Chained Together

Mike and Paula have been friends of ours since our kids were preschoolers.  We really missed them when they moved to Worland, WY some years ago. We’ve always kept in touch and see each other on occasion.  They are treasured friends.

Their nest has emptied and, with both their kids now in college at the University of Wyoming, they are off on a transcontinental tandem cycling adventure, crossing the United States from Anacortes, Washington to Brunswick, Maine.  I’m very excited for them and wanted to share a link to their blog, so you can follow them too!  They will be posting updates as they go, and you can sign up for email alerts when new posts are added.

Mike and Paula begin their journey tomorrow, May 27, 2015.  Follow them here, at Chained Together : Paula and Mike’s transcontinental tandem tour

Mike and Paula, best of luck to you both.  Here is my wish for you:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand. (-an old Irish blessing)

Stay in touch, cycling friends!

The Reluctant Cyclist

Our daughter Lauren was first introduced to life in a family of cyclists by riding in our old yellow and red Burley, which is a pull-behind trailer, snugly fastened in her baby carrier.   She soon grew into toddlerhood, and the baby carrier was replaced with pillows, books, stuffed Beanie Baby cats, juice, and snacks.  All these items had to be present in order for her to be agreeable about getting in the Burley.  If any ingredient was missing, we might be far away from home and hear an insistent little voice coming from behind her Dad’s bicycle, “I’m hungry!”  or  “I want something to drink!” The insistent little voice had no patience for the fact that her father had to find a safe place to stop, pull over, and meet her important demands.  It was just easier to have everything packed in the elastic Burley pockets so she could help herself.  The pinnacle of her Burley experience occurred one year we participated in the Moonlight Classic ride, a night ride beginning and ending in downtown Denver.  We packed the Burley as usual so she’d be happy, with the addition of a lantern hanging from one of the interior support bars of the Burley.  She got a lot of attention in the middle of the night from fellow riders and onlookers as she happily snacked on goldfish crackers and read her books by lantern light while we pedaled along.  She was in love with this arrangement.

But growing too big for the Burley meant that it was time for Lauren to learn to ride her own bike.  This was not exactly how she planned to participate in her family’s favorite activity.  Pedal on her own?  Keep up with her older brother?  Impossible! (The latter is certainly true, none of us can keep up with him).  That would mean exercise and (gasp) work!

We collectively set out to try to teach and encourage Lauren to ride her bike.  We bought her the quintessential pink sparkly girly bike with training wheels, which she liked to look at and play with, filling the polka dot basket with either stuffed cats or real cats. As long as she didn’t have to get on the bike herself, she liked it just fine, thank you very much.   Her brother Dan, who was about 8 at the time, did his best to cheer her on, running alongside her on the patio, and even helping her push her foot down on the pedals when she couldn’t get going. Teaching her wasn’t easy.  There were a few tears.  There was even more whining.  But mostly there was a lot of just-not-interested.  We lamented to ourselves that she might not really get the hang of it and if she did, she probably wouldn’t be joining us on rides.

It was ok with us if she didn’t want to be a cyclist like the rest of us; to each his own after all.  We finally decided we only wanted her to simply learn how, just as a life skill she should have.  What she did after that was up to her.  She reluctantly did learn how, and that was the end of her bike-riding days for several years.

Lauren watched her brother become immersed in cycling throughout his high school years.  He got a job at a bike shop at 15, and continued to work there until he graduated.  He commuted to work and school year-round, defying weather and gas prices.  He mountain-biked several times a week, raced a little bit, and talked a lot about bikes in general, all the time.  A running joke at our house was, “Dan says, if  [insert personal or world problem here], ride your fixed gear.”  In other words, riding was the solution to everything.  This constant barrage of bike talk and culture between her brother and parents must’ve rubbed off on her.  Last summer she decided she wanted to dip her toes into the world of bikes, so she started to ride a bit with him.  First it was just around the neighborhood, then maybe to the nearby gas station, then to the grocery store.  It soon became clear that the years of worn-out hand-me-down bikes from Dan were over and Lauren needed her own bike.

We surprised her last summer with her very own, brand-new Trek 7.2 city bike, a perfect all-around choice for her, and found on sale, easy on our wallet in case things didn’t work out.  Suddenly, a whole new world opened up for her.   She discovered she could ride by herself to the store to get her own snacks anytime she wanted (some things never change).  She discovered she didn’t have to wait for someone to give her a ride somewhere, she could just go.  She discovered that sweet taste of freedom that is so very unique to cycling.

Recently, Lauren, now 16 and on the cusp of getting her driver’s license, was at our church helping her youth group when I received a text asking to ride to a friends’ house.  I OK’d the trip and asked her to text me when she got there, knowing that she had a couple of busy streets to cross.  My phone beeped upon her arrival and she wrote, “It was fun!”  I re-read those words several times, smiled, and jokingly replied, “Who is this and where is my daughter?”

Turns out she discovered the very best thing of all about cycling.  It was fun.  That’s the beautiful, simple joy about being on one’s bike that we never expected she would experience, and we’re so happy for her.  She tells me she wants to keep riding even after she gets her driver’s license.  I hope she does; for either transportation, enjoyment, or both.

Welcome to cycling, Lauren.  It IS fun. And you can have snacks.

Lauren and Dan (in front) on her maiden ride with her new bike.

 

Keep Moving Forward

My journey back to cycling since my hemorrhagic stroke (a brain bleed, not clot-related) has not gone like I had imagined it.  When I was in the first few months of my recovery, I looked ahead to the end of Summer 2013 and figured I would be riding 65-mile day tours just like I had at the end of Summer 2012.  But my body has not recovered exactly like that.  This reality has forced me to analyze my attitudes about goals and what they really mean to me.

The first time I got on a bicycle after the stroke was about five months into my recovery.  My left leg was still pretty wobbly, and I knew I wasn’t ready for my road bike.  I ventured out on my old hardtail mountain bike, with my husband and son in tow.  Everything felt marginally okay, until I had to stop.  I put my leg down to stop, and it crumpled up underneath me. I realized that my body and my bad leg did not remember how to stop.  It’s hard to explain, but my muscles didn’t know what to do.  Although I knew in my head how to stop, knew what it felt like and could envision it, I had to start over from square one like a child riding her bike for the first time.  I learned to think through the stop from start to finish, step by step.  It wasn’t easy, and it took a lot of practice.  Time passed, and finally I was ready to try clipping in on my road bike.  I spent over an hour starting and stopping in my back yard on the grass, so I could fall without getting hurt (which I did a lot).  Finally, I was starting to get it again, awkward as I was.  My long-term goal of just going out for a ride was waylaid by this whole start-and-stop problem that I didn’t expect.

Last summer I was a 42-year old,  in the best physical condition of my life, enjoying my 6th year as a recreational road cyclist.  Multi-day tours with mileage averaging 60-80 miles, day tours of at least 65 miles, and training rides of 20-30 miles were my norm until the stroke.  I even finished my first century two summers ago and planned on doing more.  These are humble accomplishments in the cycling world, for sure.  But to go from that state of physical condition to where I am now has been a dramatic adjustment.  I really had to change how I envisioned my recovery.  ‘Out’ was the unrealistic goal of riding the 65-mile Tour of The Moon my husband and I had enjoyed so much in October 2012, or most of my other favorite summer tours. ‘In’ was the goal of completing a ride without falling on my mountain bike.  Next goal was getting back on the road bike.  Next was completing a training ride without falling, and so on.  Right now I’m up to about 35 miles on my road bike, no falls and getting more and more confident with starts and stops. My last riding goal for the summer is to simply participate in the Venus de Miles Colorado for the sixth time.  I won’t be able to do century or metric century as in years past, but I can still ride it.  Small goals, small victories.

I’ve gone through most of life with big goals, and not ever had a problem with how I’d set them or attained them. If I worked hard enough, I reached them.  This time though, I don’t have total control over how my body is healing.  I can only work very hard and let time do the rest.  We’ve all had failures and have to learn how to deal with them in our own way.  Failure doesn’t have to become a reality, though, when goals are just a little smaller.  Reaching those small goals is just as satisfying as reaching the large ones; the important thing is to keep moving forward.

Keep moving forward.

Keep moving forward.

Those three words are what have kept me grounded throughout this entire recovery.  Those three words are what reassure me that no matter how small my goal might seem, it’s worthwhile and fulfilling to reach it.  No matter how little a step forward might seem, it’s still further along than before. Whatever your goal was or is, try not to dwell on looking back or worrying about the far-ahead future.  Step by step, small accomplishment at a time, you will get to where you need to be. Just keep moving forward.

“Go back?” he thought. “No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!” So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter.” 

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Stress relief

“I don’t want to go”, I thought.  I had a million excuses running through my mind.  “…this week has been too stressful…my teenager has been hard to get along with…been up too late helping my daughter with her 4H projects for the County Fair…stood too long in line today and my back is killing me…have to get up at 4:30 am and I’m exhausted…”  The list kept getting longer the more I let my stress envelop me.  I really, really did not want to ride that day.  But I had paid my entry fee, and my friend would be picking me up at 5:30 am.  No turning back.

Reluctantly, I got my act and my gear together.  My friend and I arrived in Waverly, CO, just after sunrise on a gorgeous Sunday morning.  I went through my little routine of getting my bike and gear ready, without really thinking about it.  I was just on auto-pilot.  My mind continued to race about things I needed to get done when I got home, the activities to get ready for the next week, the worries of a mom of a teenage boy.  The accumulated stress and fatigue weighed on me as if I were a cartoon character holding two pieces of broken bridge together so the cartoon car could pass, but I tried not to let it show.

Around 7 am,  we were ready to ride.  There were a few of us at the side of the road, just hanging around.  The ride people had said they would have an organized start at 7 am, but there didn’t seem to be anything happening.  I was chomping at the bit, already worried about when we’d finish the 72-mile ride because I needed to get home.  I asked my friend, “Are you ready to go?” and she said yes, so I clipped in.

I took one pedal stroke, then another.  The air was crisp with the promise of a warm day ahead.  Another stroke, and- that’s when it happened- a crack.
It was a crack in the cement shell of stress that was encasing me.
Another turn, faster this time, muscles warming.  Ka-chunk!  A large piece of the shell fell away.
My mind awakens, and another huge chunk breaks free, crash!.  Pedaling faster…more pieces falling behind me…breaking free…FREE!
All the worries, the thoughts, the list of to-do’s, the excuses not to ride; they are all erased.  The negatives are replaced with the peaceful bliss of a morning view of the Rockies, a cool breeze, and the simple rhythm of my cadence.

The effect of riding on my psyche has never been so obvious to me as right at that moment.  The perfect stress relief.

Learning to Fly…and Fail

“You can ride 20 miles, right?”  That’s the question that I kept tucked close in my consciousness, ready to pull it out every time doubt tried to enter my mind.  It was a question my friend and riding partner frequently repeated to me too, whenever my doubt managed to escape my lips in the form of a complaint or fear.  Her logic was, “If you can ride 20 miles, there will be a rest stop.  Then you just ride to the next stop”, and so on.  (I’ve finished college now, and I believe this argument would fall under the fallacy of non sequitur or the composition fallacy.  Nice try, Jersey girl).  This question convinced me, in my extremely novice, unfit, and apparently delusional state, that I could handle a 72-mile ride in the Colorado Rockies.  Three mountain passes, one day.  “I’ll just ride a lot and train,” I thought. No sweat.

I had purchased my first road bike in the fall, so the spring/summer season leading up to the big ride was my first opportunity to put some miles on.  It was hard.  Everything hurt at first, despite the fact that I really enjoyed being out and doing something active.  But dang, I just didn’t seem to get stronger!  Twenty miles felt ok, but I was pretty tired afterward.  A thirty mile ride was really pushing it; my neck, back, and ass throbbed and begged for Motrin when I got home.  I could put in a forty-miler, but it took me hours to finish and nearly the whole next day to recover.  “I’ll just ride a lot more”, I thought.  No sweat.

In early summer, my friend starting talking me up about the Copper Triangle, a mid-August ride in Colorado.  The ride began at Copper Mountain Resort, near Frisco, and made a triangular loop over Fremont Pass, Tennessee Pass, and finally Vail Pass, with the downside ending back at the resort.  I went online and looked at the elevation chart for the ride.  It was a nifty little preview representing the hills we would be covering.  The lines on the chart zigzagged up and down like a heart monitor attached to someone having a really bad day.  I clicked the “Register” button on the screen anyway, and signed up.  I could sense the fear and doubt bubbling up from the pit of my stomach, but I made myself repeat my new mantra, “You can ride 20 miles, right?”

The summer kept moving on and we kept riding several times a week.  This can only happen when you’ve got a really supportive friend who will keep riding with you despite your whining and tortoise speed.  It can also only happen when you have a family at home who is cheering you on, encouraging you to go ride on those warm summer evenings and not worry about what needs to be done at home.  (I’m eternally lucky and indebted to those people in my life.)  Eventually, gradually, I started to see that I was getting stronger.  I started to experience a lot of ’lesses’:  less time needed to recover, less Motrin, less time to complete a set distance, less worry.  My friend was right, I had no problem at all riding 20, then 20 more.  “I’ve just got to keep riding more like this,” I thought.  No sweat.

The big weekend arrived before I knew it, and my friend and I drove to Frisco to spend the night before the ride.  Our early pre-ride breakfast took place at the local Safeway, where we purchased coffee, rolls, bananas, and yogurt.  We drove the five miles to Copper Mountain and looked for a place to park in the already bustling crowd of cyclists.  These people were intimidating to me.  It was the highest concentration of spandex, toned legs, and Pearl Izumi I’d ever experienced.  I was repeating my mantra A LOT as we unloaded our bikes and gear.  And then, just like that, the ride started.  No fanfare, balloons, or ceremonial shots fired.  Everyone just made their way out of the parking lot as they readied themselves and started up the hill.  Everything happened so quickly I had no time to think about anything except pedaling.

The ride began on an incline, headed up the first and longest pass, Fremont Pass.  Twelve miles up we climbed, with the first rest stop at the top.  I actually didn’t feel too bad.  I stopped a couple of times to catch my breath, but so did other people.  I was riding in my lowest gears, but then so were other people.  I forgot about cross-chaining and got my chain stuck real bad, but then so did… nah, I was the only one who did that.  Beginner.  I made it to the top, had some snacks at the rest stop, and was rewarded with a wonderful downhill cruise into Leadville.  By then, I had passed the 20-mile mark, and the road started creeping vertically again towards Tennessee Pass.  Uh-oh.  “No, no,” I told myself, “you just had your 20 miles.  Now it’s like you’re starting over again at the beginning.  Just ride 20 more.  Deep breaths, relax…”  I tried, I really did.  But by the time we reached the top of Tennessee Pass at about the 35 mile mark, my long-simmering doubts were turning into a low boil of fear.  “It’s almost all downhill from here, until the last pass”, I overheard someone say at the rest stop.  Downhill.  That word cascaded over me like a warm shower.  No sweat.

My confidence was short-lived.  Yes, there was a really sweet downhill for about 15 miles, but then there was this thing called Battle Mountain Pass.  Where on the crazy heart-monitor-elevation-chart was that?  I didn’t anticipate this!  I was tired, and I had to stop a lot, and hey, this wasn’t part of my mental plan that told me everything was downhill until Vail!  No fair!  My valiant friend had been more than patient with my sluggish riding the whole day.  She needed to keep on going, and I told her to go.  I didn’t want to hold her back anymore.  I rode alone, and with jello for legs, finally lurched into the rest stop in Vail.  I needed to sit down for a long time.  I wasn’t bonking; I’d been very careful about eating and drinking along the way.  But I’d reached my physical limit.  The reality that I wouldn’t finish the ride slowly started to sink in.  I was determined to make it to the next and last rest stop.  Slowly, with equal parts mental and physical anguish, I rode on.

I remember almost every detail about the last 12 miles.  Vail is a beautiful town, and there was a lot to look at.  That kept my mind busy and away from a little pesky detail called “incomplete finish”.  I had dropped so far behind in the ride that I was alone.  I knew I could not make it over Vail Pass, but I had to make it to that last rest stop.  I kept telling myself, “This is the longest ride you’ve ever done… you’ve only just started riding…you can keep training and try again next year…” to try and bolster my confidence.  But as I neared the stop and saw the ‘SAG wagon’ parked in front of me, I knew what I had to do.

I unclipped near the back of the SAG wagon and loaded up my bike with barely a word to the volunteer.  I took a seat in the back of the rented Ryder, grateful to be alone.  I felt the truck begin to move, and the long-simmering doubt that had rested inside me for a couple of months finally boiled over into big, heartbroken tears.  I failed.

What drama, right?  A middle-aged woman all upset about a bike ride.  I should have other more important things to worry about, right?  Well, yes, I do have more important things to worry about.  But at that moment, I was learning a very valuable lesson about self-motivation, goals, and failure.  I hadn’t given myself permission to fail. Determination alone wasn’t enough momentum in achieving my goal, as I thought it would be. I had worked so hard convincing myself not to be afraid of the ride itself, that I had forgotten that it was ok to just do my best and let it be at that.  It took me a long time to set that straight in my mind.  When my kids are disappointed with themselves about something, I have told them that the only time a person fails is when they don’t try.  But I wasn’t listening to my own advice.  No, I didn’t finish the ride.  In retrospect, I only failed because I lost sight of what a real accomplishment meant to me; and it wasn’t how many miles I logged.

I haven’t ridden the Copper Triangle again… yet.  I’m a much stronger rider now, and I really am more confident and capable.  Maybe next summer I’ll register for the ride again.  I’ll have a different perspective and a different attitude about what I can do.  No sweat.

Am I a True Road Cyclist?

I’ve got quite a few labels attached to me.  I’m Mom.  Wife.  Recent college graduate.  Pet owner.  There are many more things I can call myself, but I’ve never been able to call myself a cyclist.  I’ll tell people in conversation, “I like road biking”, or “I do some biking when I can.”  But, I look at the serious riders when I’m doing a tour, and don’t think of myself as belonging to their world.  The question creeps into my psyche now and then.  Am I a true cyclist?

What is it that qualifies a person as a bona fide road cyclist?  Is it the number of hours spent training each week?  A hundred-mile weekly average?  More than $1,500 spent on a carbon bike?  The number of tours or races completed?  I don’t really fit into any of these categories.  I’m riding a $700 Trek.  I’m a Mom with young teens, and I have my own business from home; I don’t have time to put in 100 miles a week.  I’ve only ridden in a couple dozen organized tours.  I have yet to complete my first century (but I’m close).  Not much of a resume for a cyclist who’s been on skinny tires for a couple of years now.  I’m not a novice anymore, so what am I?

Today, I kissed my husband goodbye and glided down the driveway and into the street, beating back the laziness demons that constantly torment me. “Just go later” they whisper, “you don’t have to ride today.”  Every time my derriere hits the saddle, I feel a small bit of accomplishment.  It means one more ride soon to be under my belt, and the demons get the door slammed on them again.  Surely, true cyclists don’t go through this struggle.  I went out and rode alone, between rain showers.  It was just me and a glorious Wyoming spring in the country, only a few miles from my home in town.  Along the highway, a fox ran across the road not far in front of me, and I stopped to watch him bound through a field.  His rust-colored fur was a stark contrast to the deep green sea of waving grass that enveloped him.  Above us were clouds that looked as though a child had taken cotton balls, dipped the bottoms in grey-blue paint, and glued them to bright blue paper.  But it didn’t rain.  About a mile up the road a beautiful Swainson’s hawk launched away from its road kill snack with an agility the best fighter pilot in the world could only dream about.  The entire ride was filled with a chorus of meadowlarks, robins, and some cars, of course.  Not that there was a lot of traffic to worry about, even at ‘rush hour’.  “Wow,” I thought.  “This is why I love Wyoming.”  But it’s also why I love biking.  Does that euphoric contentment make me a true cyclist?

My thoughts shifted to all the things I can do on my modest road bike, instead of focusing on what I can’t do.  I can change a flat and handle many bike repairs on the road, by myself.  I’m not afraid of traffic anymore, although I’m always vigilant.  I’ve ridden forty-five miles in snow (the weather doesn’t necessarily make sense out here in the West, especially during Spring).  I’ve had the best conversations and laughs with my friends out on the road.  I’ve met the kindest people who’ve made my rides memorable; ride volunteers who hand out fruit and a smile when I’m dead tired, the guy who stopped on Fremont Pass in Colorado and helped me with a severely stuck dropped chain when I first started riding (I’ve since learned how to shift properly); the guy in an old Suburban who had a water cooler with him the day my friend and I ran out of fluids, twenty-five miles from civilization, on a scorching 97-degree afternoon.  I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in my life, and I’m getting stronger.  I’m more careful about what I eat and drink.  I’ve recently begun passing a few men on hills who have calves as thick as my thigh and are riding Cervelos and Merckxs.  I’m starting to mentally keep track of my cadence, averages, and distances; my personal badges of honor on how much I’m learning and improving.  Huh.  Maybe I am a true cyclist.

I have concluded that I carry a lot of preconceived notions about what it means to be a cyclist.  It’s likely most of them are stereotypes I’ve developed or witnessed.  The only thing that truly matters, ultimately, is how I feel about biking.  It’s not possible to have the experiences I’m having in any other sport.  I can’t imagine ever giving any of it up.  I dream about multi-day tours I’ll be able to take with my husband when the kids are older.  I now regard the asphalt rising vertically in front of me as a challenge, not an obstacle.  I absolutely relish the satisfaction I feel at the end of the day.  I think I am a true cyclist, after all.

“Good ride!” my riding partner always tells me as we pedal back into town and split in different directions toward home.  You’re right, my friend, good ride.