Saying rosaries

I’m cycling with friends, two guys I’ve spent a lot of time with on the road, pushing limits in races and just putting saddle time in during six hour rides.  These two, Mike and Byron, are pretty much the only guys I know here in the Springs who will say ‘Sure, why not?’ when I ask if they want to do a 120 mile loop up to Sedalia and over to the Platte River.  We’re riding from Woodland Park and down to Deckers.  They’re continuing on to Pine Grove which adds about 5000 feet of climbing to the ride.  I did a couple of months ago with Mike, and we both bonked, or met the ‘man with the hammer’ about ten miles out of Woodland Park.  I would love to do it as well today, but I’m still recovering from a cold and 60 miles and 3000 feet of climbing will have to do.

Riders give up about 1500 feet in elevation on the way to Deckers, but it doesn’t happen in a consistent way.  After ten miles of descending, we climb three miles to Trout Creek Road.  The healthy ponderosa forest has given way to the Hayman fire burn, a fire that burned so hot in 2002, that nothing has grown since; the ground was scorched.  Blackened logs still lie on the ground, charred stumps dot a tree line where there are no trees. 

It has been a week since I’ve had a good ride, one that made me sweat.  Today I feel like a teammate, indeed Mike is a teammate and we’re sporting matching jerseys, so I pull into the wind for twenty five miles.  I set the pace at a comfortable effort on the edge of my 60 minute threshold, my power meter numbers moving back and forth over 275 watts.  Mike and Byron line out behind me, taking the big draft and not really making an effort to pull.  And that’s fine, they’ll be doing another twenty miles then I, climbing out of Deckers on a six mile climb averaging 7 percent on a mind-numbingly straight road.  I’ll have a bar in Deckers and then toddle back to Manitou Springs at my own pace, so I can lay down an effort here and help them save themselves for later.  Teammates.

We run the downhill to Deckers.  Twelve miles of downhill, steeper at the beginning.  I’ll be doing the inverse in about an hour, so I enjoy the speed as the numbers run up to 55 miles an hour.  The first corner is a hairpin and the rubber on the rear wheel distorts and I feel the wheel moving to the outside of the turn, fucking clinchers.  I move my weight forward and tap the front brake to push weight forward and normality returns.  A straight through the burnt timber, and then two turns in sequence.  I don’t scrub any speed and counter steer a bit to lower myself into the turns.  It feels wonderful, like hang-gliding on wheels.  The sides of the road are a blur, but I’ll get to ponder them in slower detail soon.  I don’t hear any cassette noise behind me and glance back under the arm; Mike is about two hundred meters behind, catching up now and Byron is not to be seen.  Mike and I stop and I hope Byron is not laying against a rock with a handlebar in his gut.  He isn’t; he rolls up in a minute.

‘Chris, when’s your next race?’  ‘I don’t know, I have to figure out my heart.’  I then explain my tachycardia ‘event’ at the Haystack TTT; I’m not sure what feels worse, the racing heartrate at 250bpm and days of fatigue that followed, or letting my three teammates down.  Instead of finishing first, they came in last, minus one large ttt rider with plenty of draft. 

Deckers comes up and we slow into the parking lot.  Bikers, motorized, line the parking area, watching us as they sip beers and lattes in the shade of the patio.  I really want to continue on with these blokes.  ‘Have a good ride, guys.’  And off they go.

My legs feel the strain of the first twenty five miles; the road moves up first as a faux plat.  I can feel nerve ending burning in the quads and hips.  The pedals turn on their own now and my mind works in the Colorado sun.

‘Road cycling is boring.’  Often I have conversations with myself or others as a I ride.  Probably too much of the aforementioned sun, or maybe this is initial onset psychosis, but I often talk to folks for periods of time, not out loud, or write things that never end up on the page.  I’m thinking of what a friend said the other day on a nighttime walk in Vancouver.  Outside of the stunning scenery around me, this would be the boring part of the ride.  Clomping along at ten miles an hour up a twelve mile climb, why do I not find it so? 

I think of religious metaphors, for the benefit of my friend?, and compare where I am to a church, granite spire, evergreen windows and a baptismal font on my left called the South Platte River.  If there is a God and he does have an interest in hanging out with us, this place would be a fine one to do so.  Prayer.  What is it but an inner conversation between the self and Self, atman and Atman, person and God.  I move higher.  My body is rhythmic, each turn of the crank another bead on the rosary.  What is the purpose?  What is the purpose of prayer but to move closer to the Source of what and who we are.  My mind is emptying.  Thought is consumed by the effort of climbing.  Passion is funneled into the muscles of the legs and shoulders, body swaying, hands gripping; love is burned in the firing synapses, the effort of muscle and thought.  At the top, I’m empty, pure, a vessel waiting to be filled.

A downhill run and I’m climbing again.