Ubermensch to Jedermensch

“Mature Fantasy Store” says the sign over the strip mall, lending new meaning to ‘strip’.  I’m sitting in the sun, out of the north wind, in front of a wall mural shouting patriotic support for our troops, and watching as car after car park at the end of the lot, SUVs and trucks mostly, and indeed mature men file into the store with no windows.  No one comes out.  Why is it that the most conservative Christian parts of the US have the most strip joints and XXX shops?

I’m waiting on Mike, a teammate from Colorado Bike Law, the team I’ve joined.  We’re going to ride east of the Springs today, destination a bit uncertain, but there’s a strong north wind and the temps will peak at 45 degrees a few hours from now.  I can see the slopes of Pikes Peak from where I sit and the white blanket of snow has spread farther down the slope and even onto the north facing foothills surrounding my home.  It’s getting colder.

Suddenly a furry face, and I’m being licked by a large German Shepherd, and then another romps up with his jaws open wide, not in some kind of canine threat, but because a ball is lodged about as far back as it can fit.  I fish it out and toss it and then a smoking man turns the corner.  Toss, fetch, toss, fetch and then they jump on me again. 

After a quick phone message, a figure shoots south on Peterson Road.  How many fit cyclists are out today?  I hop on the bike and follow suit and discover there is yet another strip mall on the other side of Powers.  We settle on the southern route that we ride with the training group on Saturday mornings, south to Fountain, south a bit more and then back north on El Paso and across Ft. Carson.  The wind is at our backs and the sun is on our faces and we live in that brief moment of cycling bliss when all is right with the world.  We know it’s temporary, but that is what makes it so wonderful right now.

I’ve been fighting a cold virus and feeling pretty crappy the past few days.  Janet and I rode yesterday before her flight to Pittsburgh and it felt good to stretch the legs and get the blood pumping after two days of moping around and doing laundry.  Today I’m not sure if I’m recovered from yesterday’s short ride, but I feel pretty good at the turnaround, forty two miles and not yet two hours into our effort.  Of course, the next twenty five miles will take two and a half hours, but as I explain to Mike, one of the great benefits of my fancy power meter is that I can focus on the power number instead of the speed.  Coming south, we were averaging over 25mph, closer to 30, but the wattage was floating around 150, an easy effort.  Coming back north, into that cold wind snapping the flags straight (who ever said patriotism was useless?) the power number is sitting right at 300, climbing to 400 on the slight rollers.  I can feel good about that on a day that started with a sore throat and sniffles. 

Our conversation ranges from politics to wardrobe malfunctions to time trial bikes and back to politics.  We’re getting to know each other.  As an adult male, it’s fascinating to be aware of the friending process that happened unconsciously to me as a kid.  Janet and I are so focused on friendships for Johann and Karl, we sometimes neglect attending to the process for ourselves. 

Soon, we are at the corner of Tejon and Arvada.  A tap of the fists, an invite to dinner and we’re off in our separate directions, Mike back to the ride start for him and me 600 feet back up to Manitou just in time to pick up the kids.

Larkspur

A naked man sits on the edge of his bed, a spaghetti of bright lycra  mounded next to him.  The order of dressing is dictated by the weather outside, cool, gray and windy, also from the purpose of the day, a long ride along the front range, five or six hours in the saddle.  The socks are first, then the legwarmers and armwarmers.  I’m an unusual sight, but the door is closed.  Heart rate monitor strap around the chest and then an underlayer for the torso.  Red big shorts and with the straps now over the shoulders, he’s starting to feel clothed.  A long sleeved wool jersey, Campagnolo emblazoned across the back declaring my affinity for expensive bike bits from Italy, but something only a few people will understand, and I’m ready to load the back pockets.

The air is warm outside, but descending the valley road to town, things cool off and soon my breath is visible as I wait at the stoplight for my left turn onto Cascade.  Mike rolls up a few minutes late; he also spent time waiting at stop lights en route (who says that cyclists are all scofflaws?) and we roll north towards Palmer Lake and then Larkspur. 

Living in Manitou Springs presents a challenge for me.  If I head west on a ride, uphill, it basically means riding hard for an hour or two and then coasting downhill back home at ridiculous speeds.  If I head the other direction, we live in a valley, it means coasting downhill into a not-so-bicycle-friendly city and then choosing between the wastelands south and east of town or the hills north.  I don’t want to diss Colorado Springs too much; city fathers have made an effort to create bicycle lanes and put up Share the Road signs when it isn’t possible to make a lane, but riding in the area for a few months now, I get the distinct impression that someone did this purely at random, perhaps with a blindfold, map and a tail with a pin in it. 

Beyond the faux bike lane planning is the fact that most people in the Springs are trying to kill me.

True.  Although my head is on a swivel and I peer into every empty parked car and look through every intersection to guess the intentions of each participant in our traffic dance, someone tries to kill me.  Mike, too.  This time it’s a Hummer H3, black with tinted windshields, trying to run us off the narrow Jackson Creek Parkway, which runs parallel to Interstate 25.  When someone tries to kill you, it’s a flight or fight response.  Flight is impossible, so we shout, scream, wave our impotent fists in the air at the tinted rear windshield.  The little bit of adrenaline gives me a push up the hill, maybe H3 is stopped at the light.

Our run today takes us to the Speedtrap Coffee shop in Palmer Lake.  It’s a weekly stop for me now.  They close at 1, long before our loop to Larkspur brings us back, so we enjoy a quick and legal PED (performance enhancing drug), half a bagel with cheese.  A bottle refill and we’re climbing the rest of the Palmer Divide.  Two miles and then it’s fun time, downhill with a tailwind.  There is nothing better on a bike.  Free speed, everything quiet, on a smooth road and then Perry Lake Road appears far too fast and we’re on rollers trending upwards to Larkspur.  ‘Should we go a bit farther north?’  Mike asks before the turn.  Naw, we’ll be right on 90 miles for the ride by Manitou and it’s time to pay for the tailwind.

The road south to Palmer Lake, Spruce Mountain Rd., is relentless in a flat, treeless, hill five miles away kind of way.  I look down for awhile and watch the pavement flow beneath my wheels.  I look up and that far away hill is still there.  The wind slows us to 15, then 13 as we climb.  The computer tells me it’s a 3 percent grade, even though the road appears to be flat-lined.  The hill is 7 percent and we keep a decent pace up and then it’s flat again.  The faux plat. 

The constant pressure on the pedals is excellent training and we use the time to talk about ourselves, local races, training philosophies, friends we’ve made, new equipment.  Palmer Lake arrives and I’m surprised we’re actually 50 feet higher here than the summit at Spruce Mountain. 

It’s all downhill from here to town.

Two standard deviations

Friday, easy ride today around the Garden of the Gods, maybe hit a climb hard to open the legs up.  The sun is out and the sky is ridiculously blue.  Just past the rondpoint on the west side of town, a tourist is trying to read the signs in the shops and slows to five miles an hour, I slide through the gap on the right side just as a trike with a leathered up biker on top moves to the right, towards a parking spot.  I move to the left anticipating a pass.  Suddenly he swings the trike to the left also to do a U-turn in the middle of the block.  I hit the brakes and skip on the cobbles in the meridian.

It’s amazing how fast the mind works.  Instead of spewing invective and cursing his pets in front of people that know me (Hey, that new guy on Pilot Knob is a real wacko), it’s ‘Hey, buddy, where did you learn how to drive?’  He doesn’t like this, ‘You shouldn’t pass on the left.’  Retort, ‘You shouldn’t try to kill me by crossing two solid yellow lines.’  And now we’re past each other. 

I’m angry, way too angry for what’s just happened.  A couple of turns of the crank and thoughts about my meeting a couple of days before begin leaking out and I understand where the anger is coming from.  Wednesday morning Janet and I met with Johann’s IEP team.  IEP means Individual Learning Plan.  If you enjoy acronyms, you’ll love the world of education, where acronyms are a convenient way to refer to people and their needs.  ELLs?  As in I’ve got a bunch of ELLs in my classroom aren’t a kind of bug or type of computer, they’re kids who speak a different language at home.  You could call them LEPs in some states, or NNSs if you’re more theoretically bent. 

In my sons’ educational worlds, we’ve been focused on having them seen, referred to and treated as kids.  Unfortunately, that isn’t enough for some folks who feel a need to quantify who they are with ‘instruments’ and ‘probes’ to find evidence of who they are that is readily evident if you get to know each of them. 

‘Our hands are tied.  In order for your son to get paraprofessional support, we have to do ‘cognitive' testing.’  Intelligence.  Some test results from the battery of other tests already done are pushed across the table.  Look, see where your son is testing?  His scores are below the large white space in the middle.  This is somehow meaningful.  An estimated age equivalent is scribbled next to the table, 7 years, 6 months.  So precise!  There is strong magic in the precision of the test, a test normed on the folks swimming in the middle of the bell curve.  ‘We need to do an IQ test to rule out cognitive deficits.’  Hmm, have you taken an IQ test as well?  Nervous laughter.  Why don’t we put all of our IQ cards on the table? 

Raised voices now, this is getting personal.  How will an IQ score help you teach him better?  We gave you a box of ‘evidence’ before we came; I don’t think you looked at it too closely.  ‘Now we need the numbers.’  The bait and switch. 

We are so concerned about separating those that belong from those that don’t.  When my son was born, I saw a long line of ‘services’ leading to a life of separation, wiping tables at McDonald’s, living in a ‘home’ with others separated from the rest of the normal people.  He was one week old when we were told about a special school forty miles from our home in Iowa where ‘his needs would be met.’  I got angry then and told the ‘team’ they had five years to plan on him being in our local school two miles away. 

‘Have you met with local families who have children with Down’s?’  I look at the nurse, ‘Wouldn’t that be like a meeting of amputees?’  I know she’s trying to be helpful, but she doesn’t know us, our family, my son.  I know the reason that a Down’s group might be useful would be to fight a system of separate but equal, a habit of pulling out those different ones who don’t belong.  My team is the system and we’ll have that fight now, thank you.  ‘Your son is two standard deviations below the norm.’  Let me translate: Your son is two standard deviations below being fully human. 

I push into the climb, red rocks in the sun, pinion pine in the air; I feel the wind on my face and let the anger flow through my limbs.  I’m alive; I feel the pain, gravity resisting my will, the sweat and stink of the real world reminding me that I’m alive.  The struggle of life is not antiseptic and defies measurement.  I laugh at the crest and dive down the apex of the turn.

We are all two standard deviations away from something, otherwise we would all be the same.

Quantitative and the Qualitative

Saturday morning training ride numbers:

Easy ride down to the start, sticking to the even grade of Colorado Avenue, no traffic, no wind, lots of sun

Duration:      22:59 (30:09)
    Work:          127 kJ
    TSS:           7.7 (intensity factor 0.447)
    Norm Power:    143
    VI:            1.55
    Pw:HR:          -46.25%
    Pa:HR:          22.77%
    Distance:      6.844 mi
    Elevation Gain:        516 ft
    Elevation Loss:       1039 ft
    Grade:         -1.5 %  (-525 ft)

Ride starts with an easy seven mile roll to the east side of town, we average around 20mph and the group sticks together.  At Mark Dabling Rd. we turn south and hit the hill at race speed, position is important, towards the front and push up the hill and we crack into the thirties and the group is now a long string.  Rotate on and off the front, raise the tempo and we’re in the high thirties, the road rolls away beneath us and I hear no one talking behind me; they are just trying to breathe.

Duration:      1:08:14 (1:11:39)
    Work:          830 kJ
    TSS:           78.1 (intensity factor 0.83)
    Norm Power:    265
    VI:            1.31
    Pw:HR:          0.93%
    Pa:HR:          -27.65%
    Distance:      27.636 mi
    Elevation Gain:        1420 ft
    Elevation Loss:       2139 ft
    Grade:         -0.5 %  (-719 ft)
                          Min    Max    Avg
    Power:           0    1115    203     watts
    Heart Rate:  98    167    145     bpm
    Cadence:       17    178    81     rpm
    Speed:           0    37.8    24.2     mph
    Pace             1:35    0:00    2:29     min/mi

After the last sprint we roll easy and pick up the riders jettisoned from the pack, most do go off the back.  After a few miles we’re all together and the tempo picks up a bit, maybe around 22mph as we go into a slight north wind.  My legs have felt sluggish all ride and this makes me feel good; I’m now able to participate, belong, on a sub-par physical day. 

Duration:      2:06:34 (2:31:24)
    Work:          1318 kJ
    TSS:           99.1 (intensity factor 0.686)
    Norm Power:    220
    VI:            1.26
    Pw:HR:          5.53%
    Pa:HR:          29.24%
    Distance:      34.108 mi
    Elevation Gain:        3806 ft
    Elevation Loss:       2539 ft
    Grade:         0.7 %  (1267 ft)
                           Min    Max    Avg
    Power:           0    955    174     watts
    Heart Rate:   80    160    133     bpm
    Cadence:         19    155    74     rpm
    Speed:           0    28.9    16.1     mph
    Pace               2:05    0:00    3:44     min/mi
    Altitude:        5359    6775    5988     ft
    Crank Torque:    0    1101    200     lb-in

‘My wife left me.  She got the kids up earlier than usual and left the house before I got up.  Then she texted me and told me to pack and get out of the house.’

Amazing how words can change things, alter an environment, nudge what we think is true to another place.  We’re standing in front of a Starbuck’s on Tejon in Colorado Springs.  It’s warm, a wonderful day to do something we’ve been doing together for a while now, ride our bikes in a big circle.  People are laughing, leaning over their handlebars, feeling the sun burn through the cool air and heat the lycra stretched across backs and arms.  Eric has stopped talking and I look up at him.  A few seconds ago, this was just pre-ride banter and now he has just said something very important, much too important.  I look up and see him, his face is open, honestly listening to what I will say in return.  Over his shoulder one of the women on our ride is also listening as spectator, interested in our conversation. 

‘She left me because I’m riding too much.’  And it’s true, Eric is riding much more in the last few months than he has in his seventeen year marriage.  He’s also dropped fifty five pounds and feels good about himself for the first time in a long time.  ‘She says I look unhealthy.’  But it’s not about that.  It’s not about the cycling, the time spent in the saddle; it’s about the discrepancy between who he was and who he is now.  He’s changed and his wife is confronted with where she is now.  It would be presumptuous to give advice, so I tell him about my marriage.

Twenty years ago, I was scared silly about committing to a relationship with someone that wasn’t going the same direction as myself.  We fall in love with people all of the time, I still do, but what occurred to me twenty years ago and what still seems true is that we often fall in love with someone at a common meeting place, but on the way to somewhere completely different.  Make the connection there without realizing this and soon the bond is getting pulled at, snapping when the roads are far apart.  I remember telling Janet this metaphor in a tent pitched in a Bulawayo, the scent of Jacaranda falling around us, moments before we decided to get married.

Twenty years is a long time for two individuals to change, and we have, but we haven’t just changed, we’ve grown and were lucky enough at twenty five to have enough self knowledge to make a reasonable guess that we were growing in the same way.  Lucky.

Eric is growing, cycling is his new found medium, and any advice that I could give him would be to look for opportunities to allow her into the joyful world he’s discovered.  It’s so easy not to, hoarding the experience for yourself, developing new relationships, confronting new challenges and feeling rising fitness and self-esteem.  So tempting to keep it all.  I give some advice.  Plan time to ride together.  Give her time to exercise with friends and work to facilitate it.  I think of what I’ve learned the hard way.  I’m smiling and see that the woman behind Eric is smiling too. 

We push off across the intersection.  She’s wants him to come home.  She’s started running. 

Culture of the bike

Any group of cyclists is a culture onto itself, a unique combination of personalities, skills, rules and mores for the time that group is riding together.  Moving from a culture of riders I was comfortable with for the past eight years in Dubuque and trying to fit in with a new group of riders here in Colorado has been a personal challenge, one that helps me to understand the dynamics my kids are facing at school, making new friends, understanding what’s done and what isn’t done.

I make mistakes even when I’m certain I’m not.  On a ride in southern France a few years ago, I was on the front of small and diverse group of very good riders.   I’d been in country for several weeks already and had dropped the beat-your-chest riding style of most American group rides and was riding calmly next to Steve, the U23 road champ of Britain.  Steve’s a great guy, it turns out, but in the middle of our first ride together he grabbed my arm and let loose with a string of obscenities.  “What the f--- are you doing?  You think you’re better than me?  I’ll kick your a—any day of the week.”  The last few sentences give the gist of what was said.  I was confused; moments before I’d been so pleased to be riding with this group, and now I’d done something that must have been on par with killing ‘is mum.  “You’re f---in’ half-wheeling me!”  Another slew of obscenities.  Half-wheeling is when one rider, riding abreast of another at the front of a paceline, nudges his wheel in front of the other.  This causes the other to accelerate slightly to compensate.  The other rider again nudges forward and again the other rider has to accelerate.  You can see why this would be uncomfortable after awhile.  To this day, however, I’m certain I never half-wheeled Steve.  I think he just wanted an opportunity to vocally demonstrate his position in the group, which was certainly above me. 

All of this is unsaid, except for the obscenities of course.  I need to earn my position in the group by demonstrating my fitness over time. 

Flash forward a couple of years and there is Chris riding on the Saturday morning ride in Colorado Springs.  Riding with the group since the first week of July, this was probably my twelfth or fourteenth time out.  Folks know my name; I chat with people in the paceline; heck, I even took a sprint a couple of weeks ago.  So, I wasn’t prepared for the drama of the ride as we approached the hill sprint on Link Road.

We were really rocking as we headed south and Cody and I floated to the front and drove the pace to about 40 for a few miles, alternating pulls.  We were going into a wind, so it made sense for the two biggest guys to be on the front for a bit.  The spring was miles away and there was time to recover for it, but when the group heads south, it’s definitely race time.  Guys work for teammates and small breaks try to happen and they get chased down by other folks.  Every time for fourteen times that’s the way it’s been. 

A mile before the sprint, I’m taking a breather and come off the front and three guys come by.  A gap, no one else wants the wind, so I slot in at fourth wheel.  Two guys are Spike teammates and one in all gray is obviously a friend;  not one has taken a single pull to this point.  They do a quick rotation and the gray guy tries to wave me through as I just ride in the rocking chair off the last wheel of the rotation.  I decline, still catching my breath and not wanting to get attacked before the hill sprint after a pull.  He waves more vigorously and I decline and he shakes his head in disgust.  I grunt and tell him to do something to himself.  He is offended, but weighs all of 130 pounds.  I ignore him and he continues to rant about what a idiot I am on the bike.  I realize he is a Kiwi, and likely a visiting pro.  The hill sprint comes and goes and we surge to the next sprint.  He shouts for folks to pull through, no one wants to and I’m still in first six wheels, surfing folks moving up and staying out of the heavy wind.  Another rider I’ve never seen before, this one is a Stars and Stripes outfit, tells me to take a pull. 

‘Why?’ 

Quizzical look on her face.

‘Why should I pull through?  Are we on a team ride?  Will it help me in the sprint ahead?’

‘This isn’t the world championships.’  Well, duh.  But it is a race simulation in the middle of a long training ride with a bunch of guys from different teams.  I’m not going to be bullied into pulling other people into sprint finish with a headwind.

For some reason this bothers me for a while during and after the ride.  Cody, drafting me into each of the sprints rides up behind the gray rider and loudly complains about little riders making noise about pulling when they were no where to be seen during the first part of the ride.  Of course I’ve cleaned up the language a bit.

Later, I realize it’s about pecking order and the constant psychological games that riders play with each other, especially in the heat of a hard ride.  My dog does the same thing with other dogs and I guess cyclists are doomed to behave in the same manner with each other. 

Thank goodness we don’t pee all over the place.

A week in review

Before writing about Saturday’s weekly training ride with the group at Starbuck’s on Tejon, getting the pics downloaded from the last week and a little commentary about two significant rides is definitely in order.

Saturday

Drove up to Parker to ride with prospective teammates on ColoBikeLaw’s 35+ Masters cat 3 team.  With just four guys, hills and wind, our 62 miles together had a higher average power output than riding with the group on Saturday mornings.  No where to hide, and I didn’t need a powermeter to figure out that we were working hard.

A couple of moments: “So what do I need to do next to be on this team?”  Phillipe with a completely serious face, “Well, write a three to four page essay about why you want to be on the team.”  General laughter, but a few minutes later we learn that Phillipe really did write an essay.  Harder laughter. 

“You look like Jan Ulrich.”  Hmm.

“Let’s bike into Watkins.”  A few minutes later, “Is this it?”

Sunday

Long spin with Karl down to ‘the Springs’ on the bike path and then north to UCCS and back through the Garden of the Gods (above, looking at Cheyenne Mtn to the south).

Monday

There’s really no reason to go to Hannover, CO except to go through it on the way to somewhere else.  Dodging tumble weeds blowing across the road at twenty miles an hour, enjoying the fragrances from the Fountain City Dump was balanced by the complete lack of traffic and the opportunity to say I’ve been to Hannover, a statement the few in the Springs can make.

Notes for next time: bring extra water, unless you want to knock on the door of that seriously scary looking trailer again.  (above, heading back, and up and into (the wind), to the front range.  A glimpse into how the area looked fifty years ago before 400,000 people moved in).

Tuesday

Shortened ride with Janet through the Garden of the Gods.  Life intrudes and the weather is turning cool.  A nice recovery ride from yesterday’s windy, 85 mile effort.

Wednesday

Snow and sleet are always a good excuse to squeeze in a rest day.

Thursday

Dust off the rollers and do an easy spin.  Is that a sore throat coming on?

Friday

A harder effort on the rollers as life again intervenes and the kids are home for another break from school.

Green Eggs and Yak

In a hundred miles the ride can go from the ecstasy of 30mph with a tailwind for twenty miles to a relentless wind layered over an unmoving horizon, a straight, treeless line, thin lipped except for the slight smile of a faux plat a few miles ahead.  How quickly we forget the ecstasy and dwell on the single digit speed and the tight weakness in the legs.

I glance back up, that is one shaggy buffalo.  Wait.  Beefalo?  Holstein colors and long hair.

“Organic Yak Meat” reads the sign a few minutes later.  www.greeneggsandyak.com.  Who knew?

We trundle on.

The forecasts these days on the front range of the Rocky Mountains extend from 70 and sun to 20 and snow.  Weather.com is the cyclist’s friend and Wednesday’s forecast was beautiful, sunny and almost seventy; definitely a time to ride, especially with snow predicted for the weekend.

Yesterday Janet and I climbed Ute Pass to Woodland Park and today my legs were still feeling a tad sore from the effort and reminded me of that as I climbed through the Garden of the Gods.  The sun was out, though, and the tourists were snug in their beds and the road was a glorious ribbon holding my spinning wheels.  Here I was heading out on a long ride along the mountains.  Desert smells brought me back to our time in southern France a few years ago.  Instead of cork oak on the sides of the Alberes, there was Gamble oaks on the sides of Red Mountain and the Colorado foothills. 

In and out of the Garden, then through the north side of Colorado Springs and it’s urban traffic and soon I was knocking on Brady’s door in Gleneagle, across from the Air Force Academy.  We had a tail wind and it pushed us through Monument, Palmer Lake and Perry Lake.  When we crested the Palmer Divide, the road began a gradual downhill to our turn east on Wolfensberger Road.  Then we paid.

There is a mesa in front of us, to our left, and the road seems intent on climbing it.  The pitch rises to 8, then 10 then 11 percent.  Anything above 6 percent hurts.  Double that and I’m in difficulty.  We climb and climb and the road moves away and then back to the mesa.  This is hurting a bit much and I shift down and back off the effort.  The wattage drops below 300 and let Brady venture out in front of me.  Goals for this fine fall day?  Get out on the bike and turn the pedals for five or six hours.  Snow is going to cancel the Sat morning ride and the rollers are looming large for the weekend.  A long effort now will carry me over until the warm weather returns next week.  I’m building my base now for next season, my first season racing here in Colorado and I want to do it right.

We descend into Castle Rock and scan for a coffee shop.  The flags are nearly stiff and pointing north, so we’ll need something to perk us up for the ride home into the wind.  Daz Bog beckons from a corner and we slip in for a latte and croissant.  Sixty miles in and just forty five back to Manitou.  Gilbert Street and then Lake Gulch road take us towards home and we again are going up, up the Palmer Divide. 

Time to pay for the ecstasy and restore the balance.