Dancing with Coyote

At Cherry Creek

Coyote dances

red face grin

slash of fur

in my space I wonder

wheels turning

at the message from the Yei.

On a lark

It’s hard to ride a bike when it’s seventeen degrees outside.  The simple act of opening the door and pushing it out the door into the semi-light of 7:30 becomes a force of will. 

I do it anyway.  Byron is waiting at the Starbucks on 30th and Colorado and the idea that someone else is riding with me and sharing my pain is comforting.  It’s also the first day of my training year, the cycling equivalent of the first day of the rest of my life: day one of base one.

Of course, I’ve already been training, hundreds of miles and hours in the pool, but that all gets lumped into the ‘preparation’ period’, all of the time before base one and after my last race. 

Endurance and speed work for the next couple of months.  Endurance means long rides like today’s up to Larkspur.  The first goal today is not to sweat, but Byron always pushes the pace a bit beyond my comfort zone.  Sometimes I get to reciprocate, but when we ride too fast, I can feel the rivulets of sweat on my back.  At seventeen degrees, this can get ugly.

Byron pulls away on the climb to Palmers Lake and then waits in front of the Speedtrap coffee shop.  It really is a speed trap today; a cop car is nestled along the south wall of the building, out of sight from anyone heading towards Monument.  A coffee and then we’re rolling on the loop to Larkspur, seventeen gorgeous miles with a deceptive climb up to the Palmer Divide. 

It all passes quickly: conversations with Byron, my cheese sandwich, the numb toes and fingers, the brief headwind as we headed north.  Too soon, it’s a fist bump as Byron turns off for his house in Old Colorado City and I head a few miles up the canyon to Manitou and a hot bath. 

Eighty miles in the books and the new year has already begun.

Acquiring satellites

The sun is up and I’ve got 50ml of caffelatex in each of my tubulars.  There is no way I’m going to call Janet from the side of the road today.  Last week’s ride to Canon City ended with a flat (and the failure of the spare) just at the top of the last climb with twenty five miles of downhill left and a smart tailwind. 

Today we’re riding north to Castle Rock.  It’s cold, but my gloves aren’t freezing to the bars like last week.  The sun is out and we have a slight tailwind as Byron and I roll to Palmer Lake.  A quick latte and my hands are thawed.  A left on highway 105 and we’re over the rise of the Palmer Divide and my favorite Colorado road stretches out sixteen miles in a gentle downhill.  A turn at Wolfensberger road and we’re climbing four miles up the side of a small mesa.  Byron is sixty pounds lighter than me, and he moves away, a foot here and there, until he crests a couple of minutes ahead.  There’s one other cyclist going our direction and I catch her right before the road descends to Castle Rock.  A good morning to you!

Another latte at Daz Bog.  We’ve gone fifty five miles and I feel pretty good.  Just fifty miles until home.  The wind has picked up.  I look down at the Garmin and we’re going just thirteen miles an hour.  A tap on the computer… 250-300 watts.  That’s a lot.  I can maintain about 300 for an hour, my threshold wattage.  An hour is only thirteen miles away.  I move into Byron’s draft and feel slightly guilty.

Riding into the wind is an emptying experience.  First I lose my expectations about the ride, how fast it will be, what time I’ll get home, how much it will or won’t hurt.  Then, slowly, I lose most of my other thoughts as well, until all that’s left is the white noise of the wind in my ears.  My thought for a few minutes is limited to, ‘What noise do my helmet straps make when I tilt my head?  Hmm, that’s interesting.’ or ‘How close can I get to the northeast quadrant of Byron without hitting his bike?’

Life is simple in the wind.

At two o’clock we return to Palmer Lake feeling much different.  I realize we likely won’t make it back to Manitou with the sun still up and put some of the layers I shed a few hours before when the sun was high and we had a tailwind.  The sun was behind Pikes Peak as passed the Great Monstrosity and descended into Colorado Springs.  ‘Hey, Byron, we just passed one hundred miles.’  A fist bump and I climb the hill back to the house.

Sweating the details

Before the sun warms the red rocks in our canyon, the temps are stuck at twenty two degrees.  A glance south, towards Crystal Park, reveals the snow dusting the dark side of the canyon, but the clear blue backdrop means that the temps will rise.

On the bike an hour later and I’m thinking about my son Johann.  Our annual Individual Educational Plan meeting is tomorrow and, as a I ride, I let the conversations Janet and I have been having bubble up.  For some reason, the movement and external stimuli on the bike have a freeing effect; sweat, breath, toxins, thoughts float up and out and into the cold, dry air.  Soon the clutter of the road, buildings and signs, cars and people, fall back and I’m heading into the high plain country east of Colorado Springs.

Brown and dead grass, rolling hills stretching out with no trees, the wind’s desiccating effect empties my soul of detail. 

What was it Janet said?  my son is on a continuum, moving from mere presence, to tolerance, to pity, to acceptance.  Where is he now?  That is the question for the group tomorrow.

Maybe because it’s cold and I have leggings and a coat on, I’m removed from the immediacy of the climb to Curtis Road from Highway 94.  I move back and forth on the bars, feel the wind on the right side of the tights, soaking through the seams, but it doesn’t seem so real.

What future does my son have?  I think about this and notice the top of the climb is past already.  When Johann was born and the lab in Madison later identified the Down’s syndrome that had distorted one of his chromosomes, I grieved.  A while later I wondered what it was that made the tears flow and I realized that I was grieving for any number of lost futures that would no longer be possible for him. 

The road turns south and the rolling ground is a carpet running all of the way to the foothills.  The granite above the tree line is dusted with snow.  The wind is on my face, but I’m still numb to it.

My insight thirteen years ago, sitting in a hospital in Dubuque, was that my father grieved as well for me.  The test results had simply accelerated the process.  Instead of grieving for my lost future as a basketball player or a manager in the same factory he worked at, when I was much older, I was suddenly in the position of knowing my son would never be a doctor only a week into his life.

Or so I thought thirteen years ago.  What is possible?  And what is it we all need?  Now forty six instead of thirty three, I understand my identity is not my job.  What is necessary is to belong and that is what erases the tears.

I smile as Curtis Road rounds into Powers and there’s a tailwind as I roll north.  Everyone needs a tailwind once in a while.

A winter morning

If the fingers are lined up behind the bend of the handlebar, the index finger is the only one to go numb. 

I think about things like this as Janet and I take a whirl through the Garden of the Gods.  Not deep thoughts, but ideas that have immediacy in the here and now.  It’s 30 degrees and sunny.  A light snow has fallen on the higher slopes, but leaves are still falling along the streets. 

We ride through the Garden, up Mesa’s climb and then descend for a couple of miles to the edge of Old Colorado City.  The climb warms us and then the bright sun makes up at least 15 degrees in temperature and we are all smiles back home to Manitou.  A hour and half of the morning well spent, together and on bikes.

Cold morning

The air in Manitou, warmed against the red rock by the sun, has to be at least fifteen degrees warmer than the air a few hundred feet down slope on Colorado Avenue.  Morning rides are a bit of a trial right now.  It’s not exactly the cold temps at 8am, rather it’s the knowing that in four hours it will be thirty degrees warmer. 

No matter, I pull on my light winter tights (my real winter tights haven’t been used since I rode in the real winter weather of Iowa), dig out the wool socks and pick out my old Wheaton jacket.  That jacket is coming into its own here in Colorado.  As I told Dan, my cycling come-librarian friend from DWC, the jacket makes me sweat like a plastic bag but it doesn’t breathe.  I can wear it with a tank top and be just fine here at altitude and forty degrees.  Iowa wind, cold and humidity would freeze the sleeves to my bear arms. 

I rode up Gold Camp Road, turned around and came home.  It’s about 1200 feet of climbing in sixteen miles and not a bad workout.  My replacement crank is a compact with a 50/34 (the teeth on the big and small rings).  A 34 chainring paired with a 26 cog on the rear cassette now means I can spin up anything.  Nice on a cold day. 

Horlivy

I enjoy washing the grease out of the creases in my hands.  The detailed attention to reaching the parts normally out of eye shot relaxes the mind; the feeling grows that something good was accomplished, the cause of the black grease.  The sensation of warm water, the smell of chain grease and the course grit of the soap erase three decades of time.

Young and in flux at sixteen.  A small, typed ad on the job board caught my attention walking the halls at Marquette High.  I was old enough now to work a job other than the Milwaukee Journal paper route I’d recently sold to my brother or the under-the-table dishwashing position I had at Ingrilli’s Pizzeria.  It was spring and I was thinking about what the summer would bring.  There was a brother in the counseling office who handled inquiries for the college-bound and requests for young men interested in working summer jobs.  The position he stuck to the board was a new one, Position: bicycle mechanic.  I read the details, there was an address and a phone number and I called and they asked me to come in for an interview on Saturday.

“Do you know where that is!”  My dad always shouted when I came up with a new idea.  “It’s in a really dangerous part of town.  I don’t know if we can let you go there.”  At this point he would usually give me the you’re-an-imbecile look and head out of the room.  The pattern would become thus: dad yelling, me squirming uncomfortably for a while until he was out of sight and then me waiting some place unseen, my room, outside, in the garage taking apart my bicycle for the twentieth time, and my mom would intervene and then ask me to talk to him again.

The bicycle shop was on the north side, 23rd and Fond du Lac Avenue, next to a motorcycle shop that specialized in Motoguzzis.  Dad was right, it was a dangerous part of town in what folks from other parts of Milwaukee called the ‘core’.  I was to learn later that there were robberies, shootings and drug dealing, but what struck me on the bus ride down to the shop was that all of the white people got off at Wisconsin Avenue, the stop where I always got off to go to Marquette, and the all of the black people got on.  For the first time in my life I was a minority.

Jim King owned King Cyclery and he rented the shop from the Motoguzzi fellow next store.  Jim was exotic.  He grew up in different parts of the world, son of a military man, and told stories of men kissing in Afghani theatres and challenged everything that I thought I knew about the world at sixteen.  “You’re Chris?”  “Ok, I want you to take this boxed bike here and build it in that stand.  Do your best and Marty will take a look at it when you’re done.”  Two hours later I had finished and Marty proceeded to twist my bars, seat post, wonder at the crooked wheels and the mis-shifting derailleurs.  But the test wasn’t that the bike would be perfect, the test was how I dealt with the critique of the build and whether I could correct my mistakes.  I could, it just took me a long time to do it.  That was fine, I would get faster, and I had the job.

We would wash our hands in a dirty sink behind the attic stairs.  Jim preferred Lava liquid soap which cleaned by removing a layer of skin from your hands, so I washed only occasionally, when I had a new bike to build, new bar tape to install, or to wait on a customer.  The smell of that soap brings back a flood of memories now of that quiet back room, in the old building with plastered walls and two rows of bikes separating two repairs stalls.  I was ensconced after a few weeks in the far stall and in the nearer stall was my English teacher, John Horlivy.  Thick black beard with a rosy mouth and horn-rimmed glasses, he was short, a tad pudgy and quiet-spoken.  My freshman year, he had caught my attention reciting the scene from the Merchant of Venice where Shylock demands his pound of flesh, and we all knew right then how horrible a demand that was. 

Yesterday I found out that John had paid his pound of flesh.  He died of pancreatic cancer at 69.  I had lost touch with John, but the soap brings me back to John at the sink, carefully washing his hands.  I remember that he wrote a poem for me when I crashed at a criterium and lost most of the skin on my left side.  We had long talks, John, Jim, Marty and I, in the back room and I realize now that this was me growing up, crossing the bridge to my adult life, tied to these people by my love of cycling. 

I’m washing my hands.  The master link in my Campagnolo ten speed chain needed replacing.  It was getting old, maybe had 15,000 miles on it and there was a slight catch in the drivetrain every three or four revolutions, nothing severe and most people wouldn’t have noticed.  John Horlivy would have and he would have focused on it very intently, deciphering the mystery and fixing it, before moving on to something just as important.

A twenty mile loop

Four and a half miles from my house, at the end of a faux plat that begins when I turn left at my mail box, the road turns south and begins snaking up.  It begins as innocuous 26th Street.  Bott Park, sometimes Butt Park if someone has dark green paint for the sign, passes on the left amid the fringe of century old ranch homes, last vestige of Old Colorado City.  A white horse fence on the right and, behind it, the looming red rock formations of Section 16. 

The rider’s eyes are pulled  towards the hairpin ahead.  The grade of the road stiffened to 10 percent past Bott Park, but has eased to 6% here.  After the hairpin is a false flat and then a ramp to the crest of 10 percent. 

Cheyenne Mountain takes over the view at the crest of the hill.  Dull green with juniper and pinon, it sets a clean, falling line to the horizon.  The road ahead dives into Bear Creek Park, but the rider turns right onto Upper Gold Camp Road.  He doesn’t want to pay for descending right now; the road continues up past Bear Creek and he clings to the side of the rock and continues the climb. 

Some wealthy people have built too-large homes overlooking Colorado Springs, driveways poke into both sides of the road before it breaks free and squeezes between two rocks.  Now there is just the occasional run-away descending cyclist or distracted motorist looking down at the Broadmoor.  Twice I’ve seen the small black ribbon tied to a juniper, marking the spot where Ed Burke, a published author on cycling health and local rider in the Springs, died of heart attack while riding his bike back in 2002. 

The paved road ends and usually the rider turns here and speeds back down.  Today he decides to continue on the dirt and descend past Helen Hunt Falls.  He hasn’t done this before, there was always a good reason not to ride on the dirt and he doesn’t know how far the road continues.  Riding an unpaved road isn’t so difficult, unless the road climbs past ten percent; he doesn’t know if it does or not.

A mile into the dirt section, the first of two tunnels.  The other end is visible and there’s just a car going by raising the dust a bit.  The road becomes soft inside, sheltered from rain, almost powder.  The second tunnel is much the same, rough and old like the first, and the cool air inside contrasts with the hot Colorado air outside.

At three miles past the pavement there is a parking lot, a sign telling visitors to respect the p lace and each other and the top of the paved road coming up from Cheyenne Canyon.  Tall ponderosa pines, rough red rock, the pleasant tinge of sun-warmed juniper and, soon, the rush of water from Helen Hunt Falls.  Just a few miles from the city, but I roll down the hill in an elemental wonder land.

Up the road

‘The first thing about racing is actually being there at the end.  Then you can worry about your intervals.’

And there in lies the rub.  Four days of racing at the Steamboat Springs stage race, three days of watching the group ride away from me on a hill and four days of struggling with the pollen in the air.  Frustrating, but motivating.

The road race will be like a training ride.  That was true last year and true for the guys heading out at 8am, but by noon the wind had whipped up to thirty miles an hour and the team with the leader thought it would be cool to bury themselves on the two mile climb leading out to the course.  I stayed in the midst of the pack, visualizing a flat road, focusing on the little Assos label on the butt in front of me, thinking of how difficult it would be on my own… funny how time can slow down, until each moment stretched into a prolonged painful series of gasps, each filament of muscle on fire.  I look up and the road is turning to reveal another mile of the climb.  I push and slide back a wheel.  I push and I’m on the end of the group.  Soon I’m off and staring at three lengths to the back.  Five lengths.  I feel the wind full on now and panic a bit, standing up to try to bring back the group.  It’s strung out, guys are falling off in ones and twos and the wheel van is just behind me.  I glance at the odometer; I’m only four miles into a fifty five mile race. 

Riding alone into a headwind for twenty five miles can be a cleansing experience.  Any pretense at ability is washed away.  At fifteen miles I pass the turn in the road.  An ambulance and course marshal yell encouragement.  I nod weakly.  I can’t hear anything, just the constant rush of wind eliminates thought, just white noise to go with the high desert.  Around the turn is a lone rider, thin and bobbing in the wind.  I’m ok, despite the effort, and slowly bring him back.  It takes three miles, but it gives me something to think about.  I can’t see myself, but I see the pain in his eyes and read that he’s giving up.  Somehow it makes me feel better.  When I come up to him, I give him a little relief from the wind; at last someone more helpless than me.

We ride towards the cone, the spot where the course turn back on itself.  Three miles from the spot, the road turns and offers a respite from the wind.  I hit forty miles an hour for a while down a hill and realize my mate has drifted off the back.  Going downhill is my only super power right now.  Before the turn around, groups of twos and threes from the pack head past, about a mile in front of me.  This makes me feel better.  The first few are actually racing, the rest have various blank looks in their eyes.  Just before the cone, one of my teammates is fading fast and I roll up from behind.  His eyes are completely vacant, streams of dried salt and saliva streak his face.  I shelter him in the crosswind, but he struggles to go slow as we hit the cone. 

I soft pedal through the feedzone, grab and drink a bottle and grab another for the pocket.  I glance back and my teamie is not there.  He must have stopped.

Solo now into the wind for a few miles.  Wind and climbs are de rigueur now.  The countryside is a blur of pain, grunting into a wind and pushing on the pedals.  The turn comes and suddenly the wind is a gift and I’m sailing alone and brightly into the sage and pinon.  I know I’ll finish, because now there is no other choice. 

Steamboat Springs

I'm watching my boys now, in the rental condo pool. They keep competing measuring themselves against each other: who can hold their breath the longest; who can sit on the bottom the longest; who can jump the highest out of the water.

By those kinds of measures, I'm not doing so hot right now. It seems that nearly every rider does something better than me: climbing.

Today's circuit race was 30 miles, 4.5 miles at a time at the Maribou Ranch north of town, two miles up, two and a half down. Our first time up the sharp climb to the finish, the group accelerated hard and my lungs started to spasm. Likely a combination of forty degree air, pollen and twenty pounds too much of me. Today's goal was to survive and conserve, same for tomorrow's road race. Monday is a flat, four corner crit, something suited to me.

The kids splash and play. The sun is shining and I feel good, alive.

Last day in Korea

Looking forward to home, but with a last meal of bean paste seafood stew and kimchee, quail eggs soaked in red tea and banana milk.

On to Busan

The air hangs in semi- transparent sheets, between mountainsides fading from deep green to gray in the mist. This is the steamy season in Korea.

Busan is not far, but we stop for a rest stop and soon after there are sandwiches. An hour later we are standing at the beach.

The air burns the lungs, chemicals mixing with heat, humidity, car exhaust and cigarette smoke. I walk the boardwalk slightly lightheaded, pausing near the stacks of tubes, neat rows of beach umbrellas stretching out in five rows in either direction, covering the sand in artificial shade. But there are no shadows.

Time Trial

This place is old.  Stone, wood, water, wind, even the people are elemental, burnt clay figures walking, selling red Chiminyo chile, sitting in the shade by the side of the road.  The sky has an inverted mass of its own, spreading into the gaps of the red rock country, seeping into arroyos and merging with the land.  This is an old place.  This is a place where the forgetfulness of quarter century can be forgotten, absorbed into the sandy ground like an afternoon rainstorm.

The pain comes quickly.  I glance down at the computer on the stem and think that it’s just been one mile, just one, with four more to go before the turnaround and the quick descent back.  No one has passed me yet, though the windy sound of tourists on the highway mimi occasionally a disk wheel slicing through the air, chasing me.

My road winds through canyons.  The sight and smell merge into a memory of the Cevennes, driving with the family from Nimes to St. Flour.  Arid, browns and red and light unfiltered by contaminating moisture.  Smells travel far.  I can smell the pinon before I see it.  I can smell the rain before it falls.

I’m never fast enough on the climbs.  I’m soaked in an inertia I can’t resist and it pull me back to nineteen miles an hour.  The struggle against it is the point, the purpose.  Why else would a grown man dress in a lycra skinsuit and put on the helmet of Bugs Bunny’s Martian nemesis?  Why else?  A mile to go on the climb and I’m passed by my two minute man and then my minute and a half man.

Cordova lies in a valley off of the high road to Taos.  I turn off the high road and go to meet someone from my memory.  In my memory there is a skinny young guy with infectious energy, a mop of black hair and a smile.  We played basketball together thirty years ago.  I have moments with Terry, a pat on the back after a blocked shot, seeing him in the old Marquette hallways, sometimes with an organic odor about him, a difficult scene in a locker room before a game.  A mixture of energy, happiness, pain; I suppose the stuff of our existence.  I pull into the gallery parking lot.

The turnaround comes, a red cone in the road.  I’ve yearned for that cone for a millennia, for fifteen minutes.  Why this is true, I have no idea.  My heart rate was right at threshold the entire time, 162 beats per minute, the measure of my effort.  I turn the cone, hear ‘Keep it up 334!’ and make the turn downward.  It’s easier; I’m faster; the effort is the same, 162bpm. 

A hug.  There is perhaps a slight awkwardness standing in the gallery surrounded by beauty.  How does one compact thirty years of life, time, experience, love, loss, thought into the moment before the shower is offered?  We move through this.  Our conversation offers peeks behind the curtain of who we have become.  The point of this is our becoming. 

I am spinning a 53x11 gear down the hill which means I’m touching 40mph.  My effort is the same, but now I’m fast, flying, steering with my elbows, slicing through space with a narrow focus on the riders ahead who passed me.  When I catch them, they will still be two minutes and one minute thirty seconds ahead of me, but that isn’t the point.

Laughter comes easily and we share riffs of the same ideas, similar experience, like loves.  We share a black market Budweiser in a can, purchased through intermediaries in a local shop.  It tastes good, so I know this place is magical.  Soon, his family comes home and I see Terry from thirty years ago, gangly, a tad awkward, a big smile on his face.  His wife Paula completely shares the beauty of this moment, now as participant but in reality as creator.  I dwell in clear moments talking with each, my mind a mirror of the clouded sky sometimes, but then clear with a memory or thought as we move from place to place, time to time, Milwaukee, Africa, Germany, Santa Fe.  We remember people, times, places and now create something new.

Playing in the garden

His eyes were wide, round circles and his mouth was frozen open, some grass still hanging between his teeth.  A frozen instant we were a few feet from each other, face to face and my eyes were likely as wide as his with the thought of running into a twelve point buck at 40 miles an hour. 

I live a few miles from this moment, and it astounds me every time it happens.

Five times around the Garden of the Gods.  Each loop the same glorious backdrop of high desert and red rocks, Pike’s Peak denting the horizon, each loop the foreground changing from a mule deer in velvet to something else. 

A fellow with cerebral palsy, his body twisted like a clenched fist, rolls along the bike lane, a red umbrella shading his chair and his wife/girlfriend/sister smiling a good morning in unison with him as I roll by the first time, a second time a third time.  They cover the two and half mile loop and we intersect along the way, me feeling a bit guilty as I roll past the Kissing Camel overlook. 

Later, three people on Segways, in the bike lane on the long climb.  What is the point of this?  They dramatically wave me out of the bike lane; we’re all going about 8 miles an hour.  I dramatically ask the leader if he qualifies as a bike or pedestrian. This question seems to surprise him. 

Third time up the climb and I pass some runners.  The woman starts to veer off the path onto the grass to give me room.  ‘No problem, we’re all going really slow.’  This strikes her as really funny. 

Last time up and I move in between a dotted line of older fellows on road bikes.  One is skinny and wearing a Front Rangers jersey from Denver.  He’s about a quarter mile up the climb and is my rabbit.  I catch him before we crest and we chat.  He must be a tad winded as he says ‘So long, have a good ride.’ before I indicate that I’m moving on. 

Each time up the descent, I question my need to do it again.  After the run down to the turn, I forget this, and the all of the other unpleasantness and think, ‘Hey, let’s do that again.’  The fifth time this doesn’t occur to me and I turn up Ridge road, not the last climb before home. 

It seems easier now.

Testing, 1, 2, 3

I have a recurring nightmare.  I’m twenty years old, taking an undergraduate linguistics class at the University of Wisconsin.  In my then-major, German literature, it was an elective.  The prof was basically reading from the book each class and I slowly stopped going.  First it was one day, then I missed two classes in a row.  Then I didn’t attend for a week and a half.  When I finally showed up, she was handing out the mid-term exam and there was a big smile when she saw me darken the doorway to her room.  My dream always ends there, anxiety, panic, an intense desire to run away; it never goes to the next part, where we get our tests back and I have an A-.

Last Saturday was the Colorado State time trial championships in the beautiful countryside north east of the Denver International Airport.  In Britain, a time trial is known as a test, and it is.  Basically, you go as fast as you can for the specified distance.  On Saturday, it was 38 kilometers.  My first season racing in Colorado has also been a test.  In many ways I feel like I’m starting at the bottom again. 

The land around the airport is a bleak prairie landscape.  I can remember the four or five trees I passed fairly clearly today, dark shapes two miles away.  An old parking lot was the hub of the race activity, burned out shells of an RV and many cars lined the western side and tall, steel garbage bins lined the periphery.  We were an oddly nomadic clan of lycra-clad people, walking between a smattering of brightly colored pop-top tents with very expensive, strange looking bicycles. 

People were friendly in that excited way right before something big happens.  Chatty and focused at the same time.  I parked on the edge of the lot, within site of the RV, next to a fellow from the Colobikelaw.com team I recognized from Arkansas.  Couldn’t remember his name, but I was too embarrassed to ask directly, hoping he would offer when he asked my name.  Didn’t. So he will be known as Friendly 55+ guy with the mustache. 

I warmed up on the rollers and then made my way through the rocks at the entrance and rolled back and forth on the dead-end paved road going towards the airport.  Twenty others had the same idea.  Fifteen minutes until my start at 11:24.  Then ten minutes.

Five minutes.  Time for another roll around. 

‘Chris Sauer?’  a loud voice shouts as I roll up towards the start line.  ‘Twenty seconds.’  No time to panic, have second thoughts, worry about what it was I was forgetting.  Clip in and go.

And I’m off and it’s beautiful.  A  wind is blowing right up my butt as I pump out the ten seconds of creatine in a smooth sprint to get up to speed.  I glance down to see the speed… ‘BAM’ That’s the sound of a carbon wheel hitting a pothole.  Holy crap, my right extension is now a few inches lower than my left one. 

I turn left on 120th and head directly west.  The wind is moderate out of the southeast, so this is my tailwind.  I hold my speed at 28, effort is near threshold, but I want to hold back a bit.  The road trends down and I imagine the reverse when I do a u-turn in five miles.  There is paint on the road.  Red is easy, two red lines mean ‘if you hit me, you will be walking’.  But then there are green lines as well.  Green is good?  or bad?  I hit another hole in the road and learn they’re good, the hard way.  Aim for green avoid red.  But then there are yellow lines.  Do I avoid them?  Ride over them?  Or do these mean ‘good luck, you’re on your own?’  I learn later from the fellow from Aspen that we learned about the lines when we were being held up at the start.  I guess twenty seconds wasn’t enough.

I’m passed by someone after the turn-around, and this is disappointing.  I was hoping to hold out longer than 5 miles before being passed.  Soon I’m passed again and again.  Usually as I struggle to maintain speed on a climb.  I feel so fat.  If I lose twenty pounds…  if I lose ten… 

In French, contra le montre, against time.  Against the psyche as well.  There’s so much to think about.  Am I pushing enough?  I glance down and see my heart rate has dropped five beats below my threshold; I push harder.  The rate moves up to 160 and I feel better.

I finish last.  Not in the race, but in my group.  This is disappointing on its face.  My time is twenty seconds over an hour, a respectable time for a big guy I suppose, but I expect more.  There is no hiding in the tt, no way to mask the weakness as it’s exposed.  This is good, but not pleasant.  In me, it creates a resolve to do better.  Unlike the A- on the exam twenty five years ago, there isn’t an amazing outcome.  Everything seems ordinary.

When sixth isn't bad

"Number 104, come over here.  No, you're not in trouble."
I'd only been number 104 for a short time, so it took a second to react.  I was taking a spin around the Angelos de Pueblo criterium course before the men's 35+/45+ race started.  My cat 3 race was still an hour away.

"Your race has been cancelled.  Only three riders signed up."
"Shit."
"You can ride in the 45+ race or get a refund.  How old are you?"  As if age is why I signed up for the cat three's.
"There's only fifteen minutes to warm up."  Pause.  "I might as well race since I drove all the way down here."
On the loudspeaker, "Colorado Bike Law says he might as well race..."

I'm off for my fifteen minutes to warmup.  I need up to an hour for a hard effort.  In fifteen minutes I wouldn't work up a sweat.  My routine is to ride for twenty minutes and then begin three 30 second efforts at high cadence.  It loosens things up and gives my body an idea of what's going to happen to it shortly.  I squeeze in the thirty second efforts for form's sake; part of the warmup is the comforting routine, better stick to that.

There are fourteen riders at the line, one 35+ fellow, three of us cat 3's and ten 45+ riders.  One rider, is the current national record holder for the hour, Norm.  My plan is to hide until I feel warmed up.  Then my plan is stay in the group and hide some more.  This is my first real crit of the year.

The ref sends us off with a relaxed 'go' and I clip in and move to my favorite spot at fifth wheel.  Not in the wind, not too far back so that I have to brake in corners and a spot where I can manage the wheels in front of me.  If I get to the third wheel, there's no way to avoid taking a pull without disrupting the flow. At number five, I can pull into the draft of the fellow moving off the front and keep out of the wind.  The wind is blowing down the back straight, directly in our faces.  This keeps things together until Norm decides to make a break about ten minutes into the race.  I feel bad because I probably could go to, but my legs aren't ready yet and I stay in place.  Norm is joined by another rider from Great Divide and they stay 15-20 seconds in front of us for the rest of the race.

The racing is fairly easy.  Fast but easy.  Riding with experienced guys is nice; there's no braking in the corners and everyone manages their lines pretty well.  The course is layed out in an 'L' shape with a few extra turns before coming out onto the finishing straight with 200m to go.  The finish is just over a small rise and it feels good to spin the lower corner gear right over the top.  In the last corner, the road is split by a small island with traffic light.  In the turn is a crease in the road just past the manhole cover, the only real defect in the course.

Well, that and the old guy with single speed bike drifting across our vision with about ten laps to go.  He's going slow.  I'm sure the marshal sees him.  He's in the middle of the road.  Holy crap he's coming straight across, ignoring the pack of riders bearing down on him.  We swear, we slide, we swear again as we turn the now heavy cranks up the hill.  Norm and co. are now safely away.

Four laps to go and a fellow in green shoots by as the group slows into the wind.  A good tactic, he already has 100m before anyone can react.  He gets third.  Our group settles in for the bell lap.  Mark has been taking all of the pack primes and everyone is satisfied to ride his wheel.  We wind up through the L and I'm holding onto the bars and leaning each arc, inches from the fellow in front of me from the Velonews team.  He's big enough to give me a draft.  The last two turns come and we come past the island, sprinting.  I pass fading riders over the small rise and come up to Mark's back wheel as we cross the line.  Sixth. 

I'm happy.

Cherry Creek Wednesdays

A nice counterbalance to my last two weeks has been a trip north with Karl to do the Wednesday night Cherry Creek Time Trial series, ten miles of fun at Cherry Creek State Park.  About 500 other riders join us as we shove off at 20 second intervals.  Karl heads out at 5:05 and I follow at 5:15:20.  The spacing allows me to keep an eye, albeit one blurred with sweat and whizzing by at 30mph, on him.  He keeps close track of where I cross and pass him on the course each week.

The first week, we crossed paths just before the first turn-around at the west end of the park (week 2-about 200 yds earlier), then I passed him in the final turn-around before the gutbuster climb to the finish (week 2-just at the start of the climb) and then we meet past the finish line when he finishes a couple of minutes after me (week 2, about a minute later).

The first week, our trip was slowed by an overturned tanker blocking I25.  With the detour around, we arrived a few minutes before Karl’s start, grabbed and pinned his number and went to search for the start tent.  It was cold and there was no warm-up for either of us.  My ride was essentially pedaling squares, bouncing around in the saddle and

trying to be smooth.  Karl took a wrong turn and went off course and then turned around and came back. 

He finished with a huge smile on his face.

We both finished last in our groups.  The second week, Karl shaved two minutes off his time to finish fourth and I took off a minute to not finish last. 

New bars for last week’s race made the position a bit more comfortable, up about 10cm and a wider placement of the elbows.

Adding regular, early tt’s to the training is taking the place of a workout with longer cruise intervals and seems to be helping me develop my power at threshold.  Racing with my son on a regular basis has become something much more valuable.

In a Haystack

Thick drool hung from my chin to the aero bar of my bike.  Sand and dirt clotted my teeth and I could just see the outline of Sean’s tire a few inches in front of my own.  I couldn’t see much else; the third turn, and a short run to the finish line were coming up, but I really had no idea of where and how far. 

Gap! 

We had crested a small hill, Sean pushing the pace, alternating with Doug up the rise.  I couldn’t see how fast we were going, rivulets of water and dirt coated the computer and my visor, but it hurt.  A small cramp was emerging from deep inside my right thigh, and I felt Doug’s hand pushing on my butt.  I closed to Sean’s wheel again and we descended, speed picking up and blessed rest settled into both legs as I coasted past Sean to the front.  I had about sixty pounds on both of these guys and the brief respite on the downhills evened things out a bit.  They needed a brief break too.

Sixteen minutes earlier we were a five man team, astraddle five wet, but shiny bikes at the start line of the Haystack team time trial.  Only 12.1 miles to the finish line on a slightly downhill course due to the road closure on the final leg.  It was cool, about fifty and the rain was picking up a bit and we were off.  I slotted in behind Doug, our smallest most aerodynamic rider, and made an immediate note to skip a pull and get behind Colin or Sean at the first opportunity.  The road rose a bit and then a nice descent and I was on the front feeling smooth and fast.  The speed was just at forty as Colin struggled to come around, I eased and moved to the right, into the side wind and drifted to the rear.  We hit a small climb and Colin came back, too fast, and now we were four. 

I found comfort behind Brian, with his more upright position on the bike and the miles began to tick past, a mixture of road spray, dirt and wind.  I’d come through with a pull for thirty seconds or so, see the groups in front of us, coming back to us after their forty and eighty second head starts, and pull a tad harder.  A few miles in, we hit a sharp climb with Sean pulling on the front and the legs burned.  I pulled through quickly and moved over for Doug and then realized Brian was gone.  I yelled gap, but we were now down to the minimum of three; our team time would be determined by the third rider to finish.  This was good; now when I yelled gap, they had to wait.

Of course, the terrible thing was that Doug and Sean offered not much in the way of draft and I could feel each pull on the front sap a bit more of the strength.  We were pushing hard to close on the riders in front of us.  The second turn came and I could no longer think clearly.  The wind was straight on, but my wheel weaved back and forth as I fought the bike and the bile coming up from my stomach.  I skipped a pull, then two, trying to recover.  I would, if I could get just a bit of rest.

Gap!  We crested the hill, Doug was pushing my ass with his hand.  This helped not in pushing me up the road, something akin to lifting yourself off the ground, but it made me angry and I found a pinch of energy to match Sean’s speed for the last 500 meters and cross the line.  Spent.  We averaged exactly 30mph for the race.

We were second, thirty seconds behind the winning team, yet ten seconds ahead of our ‘A’ team.  Brian rolled through the finish, battling cramps, and Colin came through a tad later, wondering why he tried to pull through on my first downhill pull.  These are the things we learn from doing a team time trial. 

From Doug’s report:

We were rolling like a freight train on fire, and 2 of our boys took shrapnel in their legs.  We're drilling with all we have, and Chris explodes.  Seriously explodes.  But somehow, someway, he manages to dig deeper than any man I have ever seen into one of those places inside that can overcome the absolute terror of the moment, and he comes back.  Not only does he come back from the brink, the edge, the pit; but he comes back and allows the "B" team to put around 10 seconds into the "A" team.  Beers all around courtesy of the "A" team I believe? 

So there were 4 teams, and we took 2nd and 3rd, racking up major BAT points.  It was truly an honor to race with these men, I am seriously humbled.

Bicycle Ped'lar won, but they have some massive guys, I think they got 30 seconds on us.

After the race was over, we rode the long road home, washed off the mud from the bikes and hung out over beer and pretzels and allowed the blood to come back into our skulls.  It was a good day.  It was a good day to fight the good fight.

What I know is this: those guys made me a better rider than I was before.

the Koppenberg

I knew something was very wrong when the portapotty, neighboring the one I occupied, blew over.  The floor began to rock backwards and I scrambled towards the door to get it back on the ground.  Outside, my family was huddled in the car.  The sun was out, but the wind whipped the parking area, the registration table began losing forms and riders clutched their bikes, flags were tilting up.  Sand and very small rocks were airborne.  There wasn’t a thought of not racing today; we’d driven 70 miles up to this god-forsaken suburb of Boulder, pre-registered online and committed mentally to the idea of suffering for an hour and a half.

There is a hill on a dirt road in Colorado.  A sign says ‘No Outlet’.  The road is three ridges at the bottom separated by two deep gullies, deeper than the axle of my front wheel.  By the middle of the climb there are two ridges separated by three gullies.  Rocks and sand fill each trench.  Our group of 35+ Masters riders, turns onto the climb and play Monty Hall, ‘I’ll take curtain number 2, Monty’ with the ridges.  I choose correctly but mid hill, my tire slides into a trough and I stall into a strange trackstand, kept upright by the gusting wind and my tire wedged into the side of the hill.   I am the only one that has this problem and the group crests the grade and turns right.  I unclip and scramble the rest of the way, jump on the seat and pedal east, the wind on my side.  The group stays just in front, a few hundred meters away, but I can’t make the tail.

The road turns to pavement with a thump where pavement and dirt come together in a elongated hole.  I’m abusing my bike now, focusing on the peloton instead of the pavement.  I make the gap smaller by diving the corner onto the highway and get the full tailwind now.  I’m doing 45, but the group begins to pull away a bit.  Another corner helps me close and then the straightaway to the finish.  Each straight the group gains ground.  When we hit the dirt, I know I can’t close before the hill.

The flyer said the hill is 17 percent.  On a dirt road with sand, this means the rear wheel will slip unless it’s weighted with my rear end.  Climbing a road that steep seated is a painful exercise.  I’m sure it’s good for me in some strange way.

‘That’s it, keep it up.’ ‘C’mon, get back in the game.  they’re just ahead.’  None of this helps, really.  It’s a physical problem, physics problem.  Mass (ie. my large self) + Force (where is my watt meter again?)= I can only go up this hill so fast without blowing up.  I have to do it four more times.  Can I do it four more times?  The wind greets me full in the face at the top, sand blows in under my glasses. 

This really sucks.  Each time up the hill is a slowly increasing fraction, one out of six, two out of six, three times (only half left!).  I ride by myself.  Twice, a fellow rides by on the section past the hill, gapping me for a few moments and then blowing completely up as I pass.  I assume they drop.  I parcel out the effort, thinking of finishing.  On lap 5, a fellow from the Swift team, who I passed two laps before, comes by, sucking the wheels of two pro riders out warming up on the course.  It’s not fair, so I grab his wheel until the pros are gone.  He’s friendly and we chat.  We take turns pulling and my legs feel much better. 

I have no idea who is behind me, but I’m determined I will not be last.  On our last time up the hill, I take a pull and then recover.  Onto the highway, I move to the front and stay there.  I glance back at the last turn and don’t see him.  I’m definitely not last.

Spring, Winter, Spring…

After three 70 degree days of sun and gentle breezes, I’ve got tan lines on my arms and legs.  Yesterday’s 85 mile ride out to Hannover left me feeling like spring had finally arrived.  Today the snow is falling; it’s thirty and a winter storm warning has caused me to cancel my visit to the vomitron in Denver.  I feel bad about that.  I was scheduled to take a VO2-max test as part of the bone density study I’m participating in.  During my last visit in January, I found out what my fat percentage was (it’s not good).  I still hold out hope that with the machine snipping off my scalp and the bottoms of my feet (it was inexplicably made for people shorter than me), that somehow my fat percentage is lower.

I doubt the vomitron would have any wiggle room in determining my aerobic capacity.  I thought about this yesterday in the middle of my ride, contemplating the horizon line of sage brush and browned grass, would finding out ‘my number’ actually help me or hurt me?  Would it be better to labor under the illusion of superior aerobic capacity, than find out that I have all of the innate endurance talent of a chain-smoking couch potato? 

My tribe, your tribe

The road down the canyon on Manitou Ave is a gradual downhill, following Fountain Creek on its voyage from trout stream in Manitou Springs to drainage ditch in Colorado Springs.  The air is crisp and the sun is out and I’ve been promised via several weather sites that today will be warm and sunny.  Three miles down the road, I see two cyclists slowly coming back to me; the catch is just before highway 24’s on-ramp at the gas station’s green dinosaur.

‘Morning!’ to the first one, a man dressed in fluorescent yellow ‘please don’t hit me’ attire.  Does he look at me?  I’m not sure though I’m just inches away when I greet him.  No answer.  I move on.

‘Nice morning, eh?’  This time to what must be his significant other, identically attired in fluorescent yellow.  Her expression isn’t exactly vacant, but a slight grimace is poking through.  Again, no answer, not even eye contact.

I’m not sure why this bothers me, but by the time Old Colorado City’s shops show up, I’m thinking that it’s related to something I shared with my students the other night.  Humans, I said, have two distinct needs.  First they want to belong to a group.  Second, once they belong to a group, they want to exclude others from it.  I’m not sure these two fluorescent cyclists were proof of that second maxim, but I’ve noticed something over and over; folks dressed in cycling kit obviously connected with some team will greet and wave, almost without exception, and cyclists dressed in generic kit with no sponsor names or logos, often will not.  Being part of the former group, I know the work that has gone into being part of a team and racing in general.  One of my favorite quotes from the pack, heard years ago, was that in racing ‘you have to be really fit just to suck.’  So true.  When I see someone out training, we both are sharing a bond of training, pain, dedication, sacrifice that is  a large common ground for us.  Someone dressed in Performance gear out for the first time since the last warm day of fall, not so much.

After I get to the ride start, the group of assembled riders provide another example of this two-wheeled, instinctual tribalism.  The first thing to notice on this warm day even before the team jersey, does the rider have hairy legs?  On the first part of the ride, heading east on Boulder, a rider with hairy legs fails to clip in, swerves into the traffic lane and nearly gets hit by a car.  Everyone notices and for the rest of the ride he is a marked man, an interloper in the tribe.  In the paceline, everyone moves to be in front of him or at least three wheels back. 

Later, when we’re chasing to get back on after Link Hill (yes, I was dropped again this week—long story), I was working with five riders, including Mr. Hairy, and noticed that when he would pull left in the paceline, he would continue accelerating, gapping the rider behind and leaving him in the wind.  Very rude.  Of course, he didn’t know any better and I tried to explain to him what he was doing.  ‘Watch me, pull through and then downshift and let the rider behind get your draft.’  Such a simple idea, to think of the other rider in the wind.  Might even seem altruistic, except everyone needs to be strong to catch the group.  But knowing how to act in the group is also a sign of belonging to the tribe, knowing its rules.

I catch and get dropped a couple of times today.  There is still some funkiness left in the legs from the virus two weeks ago and they feel stiff and congested.  By mile 60, heading up the canyon on Manitou Avenue, I have to stop; I feel like I’m bonking.  What is it?  The food is the same.  Am I overdressed?  Did I work too hard taking pulls?  Did I do too much during the week?  Am I still sick?  I make the final climb up to our perch on Pilot Knob feeling completely knackered and lie flat on the floor for a few minutes. 

It was a beautiful day for a ride.

Dancing with bugs

I was riding the hairy edge of longer hours in the saddle and colder temps outside when a cold virus knocked me off my feet.  Only a few days of no riding, but it’s amazing how much a virus takes out of one’s ambition to write on their blog…

The snow fell and melted, fell and melted again and Saturday’s training ride came around with a sunny and 45 degree forecast; it was time to push it a bit again.  A large group turned out, the sun warmed the front of the Starbucks and folks chatted away, catching up, some after a winter-long absence from the ride.  It all made me feel less bad about cutting from fourteen hours down to five and then then ten in the two weeks before.  A group of five or six Garmin-kitted juniors were there, the largest single team, along with another junior from the Frontrangers, a local junior team that Karl wants to join next year. 

We rolled away, fifty strong and I settled into the paceline wondering how everything would fall into place today.  I wasn’t feeling bad, just a bit of phlegm (isn’t that a cool word to type?).  We turned on Boulder and the group split as about ten guys nearly ran the light.  We slowly brought them back before leaving Platte, but already the pace was spitting people out the back.  At one light, a red-faced fellow in matching jersey sputtered about how no one else seemed to breathing hard. 

‘We’re just hiding it.’ I laughed, but never saw him again.

South onto Marksheffel and the pace slows into the south wind.  ‘This is the slowest we’ve ever climbed this hill’ and Cody isn’t kidding.  Soon the pace increases and a double paceline forms.  I’m feeling Ok enough to move into it and I take a longer pull.  Not bad, but just as I pull off, a couple of juniors blast out from behind, attacking. 

‘What the fuck?’  Tired, I drift back twenty wheels and take it easy.  Five juniors tried to hit it hard and then died in the wind.  Not good form, attacking an old bloke like me.  Later, I think that maybe they downplayed the strength of the wind while coasting in my draft, but it was still bad form to attack.  Now, though, they are stuck on the front; not one of the older guys is moving to the front for them.  They’re too dumb to figure out why.

The pace goes up and down, led by the antics for the teenagers on the front.  When it’s time to climb Link Hill, I don’t have the gumption to make a big effort and slowly let the group pass.  It just doesn’t feel right and I listen to the body and back off.  For the next five miles or so, I beat a tempo and cruise about 20mph into the wind, catch another guy and chat until the group doubles back after the second sprint.  I’m pleased that I’m recovering, bummed at the loss of form to the virus, but eager to be on the upside with races starting in a month.

Potholes in the road

The water bottle flew past my head.  Its trajectory would give me a few inches to spare, but I ducked to the right just to make sure.  Where was I?  In a bike store confronting an angry clerk?  In a heated post-race argument over the correct line in the final corner? 

Nope, I was safely ensconced in a paceline heading south on our Saturday morning ride.  Partly due to the tax policy of Colorado Springs and partly due to the cold December, the road was a patchwork of holes, many deep enough to swallow a wheel.  I chose the safer, outside line; I like an ‘out’ if someone wiggles or has a brain fart.  A few riders in front, the fellow in the Discovery kit, a former member of their masters team in California, hits a hole.  The bottle flies over two riders, past my face, hits the pavement and slides harmlessly into the opposite lane.

There a bunch of us, some fit, some not so fit and we’re riding hard into a freezing fog.  My fingers hurt, thawing now that we’re going hard and I’m pleased with how I’m feeling, strong and smooth, as we crest the hills before the pace ramps up on Marksheffel Road. 

‘Shit!’  Discovery Guy has hit another pothole and this time his second bottle rolls underneath the wheel of the rider behind him, an older guy on a purple, steel bike with downtube shifters.  His front wheel crushes the bottle and the contents spray into the air covering me from sunglasses to shoes.  We’re going fast, I’m spun out in a 53x14, and Purple Bike Guy keeps himself upright despite a high speed wobble from two broken spokes in his front wheel.  He pulls to the left of the line and a truck promptly does a high speed pass of the group and nearly kills him. 

Sometimes groups rides are like this.  A group dissonance runs through the pack and bad things happen.  Wheels lap, guys make bad decisions, people get hurt.  Thinking about it, it’s wondrous our high speed dance doesn’t result in more of this than it does.  Discovery Guy is next to me in the paceline.  He has no bottles left.  ‘Think it’s time for some new cages?’ 

‘Did that guy go down?’  He seems concerned.  ‘Nope, just broke some spokes.’  He’s satisfied with this and continues his ride.  I imagine that Purple Bike Guy is on the side of the road, ten minutes later and several miles back now, thinking about his solo ride back to town on a broken wheel. 

There is one more brainfart: a fellow on the Spike team, someone I’ve had words with before, comes by on the right side of the paceline and sends a shard of pottery skittering into the line.  It clinks off several bikes before sliding underneath me.  There was no reason for the fellow to push ahead on the inside, and doing so put us all in danger again.  Later the same fellow splits the group by leading folks past the customary stop for water in Fountain.

We regroup and ride tempo north, towards home.  This is our reconnecting time.  Some of us have been gone, some have come for the first time and we chat in two rows, moving along at 22mph on the rolling roads to Fort Carson.  The freezing fog is lifting and a cold sun is out.  The temperature nudges past freezing and the sun warms our black layers and I feel relief.  After our second sprint point, my lips and lower jaw were numb, the blood needed for more important things in the legs.  Now, in the sun’s warmth and the comfort of the draft, everything seemed just right in the world.

Flying with B52s

The cold comes in through the fingertips, slowly spreading until I have to take my hand off the bar and move it a few times to push the cold back out.  There is sun today and there is wind, twenty miles per hour of it out of the northwest.  Five of us push against it thinking about the tailwind we’ll enjoy on the flipside.

Sean can’t help himself.  Each hill represents a chance to burst forward from the confines of the group.  Having twenty percent of the group surge ahead breaks the tempo a bit, but no one says anything.  We’re cold, maybe that’s it.  Or maybe complaining about the pace would be an admission of weakness, something a middle-aged man is normally loathe to do.  I’m leading the ride, it being in my neck of the woods, so folks off the front have to ask directions from the plodding old man each time we reach a turn.

I’m at the end of a fourteen hour week, long for me, the last week of the first base period.  Next week the hours are cut in half to seven and I’ll do a power test to see where things are at.  And then the second base period will begin with a twelve hour week.  There’s a rhythm to the year that I find pleasant, an ebb and flow of fitness and fatigue, recovery and exertion that mimics the world’s rhythms.  It’s impossible to be in peak form year round and this period I’m in now is building the large base of aerobic fitness needed for the hard stuff coming in a few months’ time.

All of this might seem like narcissistic navel gazing to some, but riders understand it deep down.  I have to, otherwise Sean shooting away on the climbs would be discouraging.  During our roll up to the Academy, I ask him how his training is going, and he confides that he’s focusing more on mountain biking this year and hasn’t ridden a great deal.  Somehow this makes me feel better, but I know better than to trust a roadie telling me he hasn’t been riding much.

We round into the wind full on as we leave the south gate and enter the Air Force Academy proper.  The road here is probably the best in the area.  Undeveloped, smooth, little traffic and long climbs.  Four climbs to be exact if one takes Pine to the left and does the entire ten mile loop.  “What is the elevation?” one of the guys asks.  “We top out at 7400.  On the second climb.”  I tell everyone to feel fine about leaving me behind, my legs are a bit tired, and we roll into the wind.

The first climb comes and I fall off the back with our team leader, Doug, and the U23 (Under 23) rider, Taylor.  He’s actually U20 and spent a few weeks this summer riding in France and Belgium with Bruyneel’s camp.  He’s supple on the bike and has that narrow look of younger riders, more greyhound than Clydesdale.  I assume he’s being polite to stay with Doug and me as Sean and Steve have gone up the road in a fit of climbing exuberance.  The climb is long, more than a mile, and I know there’s more to come, so I’ve settled into a hardish pace that I can keep for a while.  Doug and Taylor move away and then come back and soon we’ve crested and begin the second climb to the high point.  The views fall away to our right and, through the tall pines, we can see the mess that is Colorado Springs and the tree line of Black Forest to the north.  On our left the foothills sometimes block the wind and sometimes funnel it directly at us.  Sean and Steve are waiting at the pull out on top of the climb.

We eat bananas and powerbars and zip up for the descent.

“Turn left at the T-junction.  There’s still two more climbs.”  Doug says Oh, great, who picked this route?  and we laugh and slot in for the short descent.  The third hill is psychologically a challenge, it can be entirely seen from the descent, but it’s a power climb and I feel good and keep a nice tempo up it and stay with Doug and Taylor and watch the other two hit the top a few hundred meters ahead.  The last climb comes after another descent and Taylor blows up and falls back with Doug, who offers a helping hand.  It’s not long, but again one can see it coming and think about it too much before actually working on it.  I know what comes next, the long descent to the B52 and a right turn where we’ll feel the wind’s hand on our back, helping us home.

Forty six years

Yesterday was my birthday.  The day before, it occurred to me that I was getting older.  Not because of the hard ride my teammates on Colobikelaw put me through on a supposed ‘easy’ day on ‘flat’ roads southeast of Denver.  After three hours of four-man echelons into the wind and chasing down escapees on the hills, it suddenly popped into my brain that thirty years ago I built my first wheel.

I was suddenly old. 

Sixteen years old, riding my bike to a small bike shop on the north side of Milwaukee, in the ‘core’ of the projects on 23rd Street and Fond du Lac Avenue, I had no idea how the decision to apply for a job posted on the board at school would change me and the direction of my life.  A couple of years earlier I had ridden my first century on a Sears Free Spirit ten speed, an abomination of a bicycle.  Made with plumber’s pipe painted a dull mustard and fitted with the lowest tier of components available, it even sported ‘safety’ levers on the brakes.  Riding one hundred miles on it, lap after lap through Whitnall Park for a March of Dimes fundraiser in 1978 did three things.  First it destroyed the bike and launched my experience as a bicycle mechanic, then it showed me the delicious joy of riding for hours on a bicycle.  I was hooked and started racing the next year on a Trek, before Trek was cool.

And it led me to a bicycle shop far away from my semi-suburban home on Milwaukee’s southwest side.  About that same time I remember a story in the Journal about minority numbers in the different areas of the city.  Our area, with a population of 10,000 had exactly three minority residents.  I rode the city bus (or my bicycle) to my high school every day, a ten mile trip that took me past County Stadium and up through Pigsville.  Marquette High was on 35th and Wisconsin Avenue and I never noticed before that every white person on the bus got off there and a crowd of black people stood waiting to get on.  After two years, I rode the bus past Wisconsin for the first time and it hit me like a brick; I was the only white on the bus.  Years later, I would have the same experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in a small village on the edge of the Kalahari. 

I’ve been led to many places by my bikes.  As I reflect on my life so far, there are few regrets, few lost opportunities to keep me awake with thoughts of what could have been.  Perhaps it’s lingering fatigue from yesterday’s ride, but a sense of contentment is all that I find and a renewed excitement anticipating the time ahead. 

A new year

A painful blue sky backdrops the red stone formations of the Garden of the Gods.  White then gray then dark mist coalesce into clouds riding the north wind south.  It’s likely snowing just a few miles away on Woodmen Avenue.  Here the sun penetrates the freezing wind and my left side is warm climbing Mesa’s two mile rise.  My legs feel great; I’m sneaking a ride in before a predicted snow storm; every turn of the crank feels like a bonus, a reprieve from another session on the rollers.

It’s a new year, full of the possible, the improbable, the likely.  Cycling-wise, I’ve joined a new team and have had the opportunity to ride with some good guys, good at cycling and good in the Aristotelian sense as well. 

A new year also means a new training cycle.  This week is my first week of Base 1 (Base 123, Build 123, etc) and I’ve had the chance to supplement a bit with xc skiing at 10000 feet in Breckenridge.  Nothing like a good lungbuster workout with a better skier to push a limit. 

Plans for 2010?  Cycling: use my new TT bike to get better at the TT events up in Denver, develop a rapport with my team and work on winning races together, drop a few pounds and continue progressing in my fitness: increase my total hours to 600 this year.  Build a bicycle frame.

Off the bike: Develop more friendships with adults, something that seemed to get harder as I got older.  Spend good time with the family, continue keeping time to ride and be with Janet alone, hike a few 14 teeners, find time to write more.

All good things.