s not subtle. You can follow some people with a tiny gap between your front tire and their rear tire. Others cause you to drop back a foot or more for safety’s sake, and make you nervous even then.

 

It seems to me on further reflection that those of us who have spent many, many miles trying to hang on in fast groups or behind one stronger rider, develop a sense of pace...that riders who have done loose group rides or club centuries do not learn. 

 

We had to learn to draft...or we were riding home alone with a terrible defeated feeling.

 

So we slowly developed a feeling...for a pace that keeps the level of effort steady. We learned that legs that are about to scream NO can sustain a consistent effort, but are pushed over their limit by spikes of demand. We learn to moderate our pace, to keep those sudden demands from hitting the legs of those behind us. 

 

Over the miles and years, we get incrementally better at doing that, at sensing what is best for those behind us. We learn to appreciate people who provide that same consistent pace. 

 

But I don’t believe that most of us can explain what it is that we do. We just do it. We’re bike riders after all.

Why are some riders so good to draft?

I don't know if I fully understand what makes one rider so easy to follow that it's like drafting a locomotive, steady and safe and luxurious. And another rider, equally strong and equally adept at bike handling, may be far more difficult to follow, so that he or she makes you uneasy and frustrated at the changes of pace.

We can't talk about speed here, because speed is relative to all sorts of conditions. We mean pace. We mean something like perceived level of effort. The good rider to follow keeps a consistent level of effort, and following that person is almost restful. It's deluxe.

The rider who appears to be steady and solid but whose pace rises and falls even just slightly will have you riding with your fingers on your brake levers and dropping back so you have a space, a cushion, against his or her slight changes of pace.

You can ride around the equator on one PowerBar and a half full bottle behind the first rider. You can hardly stand to ride a mile behind the second.

Maybe it's the gear chosen by the good leader. I think that a slightly higher gear smooths out the pace changes over slight rises and dips in the road, and perhaps pace changes from shifts in wind direction or velocity. Like riding on rough surfaces, a higher gear will lend itself to a steadier pace. Not a giant gear, a slightly higher gear. A tooth or two.

Maybe the good leader senses the effort that the drafting rider is exerting, and tries to make it steady, not spiky, not pedal-coast, pedal-coast. Maybe that leader understands the drafting dynamic on some level that he or she can't explain.

I have thought about it and can't come up with a solid oh-THAT's-why kinda answer. If you have ideas about this, about why one person is a delight to follow and another is a nightmare, please comment here on my blog page.