First ride with team

Cycling is a team sport.  Many folks think otherwise, riding a bike is a solitary practice for them, culminating in the ultimate example of solo self-absorption, the triathalon.  Americans have really bought into this perspective and even here, in Colorado Springs, home of the USOC and numerous coaching concerns, riders spend most of their time riding by their lonesome and the few teams that are here, seem to lack the cohesion to train together, let alone race together. 

So I’m excited about joining a team, Colobikelaw, and doubly excited that they have a group of twelve guys or so that race the Master’s 35+ category 3 together and get results.  And they have training rides to build cohesion. 

Left to Right: Philip Capraro (35/4), Chris Sauer, Marco Capraro, Brian Hart, Colin Catel, Marco Horton, Jason Cherry, Steve Ruskaup, Ryan Muncy, Tim Cody, Doug Gordon, Brad Rolf

We met at Cafe Europa in Denver for a post-Thanksgiving ride to burn a little fat and to chew it as well.  Several of the guys were new like me, some had upgraded from category 4 this year and this was our first chance to get to know each other and our riding styles.

Sounds so complicated, this riding the bike in a group, but so much of what happens in a race depends on what you know of your teammates, their personalities, desires, abilities.  I’m descending with a fellow six inches in front of my wheel at 50 miles an hour; I need to know what he does when there’s a pothole, or gravel in the road.  I need to know if he keeps pedaling when he gets out of the saddle on a climb or slides backwards for a moment.  In a race, is he the guy that chases down a break and can hold it, or does he have the big sprint for a finish?  These are things that you get to know on training rides.

Doug is our team leader and is immediately dropped as we head to the bike path and Invesco Field.  We don’t realize this for five miles.  First rule: do not drop your team leader.  It’s not his fault, the pace was way too hot for warming up and we were dodging in and out of side roads and turns on the trail.  We reconnected after a phone call and sending Marco back down the trail.

We ride to Golden and then the group decides against the climb up Lookout Mtn and instead adds a few more k’s of rolling terrain north of Denver.  It’s a bit cold, 40 degrees or so, but the sun stays bright.  The group surges and retracts, over and over again.  A rotating paceline is started and then stalls as young Marco needs a push to pull off.  Gaps form as riders pulling off don’t ease up and we talk about all of it, part of the process. 

One of the hardest things about group riding, especially in the states, is that strong riders always feel the need to pound their chests, ride their bikes as hard as they can, even to the detriment of the group’s cohesion.  I always come back to my Wed outings with Geoff in southern France, ‘Tranquil, tranquil, Chris.’ as we would head out on the long ride with some really good riders.  The object was always to be riding the same pace five hours later, together. 

Later, when we’re sitting a table outside the cafe, sipping lattes, one of the strong fellows says, ‘When I ride, I ride hard.’  We laugh later when the same guy declines the idea of riding a team time trial.  There’s much more to this riding game then just being strong.  As crusty old Geoff said a few years ago, riding now is 70 percent mental and 30 percent physical, while in our more youthful days it was the opposite.  I try to explain this to young Marco during the ride as he sprints out ahead of the group and then fades.  Save your strength, use it to be smooth and do things that help the group. 

Sounds like good advice to live by in general.

Thanksgiving day riding

A little bit of everything

Winter is almost here and the air is cold and thick and penetrates our skimpy layers.  The long downhill to 26th Street and the run up Gold Camp Road leaves a chill in the bones that sticks until we’re half way up the climb.  Janet and I split up in the Broadmoor; she heading back up to Manitou and me doing a bit larger loop through town, up Mesa and around the Garden of the Gods. 

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.