Racing hard, or hardly racing?

 There's a long, steep hill to climb from "better than average" to "one of the best." Anyone who has tried to race knows this.

The rider is both driver and engine. These two functions operate separately more than you might realize. The pilot knows what should be done, but the machine doesn't always provide it.

"Scotty, I need more power!"

"She's givin' all she's got, Cap'n'! If I try to get more out of her she'll explode!"

Nothing feels better than digging deep and finding what you need. If you choose your companions right, you can have that feeling from your teens all the way to your 60s, perhaps older. It's all relative, of course. I'll be riding to work after a couple of days' rest, feeling pretty spry because I'm pushing the big ring and down around mid-cassette in the back. Then I do the math and realize I'm pushing what was my early season lowest gear in the 1980s.

The reflex to attack never goes away. The ability to do so definitely diminishes. So far, however, I have been able to exploit terrain, wind, and the scavenged draft of passing vehicles to meet the most immediate desires, like making a green light at the only traffic light on my commute, or sticking an elbow into the flow on Center Street inbound to work.

The sight of another rider sparks that hunting instinct. In an individual time trial, a competitor chases the clock, but also anyone who started earlier in the queue. In a road race, riders make their attacks and others chase. This can go on for miles. In short-course races the same thing happens on a smaller scale. The snake eats its own tail as the attackers thread through the stragglers. Officials will pull slow riders from a short course, just to clear up the clutter. I hated short courses and was usually pulled.

Racing balances a paradox: to be competitive, you have to go to the edge of everything: traction, strength, endurance, power, fear, without losing control and taking out a bunch of other riders. If you seem erratic, out of your depth, other riders might actively seek to weed you out. Sometimes, they would do it anyway just because some of them decided that you didn't belong with them. You have to risk everything without looking like you're risking anything. Push the margins of control without revealing that you're at the margins of control.

Over time I discovered that I didn't like racing as much as I liked training, and that I didn't like actual structured training as much as I liked just riding how I felt on a given day. Racing was too disciplined and becoming increasingly scientific, not to mention expensive. That's only gotten worse.

There are more than 50 distinct shapes of disc brake pad, not including ones that have already been discontinued. There are several different pad compounds, which might be described in different ways, such as: metal, metal ceramic, metallic, semi-metallic, organic, resin, or sintered. Some brake rotors can only take resin pads. But good luck finding a quality bike with rim brakes anymore. Everyone assumes that disc brakes are entirely superior in all respects. So what happens if you're out in East Bumfleck and you need a pad shape that the local shop doesn't have? Hope that Amazon drone delivery can find you? Stock up on pads and make sure they're always with you? People with electronic shifting go on trips and leave their chargers at home. You think most of them will remember to have brake pads in their kit? And that's only a fraction of the complication and expense. In general, a racer will be out there flinging around a bike that cost anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000, come what may.

As Lance had ghost-written for himself in the 1990s, it's not about the bike. But the bike is the machine that extends our capability and desire into motion. Racing eats people and equipment. You can't refuse technology and remain competitive among real racers really racing. And among the dubs and dilettantes you are even less safe. Those riders are liable to blow up at an inopportune time, like the middle of a tight corner, a crowded field sprint, or a twisty descent. Or maybe it's you who blows up.

Heart rate lags behind effort: you launch the sprint and the old ticker might not hit full bpms until you've leveled off. Pain lags behind effort: you attack that climb or push the pace because you feel good, and the legs feel like lead the next day. Each day of the commuting week gets harder anyway, because the demands of traffic management and hilly terrain make it impossible to avoid some level of destructive exertion. The commuting life is a stage race.

Riding alone, I get to choose when to let up. As soon as another rider is on my wheel, I can't slow down when I feel like it, because I might be that guy who sits up and takes out a whole paceline, or blows out of his line in a corner and sends the riders outside of him over the median.

A rider ahead presents a different prospect. It's fun to chase them down -- if you can -- but then like the proverbial dog, what do you do when you've caught the car? When I see another rider on my commute, I'll close distance to see if I know them, but if I don't it gets awkward. If I've caught them, it's because they're going slower than I want to go. To maintain my pace to work, I need to pass them. But then I look like the old fart on a heavy bike trying to prove a point. I'm not, really. I'm just trying to be on time to work, or get home for a shower and supper. 

A couple of weeks ago, I chased down a rider on 28, thinking it might be a guy I know whose commute sometimes coincides with mine. When it turned out not to be, I still hung back there because he was a sparky racer type maintaining a decent pace. But then we hit a little jumper of a hill, and the guy stood on the pedals and dogged right out, rather than shifting down and pushing into it. Over the crest on the flats beyond, he didn't really pick it back up. On the next little drop, aided by the draft of a passing pickup, I sling-shotted around him.

"Late to work!" I said on the way by, to excuse the maneuver. I figured he would counterattack or get on my wheel, but when I finally could glance back he was nowhere. It seemed odd, since I was riding those high-to-me gears that are low to anyone young and in shape. Maybe he was just being nice to the elderly. No time to muse, I had to keep going to work. It was true.

As I noted in the previous post, I pay attention to the feedback from my body. You hear all the time about people who "died doing what they love." That can be poetically beautiful, but what I really love is remaining alive; getting home to a nice supper and some snuggling with the cats. Hanging out with my spouse when she's in town. I got lucky in the genetic department, but I know better than to think I'm immune to aging. I know other riders who were looking good until they developed issues that seem to stem from pushing too hard for too long. That urge to attack will lure a committed athlete to dig too deep and scrape something down in there that doesn't heal.

I keep hoping there will be time later to plan the purposeful "last hike" or other exit strategy, when I feel more like exiting. But one never knows.

Cold, Clear Water, Thawing Manure

 Here in the southern part of northern New England, April weather notoriously bounces between occasional pleasant days and raw, wet ones that can bring rain or snow. This gradually transitions to the somewhat milder promise of May, before giving way to the tepid disappointment we call June.

Yesterday was one of the mild ones. The wind was light, the sky was clear. I needed a ride to continue my recovery program from a sedentary winter. The commute doesn't feel any longer than it used to, but it takes a little longer, and I feel its effects longer afterward.

During my first spring in New Hampshire, in 1988, I was training for an epic ride that I hoped would form the basis for one or more magazine articles. Starting in March, I went out on a set of training routes through the rural landscape just to the south of the eastern Sandwich Range. I watched the snow recede, the brooks and wetlands fill to flood, the brown and tan dead vegetation pressed flat by the weight of winter slowly rebound, pushed up by the green growth seeking the sun. It was a time of creativity and hope.

Every spring has its version of this, enriching spring training rides with actual and remembered rejuvenation. Where I live now, I pass several places where they keep livestock. First is the draft horses, less than a mile down the road. Their manure pile is well thawed now. On the opposite side of the road, a brook rushes with clear, cold runoff, that started as snow melt from our meager winter, and now conveys the rains that follow. Wood frogs and peepers have begun to sound, when the air is warm enough.

A cold snap shuts them up. I imagine their annoyance.

Around the route I pass several other places where the smell of animal dung dominates the atmosphere. It reminds me of a race I used to do in Carlisle, PA, when I lived in Maryland. It was a 50-mile race in April. For some reason I believed that the other competitors would be in a similar state of early season development as I was. I thought I trained over the winters: commuting, riding rollers, sneaking in a road ride or some fixed-gear training as it fit with weather, daylight, and a full-time -- albeit low-paying -- job. Hey, it's April. We should be easing into our season. Right?

Invariably, I ended up chasing the breakaways from somewhere in a splintering field torn apart by the riders who had gone south for their early miles, or perhaps for the entire winter, or who had pounded their bodies with high-intensity alternative training during what passed for winter in the Mid Atlantic coastal and Piedmont region. Any longer race -- more than 30 miles -- was open to Cat. 2,3, and maybe 4, in the years before Cat. 5 was anything but a joke we would make about novice riders. The difference between the categories is not subtle, it's exponential. The top category sets the tone, chased by the most ambitious of the category below them.

Once the field breaks up, you may find yourself alone or with a group of riders sizable enough to create the illusion that it's the main field or a significant chase group. Thus I would hammer through the early spring landscape of central Pennsylvania, sucking in oxygen with whatever other freight it carried. A lot of that air smelled like a large farm, because a lot of large farms lined the 50-mile loop of the Tour of Cumberland Valley. Except for the part of the course that crossed the Appalachian Trail, we rode through a landscape dominated by agriculture.

Regardless of the annual rebuke the race always provided, it still felt good in its weird way to be out there, immersed in the almost inescapable hopefulness of spring.

Every brook and stream, every vernal pool, marsh, and wetland is about as full as it's going to get, unless we have a summer of floods. Yesterday's route was calculated to mix steady cruising with some climbing. The fixed-gear forces continual effort and smoothness. Every pedal stroke moves you the exact same distance forward, regardless of the slope or wind. Slope and wind determine the effort demanded from the rider. Grunt harder or spin faster. Look to the scenery for distraction and inspiration, or just to enjoy it. Each year adds to the fund of similar memories to deepen the connection to grateful observance.

Do you want to be in good shape, or do you want to be a bike racer?

 Trainee David has signed up for delayed entry recruitment into the Navy. He'll be a senior in high school this year, but decided he'd like not just a job, but an adventure. So now he's learning a lot about how he measures up to other recruits, and about military organization.

Here's a kid who can hold his own on a sponsored junior team, who has been racing since he was 12. He's not a star, but he's a solid team rider, following a disciplined and supervised training program to compete in bicycle racing. He prefers cyclocross, but he's done quite a bit of road racing and has raced mountain bikes as well to round out his experience. But he falls short in PT tests because of his complete lack of upper body strength.

Climbing specialists, time trialers and competitors in long road races end up with shoulders like a cat. No need for brawny arms and broad shoulders when you're trying to reduce frontal area and put maximum power to the legs.

When I dabbled in racing, off-season training meant something off the bike. Some people speed skated. Some people weight trained. Some people did that weird cross-country skiing thing where you could actually ski uphill. Only a few people that I knew of could or would go to a warm place where they could stay on the bike all year. Others experimented with new indoor training devices like the RacerMate. And I mean the original RacerMate, with no electronic devices, just a couple of squirrel cage fans that provided resistance against a roller that pressed on the rear tire when your bike was clamped in a stand. It was the original wind trainer.

It wasn't supposed to be good for you to do just the one thing. Obsessive training has become more commonplace these days, but you can mess yourself up pretty well if all you ever do is ride in some form or another.

David has gotten a few pointers from our resident climber/former ropes course builder/former power lifter and trainer Sam. As a teenager, he can command his body to do something different and see immediate improvement. He's already gone from "Oh my god, pushups are hard!" to counting off by the dozen. And he was already working on core strength as part of his cycling regimen.

Never an obsessive trainer, I would usually lose interest in the bike racing season right after the district championships. I would still "train" as an excuse to go on long rides almost every day, but I didn't really enjoy most of the actual racing. Throwing elbows with a bunch of testosterone-saturated lunatics didn't appeal to me that much. I just liked having a nice bike and riding kind of fast. But if you say you're a competitive athlete it sounds a little less wimpy and aimless. Or so I hoped, anyway.

Riding around the countryside fit in with a generally exploratory curiosity. That led me to backpacking, rock climbing, various boats propelled with paddles, and cross-country skiing, which led to New England. In any season, a wanderer can find a way to find out "what's over there?" by a human powered means. Faced with the example of my parents, who lived normal, productive adult lives in modern civilization, and therefore got fat and spent much of the time unhappy about it, I figured that no matter what happened I wanted to stay in motion. Civilized society wants you to throw yourself into deterioration for the sake of the economy. Embrace that decay! Whoever works the longest hours wins! Your life should destroy you either because it makes you sit at a desk too much or beats you to death with grueling toil. Either way, if you're not well on the way to disability by the time you're in your 40s you've been slacking off.

As I paid attention to other responsibilities, my activity had dwindled to mostly just bike commuting. The kayaks hung from the rafters, ready to be lowered onto the car, but never used. They became dance halls for mice. Once in a while we might use them. For a while it wasn't too bad, but then came the day when they suddenly seemed a lot heavier than they used to be. Use it or lose it. I looked in the mirror and saw those cat shoulders. That warning propelled me back to the free weights and exercises to see how little I could get away with and still regain the ability to lift and lug things.

Cross-country skiing no longer provides. When we had the shop at Jackson Ski Touring, I made sure that everyone who wanted to get out got to tag out during the best part of the day to taste what we were selling and keep enthusiasm high. The shop opened right onto the groomed track, so transitions were instantaneous. This is not true in Wolfe City. We are operating with minimal staff, and the nearest trail access is still a short drive from the shop. Tag outs are rare, and temperature conditions make night skiing after work treacherous as things freeze up after sundown. In the morning, it's hard to get organized and get to town early enough for a meaningful workout before shop hours. So I basically just get fat and irritable. I even wrote a song about it called "Snacking out of boredom and depression." We'll see if minimal indoor training keeps me more or less together for the eventual return of spring.

When gentle exploration seemed like a good example to set, it felt more worthwhile. Now it seems like the time would have been better spent on direct political activism and preparing for the bloody time that will follow the collapse of civilization when that political activism failed anyway. Oh well. Live and learn.

Trainee, and memories of Mr. Rat

Days after our summer part-timer departed for his real grown-up job in the far north of New York, a young racer in town was suddenly inspired to apply.

Where the departing rider was the classic 54cm-frame kind of roadie, this kid is more on the lines of Miguel Indurain. He's 6'2" and says he started riding at age 8. This actually gives him two years' head start on Big Mig, whose Wikipedia write-up says he started at 10. Now he's a junior in high school, and has achieved some level of mentorship, if not sponsorship, with actual coaching.

Listening in on his interview with upper management, I gathered that his duties may include inventory stuff on the computer rather than only mechanical work. But he said that he loves cleaning bikes. He will find plenty to do with the cruddy messes that people drag in for our attention. He's the closest thing to a shop rat* to come through here in years. He's more of an enhanced shop rat, but at least he doesn't think he's too good to sweep a floor or empty a garbage can.

This being New England, his other sport is cross-country skiing. If he sticks around, he will spend a lot of time with the waxing iron. With luck, he'll be slinging a lot of rentals, as well.

His first day went well. He put in some time out front with the computer system and in back with the grime. And he actually came back for a second day. Now he's been at it for a couple of weeks.

The fact that the management makes up for the chronic low pay and cruddy work by letting employees buy at wholesale is a powerful attraction for regular riders, especially young racers thrashing their equipment in hope of making a name for themselves while they're still young enough to  matter. His team affiliation does not extend to a gravy train of equipment. He's practically a privateer.

His recent race results have ranged from a first place finish in the A group in the nearby training series -- on a day when the biggest guns were not on hand, but still an A group victory -- to a humbling last place in a stage race in Vermont, where the insanely fit and well supported teams showed up. I'm sure this kid could have dropped me like an empty water bottle even when I was in my prime. But that's the cruel revelation of racing. You meet the people who are impossibly faster than you are. You think you're training to your limit, and you come up against these people from another planet. It literally happened to the best of us when Art the Dart, dominator of the Virginia District of what was then USCF, went to the nationals and was anonymous field fodder. There's always someone to chase, until you get to the very tip of the peloton, where everyone is chasing you.

Mechanically, the trainee is hindered by a teenager's tendency to overlook details, and the unfamiliarity of certain basic tool and mechanical principles. But he's a willing pupil, so he has that in his favor. I was much more of an idiot at that age, and for a depressing number of years thereafter. He has already started to broaden his perception of the universe of bikes by having to put a wrench on stuff that was made before he was born, and on cheap department store crap, not just on the bikes he owns for competition.

*Some might think that the term shop rat is a pejorative, or at least demeaning of the unskilled aspirants who often fill the role. I actually came up with the title when I worked in a shop where the young helper was named Jeff Mraz. He would sign his name in a rapid scrawl, first initial and last name, so that it looked like J. Mr. Rat. I started calling him J Rat. He was a very talented BMX rider, who liked to do tricks on and off the curb edge around the shopping center where our shop was located. He especially liked to do tail whips into trash cans, until we pointed out that he'd bent his frame doing that. Then he took an interest in road racing, built himself a road bike, and competed as a junior a few times. I don't know what he did after that. He was developing mechanical skills, and had an interest in custom auto body work, as I recall. Only later did I notice that the term "shop rat" was already in common usage. Just another example of parallel evolution yielding a widely duplicated result.

The latest and greatest!

Bike componentry development reminds me of the joke about the two guys running away from a bear. One guy stops to put on his running shoes. The other guy says, "Why bother? You can't outrun a bear." The other guy says, "I only have to outrun you."

No matter how much money you spend on ultra-fancy bikes and parts, you'll never really be fast. You'll only -- maybe -- be faster than the other pathetic dorks working outrageously hard to go about as fast as a prudent driver in a residential neighborhood.

The peloton didn't smell like a laundromat

Only rarely do I encounter another rider on my commute, especially in the evening. It's an awkward time of day and an unattractive route for riders who can put together any loop they want for their day's training objective. When I do encounter someone from the racing crowd, it's usually cordial but brief.

"How's it goin?'

"Good."

Racer zooms away.

Once in a while, a friendlier one will pull his pace back and hang for a while, until they realize how late they'll get home or how far below their target heart rate they will fall if they plod along with me for too long. I'm on a linear run, while they're on a loop. So off they trot. But one thing has stood out: they all smell like fresh, chemically-perfumed laundry products.

I did most of my racing in the wool era. Lycra shorts and "skin suits" were just coming in, but in mass start races and on training rides you saw mostly riders wearing knitted fabrics that had to be hand washed and hung to dry. If the peloton smelled like anything other than sweat, it was Woolite, and whatever people had smeared on the vicious shark skin of a newly-dried chamois to turn it back into something you might want in contact with your testicles for a few hours.

I haven't been on a group road ride in well over a decade. I did do a charity ride a couple of years in that time, but the group was small and very dispersed, and there was a sea breeze for much of the time. I also don't use scented laundry products, so my own garb has very little odor until I apply a fresh batch of sweat and road grime.

On Friday, I was trudging along, entertaining myself with a stream of consciousness soliloquy, when I heard the smooth grind of a bike drive train behind me, and a voice announcing politely, "on your left." It was a rider I know.

"How you doin'?" he asked

"Just ploddin' along," I said. I'm careful with racers and performance roadies to avoid throwing down any gauntlets. Not that they're necessarily super sensitive to a challenge, but I don't want to look like that sad old bastard on a touring bike who thinks he can show the racers a thing or two. I want to establish right away what they can expect riding near me: a steady pace, probably considerably slower than they will enjoy, and no illusions.

We were on the very last little rise to the height of land on Route 28 northbound. The lead rider, and the younger man drafting him, passed me as quickly as I expected they would. They didn't whoosh past, opening a huge gap and buffeting me with turbulence, but they didn't linger, either. That was fine with me. Really. I settled back into my thoughts as I reached the crest.

Down the slope, I saw them, still riding a nice tight formation. The gap was more than a hundred yards. It was probably well over a hundred yards. I shifted to my usual gear for the descent and accelerated as I usually do. It's basically two miles down hill from there, and essentially down hill all the rest of the way to my house. I'm headed for the barn, so I don't waste time, even on my heavy bike, and carrying the weight of years.

The gap diminished. This was interesting, I thought to myself. I knew that in previous years the lead rider had been going out with one local ride group famous for killing the wounded and eating the dead. I really didn't expect him to be idling. The two riders seemed to be in pretty tall gears, and were pedaling at a respectably high cadence. They were on fancy road bikes.

Whatever the shortcomings of a fully-loaded Surly Cross Check as a climbing bike, it plummets nicely under the influence of gravity. I utilize all that the forces of nature offer me to make my trip faster and easier. On that long descent, there are places I pedal and places I tuck, little grade variations I seek, and rough, speed-robbing strips that I avoid. If there's a tailwind, I'm surfing it. I've ridden the route hundreds of times. I'd left work late that day, and was eager to get home. At a high but maintainable cruising speed, I was up with them in a couple of minutes. Awkward.

"I tried to get left in the dust," I said to the young rider. He grinned. I stayed in the back, but that's where I really started to notice the smell of laundry products. It's not really pleasant, regardless of what the advertising tells you. All I had to look forward to was more of the same, or possibly a fart or two from one or both of them.

They weren't coasting, but I was actually holding back from my usual pace to avoid making a move around them. I didn't want to look like an old geezer beating myself up to pass the racers, but they were -- surprisingly -- costing me time.

One feature I aim for on one of the steeper bits is a weird hump in the pavement, that always reappears not long after any road work. It never forms a sharp peak. When I ride over it, it always launches me into a higher speed bracket. It's worth a gear, at least. And the speed carries well down into the next section, where the grade levels out a bit. I call it The Speed Bump. They didn't use it, and I coudn't get to it. Even without it, I had to make an effort to avoid making a move on the outside.

The lead rider was doing all the pulling, which is silly. The two of them should have been trading leads, and with three of us we could have had a little pace line. Instead, the lead rider yawed somewhat, but never made a definitive move to pull off, and I wasn't going to blow myself up to get to the front. Where the shoulder widened, I winged out a bit to the left, both to use the wind to check my speed and to get out of the cloud of fabric softener swirling in the slipstream.

On the last drop before the road levels out approaching Route 171, I always tuck tight until I get to the bottom and resume pedaling in top gear. Depending on how fresh I feel, I'll start shifting to lower gears right way, or within a few seconds. In any case, bombing down in a tuck is faster than pedaling.

The racers pedaled. They pedaled and pedaled. I had to use the brakes to keep from running up on them. What the heck, I figured. I'll pull left and tuck, and see what happens.

In a tuck, coasting, I accelerated past the pedaling pair, toiling manfully.

"Guys, I'm not even pedaling," I said. "Tuck! Tuuck!"

I pulled clear ahead. Where the road leveled, I followed my usual shifting pattern. I expected them to come ripping through any second.

They never did. I passed through the intersection with 171, grunted up the little rise to the next level bit, and glanced back. They were gone.

Most of the performance riders in town have no use for my technical advice. Most of them don't even shop at our store anymore. These guys don't, although they used to, back before the turn of the  century. It's all friendly enough. If I didn't work in a bike shop I would probably seldom go into one.

Funny thing about modern technology: when I was telling another local rider about the encounter as a funny story, he told me that those guys posted a 20 mile per hour average for the ride on Strava.

I always forget about Strava. Even having just been reminded, I'll forget again soon. I'm not sure what sort of technology you need to own to get your stats uploaded and verified by satellites, but it's not important enough to me to find out. I do know that a 20 mph average would probably kill me. If the climb had been longer, those guys would have opened a gap I couldn't cross, and that would have been totally fine. But maybe they would have averaged 22 mph if they'd worked the descent a little better. Never underestimate the power of an experienced commuter on his way home for a shower and some food.

Actual phone call, conjectural scene

Beyond statistics

A comment on this thread at People for Bikes stated that overtaking motorists strike cyclists in only about 10 percent of recorded collisions. The debate was about protected bike lanes. Should they be called that? Are they really protected? Are they really desirable? Every rider has an opinion.

Statistics provide no comfort on a real street. Overtaking crashes may be rare, but harsh and threatening expressions of opinion from overtaking motorists are all too common. They may be verbal or nonverbal. Nonverbal threats other than the car horn include close passing, extended objects, thrown objects, even car doors opened on moving vehicles, depending on local fashion. Also, seeing a motorist make a dangerous pass, crossing into oncoming traffic because they didn't want to wait, is an additional source of stress. Even a veteran traffic-herder loses control of the mob from time to time.

The worst case scenario in any human interaction is simply a bloodbath. We've proven time and again how bad we can get. So you can only plan for an expected statistical average of bad behavior and operator error. You hope you're somewhere else the day the dookie really hits the propeller. For many riders and potential riders that "somewhere else" is a path or lane designated as their sanctuary.

I can't find the other thought-provoking comment I read on a cycling site in which the commenter stated that bicyclists "aren't taken seriously" as part of the traffic mix. This was cited as a reason infractions against cyclists are not prosecuted vigorously in most cases, if they're prosecuted at all.

The debate over what to call a protected bike lane and the lack of support from law enforcement both stem from the vague legal status of bicycle riders. And that stems from the fact that people can start riding bikes shortly after they're old enough to walk and continue to do so until they are old and feeble.

I was riding my bicycle on the streets, transporting myself to school and friends' houses, from about age 7. I rode with the traffic flow. Within a few years I learned how to make the proper hand signals, although some of them felt dorky to me. But because the bike could go places cars couldn't I felt fully justified in riding through those spaces as well. Sometimes it included the sidewalk, though I never felt right there. And riding the wrong way on a one-way street just felt like asking for trouble. But cutting through a field, a park, a yard or parking lot, or riding down a path or alley just made sense. And it didn't just make sense to me. Adults did not usually raise a fuss unless they saw child riders too close to dangerous equipment or in areas posted as hazardous. Good thing no one saw me the day I discovered I could fit underneath the tractor-trailer parked behind the IGA in Thomaston, Maine.

Moving forward to the surge of bicycling in the 1970s, the Baby Boomers brought their youthful habits into their teens and early twenties. We rode across school and college campuses, down streets and alleys much as we did in grade school. Even though awareness was growing of the bicycle's potential for adventure travel and competitive recreation, the majority of riders just rode.

As the Baby Boom set precedents in everything else, so it was with traffic cycling. It had been a long time since that many people wanted to ride bikes as adults on the public rights of way in this country. It might even have been since the 19th Century, when bicyclists got the hoop rolling to have more roads paved to a decent standard at all.

In Europe and Great Britain bicycles had persisted as transportation. For a long time they were naturally incorporated into the heterogeneous flow. The devastation of the Second World War probably helped keep the bicycle a viable option because for many in the aftermath it was considered a step up even to have that. The United States, its prosperity virtually unchecked by the war, hit the gas and rolled onto highways increasingly tailored to motor vehicle needs.

Bicycling was what children did until they could get a license and a car. So the progression of Baby Boomer bicyclists from schoolkids to young adult cycle tourists, commuters and racers did not figure in transportation planning any more than long hair and bell bottoms did. I'm sure a lot of transportation authorities hoped it was all just a phase, like rebellion and pot smoking and that awful music. No need to plan for the future of something that has no future. Just wait for it to go away.

In other words, bicyclists weren't taken seriously. That has been the basis of bike-related policy ever since. Sure, things are changing now, but from a mindset that views the adult cyclist as frivolous, voluntarily choosing a more vulnerable, less practical (in their view) mode of transportation. Even the tourist and racer must figure into the transportation mix just as much as the motorhome, the boat trailer, the motorcycle and any other vehicle whose trip is not directly related to earning income or moving products.

What sets the cyclist apart from the other non-essential road users is the neglect under which we operate. Crackdowns by law enforcement on illegal and dangerous cycling behavior are rare enough to draw the attention of bloggers and cycling journalists. They are often motivated by retribution for large numbers of complaints lodged by motorists, alleging multiple infractions by the annoying pedalers, rather than by any institutional desire to see cycling go better for both cyclists and non-cyclists alike. The rest of the time a rider can do practically anything in front of law enforcement and barely elicit a yawn. We're just not worth the trouble. We're not serious.

Riders operate in such a gray area even their supporters don't know what to call it. Bike lane? Bike path? Cycle track? Separated? Protected? Protected how? And what do we do at intersections?

As a rural cyclist I see all the attention lavished on urban and suburban areas and wonder what anyone will do about us hicks in the sticks. Do you know how many lane miles of shoulderless, hilly, curvy, narrow roads there are in this country? They're all some of us have. Having seen the behavior of some drivers "from away" when they encounter a local rider, and dealt with the indigenous rednecks who cherish and refine their predatory instincts and have no patience with some idiot who chooses to wobble along on some bicycle, I wonder how much thought (and expense) anyone will have left to clean up our gray area after making the cities and towns safe for the short-haul riders.

I hope I quit soon enough

I have known a number of smokers who managed to quit that habit. In every case they hoped they had done it soon enough to avoid things like heart trouble and lung cancer.

Now comes this information about top-caliber endurance athletes. My employer, a cross-country ski racer since the 1970s, has developed some heart rhythm problems. His many friends with similar interests have been sending him information, including this recent study that shows a 30% increase in the incidence of heart problems among the top tier of cross-country ski racers. Other studies have extended the risk pool to include hard-core competitive athletes in other self-propelled sports.

Gosh, I only hope I quit soon enough.

I'm not seriously worried. I did have a bout of premature ventricular contractions (pvc) in the 1980s when I cut back significantly on my training. It was exacerbated by my habitual caffeine overdoses and eventually resolved itself. But the one thing I learned during my competitive years is that I'm not all that competitive. The people who are damaging themselves in pursuit of athletic glory are on a higher level of agony -- and sometimes unsanctioned physiological experimentation -- entirely. So you see, there's a lot to be said for mildly vigorous underachievement.

In honor of that I think I'll take a rest day. The weather is wet and I slept late.

Race Day Rules

When the alarm went off at ten minutes to five in the morning I dragged myself upright and trudged to the kitchen to start the coffee brewing. Then, instead of flopping back into bed for a half-dozen swats at the snooze bar I stayed up.

Race day rules: Get up. Keep moving. Get out the door. This isn't just another day at work. Sorry, work. I just don't get a sense of event from you anymore.

The cellist and I were registered for the Seacoast Ride for PKD. It isn't a race, but it's an organized ride with a starting time. Her brother had traveled from Michigan to join us. He split the visit with a friend in Boston who also joined our little team. They would be meeting us at the starting point in Portsmouth, NH.

The weather was beautiful, which it had not been for most of the week. And on the way out the little woodsy road to Route 16 we saw a sleek and furry black bear. On the way down Route 16 we saw several deer. The morning overcast lifted and vanished, leaving bright sun lighting the lush green of fresh leaves, well-watered by the recent rains.

We arrived at the check-in minutes after their posted opening time. Our other riders arrived soon after. David had brought his own seat, so I installed that on the rental bike I had brought for him. I adjusted the two rental bikes as much as one can. David looks a lot like a bear. If we do this again I will build him a bike on a big frame I scavenged years ago. I have enough random parts lying around to build something good enough for a day.

The PKD ride is not long or large. Even though polycystic kidney disease is the most common inherited disease in the world, it lacks the pizzazz and charisma of your cancers, your MS, muscular dystrophy or diabetes. The common form tends to kill its victims somewhat later in life, which might make it seem like no big deal unless you happen to be one or know one. Then the idea that someone who is overall healthy, active and viable is being systematically destroyed by the inexorable failure of one set of organs while everything else might be fine becomes unacceptable.

Most PKD benefit events so far have been walking or running. The organizers of this ride started four years ago with only 13 riders. They do a great job. I don't know how they feel about the ride getting bigger, but the amount of organization they put together for perhaps three dozen riders could easily support more. We had police traffic control at the two points it mattered most, a traffic circle and a major intersection. The organizers had a couple of support vehicles and posted cell phone numbers for them so riders could call for services if needed.

The route is only 33 miles. Your hard-core event riders might snort at that, but it's actually a good feature. Everyone completed the route. It's long enough to feel like you did something, but short enough for recreational cyclists to consider giving it a shot. No one has to feel like less of a person for doing "the shorter distance," as offered at big events. The handful of racer types took off in a first wave and did it as a sprint. The next wave consisted of sporty types out for a mild speed run. Then the modest folk rolled out.


View Seacoast Ride for PKD 2013 in a larger map

The course, along New Hampshire's seacoast, is basically flat. A lot of it is totally flat. There's one metal-grating bridge, where they ask you to dismount and walk on the sidewalk. That sidewalk is only on one side of the road, so you have to cross the road to it on the return leg. That's the fault of the DOT, not the ride organizers. A minor problem.

The route is well known to cyclists in the region and immensely popular. As the morning advanced we must have seen hundreds of riders enjoying the day. The cellist even met one woman out for a sporty cruise who asked what we were riding for, who said, "PKD? I have that. Half of my siblings have it, too." Now she knows about the ride.

Promotion does not seem to be the organizers' strongest area. But I talked up the idea of getting brochures out to more bike shops in a wider area.

The pack, chasing

Wentworth by the Sea Resort

Walking across the buzz bridge

The roads are nice and drivers are very accustomed to dealing with cyclists. No one did anything remotely ugly. If they thought anything ugly they had the decency to keep it to themselves.

Salt marsh

On Route 1A. That tower on the skyline looks like old coastal fortifications from the World War II era.

Bikes' day out

Riders at the turnaround

Our companions

The ocean.

The beach. No baby seals.

After a leisurely snack break at the turnaround point, we headed back north with the wind mostly behind us. The cellist wanted to push it a little, so we started overtaking riders. Then I got that telltale springy-squishy feeling from the rear tire. Puncture. We pulled off at an ocean-view pullout for a scenic repair.

When you don't get many flat tires on the road you may find that your spare tube has worn through or rotted out. Fortunately, we had more than one spare between us. With the frame pump I got it reasonably firm. but a quick call to the support car brought a shiny new floor pump to get it to the full 95+ psi. Good as new!

Meanwhile, the view wasn't too hard to take.

The cellist took off like the team leader chasing the peloton. Seriously, I was the domestique on this ride, and I'd had the flat. The pace was hers to set. She even chewed up and spit out a racy-looking couple that wedged in between us in the final four miles. They weren't with the PKD ride. They were unsuspecting bystanders. Grrr. You go, girl.

They were a bit spendy, but we bought the ride jersies. It's for a good cause. The cellist is pretending to be shorter than I am.

The Epics of Perceived Necessity

Yesterday I needed to retrieve a car from the Gilford Guru, the mechanic so good I've been traveling more than 40 miles each way to take my cars to him for the past 21 years.

Whenever possible I use a bike for part of the drop-off or pickup procedure. Rich's shop isn't on the way to any place the cellist or I normally go.

The trip presents a number of possibilities. I've driven over and ridden home. I've ridden over and driven home. The route over the top of the lake is shorter, but uses really nasty sections of Route 25. Note to anyone who wants to ride around Lake Winnipesaukee: The section from the Weirs through Moultonboro has many areas of narrow highway filled with cars, trucks, SUVs, boat trailers, you name it. Route 25 is the principal route across the state from the I-93 corridor to Route 16 above The Big Lake.

New Hampshire is full of interesting geographical features. You're always bending around a big wet spot or a big lump. On the route north of the lake you have to decide which way to go past the Ossipee Mountains, a circular range of volcanic rock. The roads have been widened where geology and funding have coincided to make it possible. Where they haven't, it's Live Free or Die driving or cycling.

The route from home is roughly 44 miles. From Wolfe City it's about 27. So, for instance, I've driven down at 6 in the morning, left the car with a note and ridden to work. Then I might ride the rest of the way home or hitch a lift with the cellist if she's headed that way at the right time. Spending time with her is more important than cycling purity or overall mileage accumulation.

As I rode along Chestnut Cove Road in Alton yesterday, I had plenty of time to observe how little spring has really touched the forest here. In what used to be a normal year, we might still have quite a bit of snow. I would not have several hundred miles on me already.

I always loved the early season. I loved getting back out onto the training roads after a winter of only commuting when I lived and raced in Maryland. Later, up here in New Hampshire, I often started the season with a goal, like a big ride or a series of them.

Training rides can be epic, but I never fooled myself that they were necessary. I had chosen to race. Sometimes a necessary epic would combine conveniently with the training schedule, like the time I went down one early April weekend in my girlfriend's car to meet her parents in southern Maryland. She wasn't going to make me stay longer than overnight, but I had to make my own way home. I needed long mileage for my training program, so I took off happily on the 75-mile trek back to Naptown. The only hitch was that I had forgotten my bike shorts. I had to ride several hours through redneck country with only my wool tights between me and...whatever.

When I worked for the newspaper in Wolfeboro, I would sometimes ride into Center Ossipee to pick up the payroll checks to deliver to Wolfeboro. That detour made my 29-mile day a 48-mile day. It was all for a good cause, though. If only the little (in all respects) paychecks needed to be transferred to Wolfe City, it wasted time and fuel for someone from either office to drive the route. Send the bike messenger! He's a useful idiot!

Yesterday, gray clouds and showers emphasized the bare trees over brown ground and gray rock. Light showers had darkened the roads to a dull sheen as I left Wolfeboro. It wasn't quite enough to raise a ridge of water on the tires. I hoped it wouldn't get to that point, because I had not fitted the front fender.

On South Main Street I herded traffic up the gradual but relentless grade. At one point as I moved to shut the gate because a big truck was coming the other way, I heard the driver behind me stomp down on the gas pedal to push into the gap. I kept my responding middle digit down over the handlebars as the dilapidated mini van wedged its way past me.

The ride from Wolfeboro starts with climbs. After the grade up past the high school the road drops down to a 90-degree bend in South Wolfeboro, goes down a little further and then tackles the wall up to where the highway widens with a lane-width shoulder. The shoulder has no rumble strip. It functions very well for cycling. The climbs to get there are a harsh warmup.

Twenty-seven miles hardly constitutes an epic ride. What gave this its epic quality was the time of year and the way it fit into a day more scheduled than my average work day. I have more respect for 27 hilly miles than I used to have. I also did it on minimal food. I'm trying to burn through some winter blubber, so I brought the lightest of snacks. Hunger creates a timeless feeling. This was also the longest continuous ride I've managed so far this season. It felt good to stop.

It can be hard to explain to someone who has not experienced it how it feels better to do something strenuous and finish it than it does to go without it at all.

The drive home isn't short. I was hungry and a little sore, though not tired. I went to the grocery store on the way home. Even shopping hungry I bought only what was on the list. When I got home the momentum carried me into household chores and dinner preparation. Despite my best intentions to make a late lunch, I drank a lot of water and ate little food until supper. I'm as surprised by that as anyone.

Using the bike meant that I didn't need to inconvenience anyone else to do what I had to do. Transit might have taken me longer, but it cost less and gained more in all respects.

Starts and restarts

My wife's mother died at the end of January. That makes any whinge about lack of riding or skiing opportunities seem unforgivably trivial unless you consider the anti-depressant effects of exercise and the value of positive routines to help overcome the considerable stress of unhappy events.

Indeed, my wife resumed her trainer rides when we returned from the funeral trip. I was the laggard, already in a slump with the destruction of cross-country ski conditions after heavy rain took out most of the trail system a few weeks ago. And I got a headcold on the airplane trip. So the ride I took today was long overdue.

I haven't had this long a break in training since about 1979. Even when I quit racing bikes I still commuted, and I trained for climbing and mountaineering, so I ran, hiked, and followed a regular upper-body conditioning program. Exploring demands fitness.

My wife was a runner for many years. Whenever she needed to jump-start a conditioning program she would run. Unfortunately, the impacts finally caught up with her. She rides the trainer with admirable dedication. She also has discovered the fixed-gear, for when she's inclined to go back out on the roads.

Fixed gear does for me what running did for her. Cross-country skiing is more complete exercise, but requires certain conditions. Ski machines are mentally torturous. When I need to blast the lethargy and get moving, the fixed gear provides the same continuous effort that running requires (no coasting), without the impact.

I've read a little about chi running. It seems intriguing. When I ran, I did not suffer injuries, but I never ran for more than a few months at a time. I would always resume one of my preferred activities when I got the chance. I'm a bike guy. From the little I've skimmed about chi running, it sounds like a way to promote a light-footed stride that I may have possessed naturally. I remember the beginning of every summer in childhood, when all the neighborhood kids would recondition their feet to go barefoot. I ran all over the place with no shoes, once my feet were toughened up. The barefoot stride apparently trains you not to strike heavily on the heel. I do remember padding like an animal when running barefoot.

I would have to run along the roads around here. Some people stud an old pair of running shoes and use the snow machine trails. It's so much easier to break out the fixed gear and knock off ten or fifteen miles.

This is February. It could be the beginning of riding season. It wouldn't be the first time. It needs to be something.

The big snow in the Middle Atlantic region of the US makes my Mobile Groomer idea look pretty good. Big cargo aircraft would transport grooming equipment to create cross-country ski trail networks wherever heavy snow had just fallen. The mobile units would stay as long as they were needed. They could also bring mobile rental and retail facilities to bring the Nordic area to the snow rather than sit in one place and hope the weather comes to them. There are parks and golf courses in many places that see snowy winters on an irregular basis. No one would invest in a permanent facility there, but some sort of broad-based investment system might support mobile facilities.

None of this helps me in snow-deprived New England. I still have to do my rides on the sandy, dusty roads with a cold wind pushing me around. But it would help me, knowing that the bounty of snow somewhere else wasn't going completely to waste.

26 Days Without Exercise

I don't make resolutions for the new year. If something is a good idea, I want to implement it right away. But December somehow manages to throw a big, dark ravine in front of me. The far side lies, coincidentally, near the first of the new year.

The end of a year brings a lot of items into the schedule on the days with the least and lowest sun. The sun doesn't stay up appreciably longer in early January, but the schedule seems to ease up. In the ski business and retail, the holidays are just a hurdle. January is a relief. If the snow is good, we can establish a rhythm again. If the snow isn't good, I could have a lot of free time. As the patrol captain at Jackson used to say when the warm breeze of a nasty winter thaw brought the smell of thawing mud and manure across the center of the village, "it smells like unemployment out there today."

Someone being interviewed on public radio the other night (I'm pretty sure it was Gretchen Rubin) suggested that someone who is out of work should be sure to get enough sleep and exercise to help maintain happiness. That fits my Working Class Athlete Theory. The First Law is "When Unemployed, Train."

What Rubin said could be distilled to this: Exercise will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no exercise.

A rider I know who has grappled with substance abuse issues told me that riding becomes his drug.

"I'm like an addict. When I get back into riding [after a lapse for various reasons] at first I start to feel great, but then I worry constantly that I'll get a flat or break a chain. It's like an addict worrying that he'll run out of whatever he uses."

I've known a number of riders who got themselves off of chemical substances by substituting a cycling addiction. They are certainly healthier and happier on bikes than on the brain candy. But my friend's anxiety simply underscores my Second Law of the Working Class Athlete: Become Your Own Mechanic. Learn to take care of the basics: fix a flat, adjust gears and brakes, adjust hubs, overhaul bearings. With threadless headsets you can overhaul that assembly with just one or two hex keys, a rag and some grease. Hubs still require specialized cone wrenches, but other maintenance can be done with standard metric tools, a smallish screwdriver and some pliers. It's a lot easier than growing your own dope or operating your own meth lab.

More tools let you work on more things with more precision. Always keep basic spare parts on hand.

I chose cycling in the 1970s because it had practical benefits. I was a commuter before I was a racer. Racing was an interesting and educational diversion, but a diversion nonetheless. Training was an excuse to ride, because adults need an excuse to ride. "I'm training for a race" sounds more virtuous and plausible than "I just like to ride my bike for hours because it makes me feel good." I'm competing. I'm pushing myself to achieve victory. It's a competitive sport. I could end up in the Olympics.

Ha ha. The only way I would end up in an Olympic cycling race would be if I stumbled onto the course and the field ran over me. I'm well above average athletically, but there's a monstrous steep slope between "better than most" and "one of the best." The average person could be much better than average with a little consistent effort. Meanwhile, the excuse of training let me justify my hedonistic enjoyment of all aspects of cycling, first on road, then off road when mountain biking came along.

Other excuses to ride include weight loss and "living longer."

My doctor told me that a regular exercise program can increase the average person's life span by about six years, but the exercise time necessary to achieve that benefit averages out to about six years. Don't exercise to live longer. Do it to live better. Do it to be strong longer in whatever life span you get.

Having said that, my father is a high functioning man of 82 who doesn't really exercise at all. He does not look fit. With a little (or a lot) less poundage on him he could be more flexible and functional. On the basis of genetics alone, however, he's doing better than some people in their 50s and 60s. It's kind of annoying, really. Love ya, Dad!

Before 26 days turns into 27 I should step away from the computer and move around a little.

Cyclists Checking Each Other Out

When you meet another cyclist do you automatically look down to check out leg musculature and whether they're shaved?

August 20 Clarification: I posted this in haste during a work day after several riders had walked through the shop in civilian clothes. Their manner revealed that they were familiar with bike equipment and comfortable in a shop. They moved with quiet confidence.

Looking at legs is a racer habit. What might this competitor have under the hood? Because a cyclist is both driver and engine, you can take your best guess based on the parts you can see.

In the lower licensed ranks, hairy-legged riders used to get crap from those who had shaved, even if the shaven ones had to chase down the hairy one to deliver their insults. Add a hard-shell helmet and you could find yourself shoved into a parking meter because the smooth-legged majority assumed you were a dangerous geek. At the very least, as a privateer you would not get anyone to work with you if you didn't look serious.

I make no judgments about a rider based on leg hair and muscle tone. Cycling is much bigger than that. I just thought it was funny that I still had the reflex urge to look.

I am a hairy geek on a heavy bike now. That hasn't kept me from dropping a few riders on titanium or carbon fiber when I meet them on my morning time trial to work. But I have no illusions about where I sit on the scale of absolute speed. And who really gives a rat's chamois anyway?

Cost of a good time keeps going up

The Mount Washington Hill Climb attracts hundreds of masochists every year to enjoy an hour or two of pain on a time trial up the highest peak in the northeast United States. Many of these riders modify their bikes for the race.

Most commonly over the years, riders who had a mountain bike as well as a road bike would temporarily graft parts of the mountain bike drive train onto the road bike. The crank would be stripped down to just the smallest ring. No need for the bigger rings on eight miles of continuous ascent. Ditch that hefty front derailleur and shifter, too. Likewise set aside one brake. Some riders even had a special wheel set.

To accommodate a wider cassette in the rear, the long-cage derailleur might make its way to the road frame for the day.

In the days of square, tapered bottom bracket axles, the cranks could swap over easily, as long as the granny ring cleared the frame. With a single ring in front, derailleur swing didn't matter. Perfect chain line wasn't a big deal either. After the start the rider would probably be in only a few gears near the inner end of the cassette anyway.

The conversion was cheap if the rider owned all the parts already. But then the process got Shimanoed.

With every added cog, spacing gets tighter. Splined bottom brackets for road didn't match splined BBs for mountain. Then came two-piece cranks with outboard bearings. Road has 10 speeds, mountain has 9. Brifters aren't really compatible with mountain derailleurs. Non-Shimano splined bottom brackets could have any of several spline patterns, because manufacturers did not embrace the ISIS format as the sole alternative to Shimano's proprietary antics. Conversion involves more parts and more shop time.

One conversion I've been working on will cost more than $400 for a one-time event. The owner of the bike needs to buy all the parts because he has no mountain bike to scrounge from. And he made it more complicated by insisting on two gears and a functioning derailleur in front.

It's all the same to me. I get paid by the hour. I'll figure out the details. He just needs to open the wallet.

Depressing news from Iowa

"Shared roadways are no longer safe or practical in today's society." So says a group in Iowa seeking to have bicycles banned from most of their state's highways. A group that calls itself the "Citizens for Safety Coalition of Iowa" is circulating a petition to get an initiative on the ballot for 2010 that would make cycling on "farm to market" routes illegal. Given the distribution of farms and markets in Iowa, that effectively ends much road cycling. Get on the bike path!

This news comes on the heels of the move by Jefferson County, Colorado, commissioners, to push through state legislation giving Colorado counties power to ban cycling from any roads they choose.

This is how transportation cycling ends, if we let it. One battlefield at a time, motorists push us back, push us back, waaay back.

If you're not a resident of the state in question, you can't do much to affect legislators there. If you can't vote them out of office, they don't give a shit what you have to say. It's obvious they have a thing against cyclists. Cyclists who can't possibly grab them by the political balls will rate no attention at all. You have to be ready to fight the war when it comes to you, or prevent it by continuous lobbying before the fact.

It always comes down to money. Many of the opponents of road cycling will not believe that they are persecuting low-income citizens. Many low-income citizens dutifully enslave themselves to motor vehicles and try to live like "normal" people. But if road cycling is outlawed, only outlaws will cycle on the road. Some of those desperadoes are bound to be decent, striving workers facing one more hurdle in their battle to make ends meet. I count myself among their number. I do all right, but a lot of that depends on being able to keep my transportation expenses in check.

Then there are the health advantages cycling bans will take from us. Those of us willing to be as active as our natural physiology requires deserve to be able to integrate physical activity into the practical workings of our lives.

Perhaps the opponents of cycling would like to see a big clot of motor vehicles blocking their favorite highway. Forget Critical Mass with bikes. Get out there in cars, the way they want us to, and drive like little old ladies. Get around us NOW, bitches!

I think I need to take a break and get some decent food into me. I can't think about moto-centric bigots for a while.

Reap the Tailwind

Got lucky with the weather Wednesday and Thursday. I needed to get home in a hurry for a zoning board meeting Wednesday. The southerly kicked in, so I rode the express.

Thursday morning I needed to get to town early to cover for absent coworkers. Presto, the wind had shifted, so I got the boost again.

It all went in the crapper this morning. A tropical downpour sent streams rushing down my driveway. The torrent overcame my roof drain system and put a pond under my workbench.

Complex jobs pile up in the workshop. My one co-mechanic seems to have quit without notice. It's under the guise of a vacation right now, but I know he's had enough of the craziness. Since he has other employment options, I'm not surprised his patience has run out with this one. Stinks for me, because he was good with a wrench and learned new procedures quickly. I can't fault him for wanting to escape, though.

One project at a time I ease them through. Finished assembling a Co-Motion tandem today. It took up a lot of space in the shop. It's weird working on something with its ends that far apart.

Next up, a tuneup and extras for Captain Corrosion, a phenomenal crud generator. On the other stand, another mechanic fought his way through a Crank of Death and brake replacement on an undistinguished Schwein someone wants to take on a plane to Australia. What, they don't have crappy beater bikes in Australia? Ours is not to reason why.

Against this backdrop (and plenty of other stuff in the pipeline) came all the emergency flat repairs and broken spoke replacements.

We had spotty coverage in the front of the house, so one or the other of us kept having to leave a workstand to babysit browsers in the clothing department or ring up purchases. At full summer volume the place really needs one person on the front end and two in service. In the brief periods when repairs slow down, one mechanic can be a floater to back up the sales force. When things are really rocking we can keep a person busy at the register, one on the bike sales floor and two at work stands.

Then in about a month it's all over. But don't wish your life away. The summer is like a racing season. You don't want to break yourself down with constant efforts at 75 percent. You have a duty to rest so you can go hard when the pace picks up. Try to enjoy every phase.

Pain gets dropped

For some reason, the normal aches and fatigue of a regular riding schedule lose their grip on me in July. I still hurt, but I turn a higher average for the same pain.

Racing is a pain game. For the most part, every racer feels like hell when the pace picks up. What separates them is not who can hurt the most but who gets the most from their hurt.

I am an aggressive commuter. I believe that a crisp, assertive riding style subliminally influences motorists. This means I have to be ready to ride like I mean it in sections where the traffic is only a little faster than I am.

The open highway is actually more restful. The motorists have room to whiz by at four times my speed. They swing wide by reflex at that speed. Some are better than others, but the vast majority don't want to risk too close a pass.

Wolfe City presents the most demanding part of any commute. In the morning I hit town warmed up with at least 40 minutes on me. The town criterium gives me a last surge of aggressive energy before I walk into the shop. In the evening it's much harder. I may have to sprint and throw elbows from the start. This is after spending the day on my feet. It's hardly an optimum warm up. As much as possible I drop back to an easy spin between jams until I gain the relative peace of the highway. The route home is slightly different from the route in, and longer. The potential jam sections are spread over a longer distance than in the morning as well.

July arrives with its peculiar energy. The month of my birth seems to bring rebirth. I was born in the long days and short nights of the New England summer. It feels right to me. As much as I have come to appreciate things that happen in other seasons, the height of summer is the center of my year.

Some time in August the chase group will reel me in. My leaden legs will slow. As the tourists and second home crowd recede I can take more time on my daily rounds. For now I enjoy the stage race of July.

Time to get ready for today's start.

What do you expect?

On a recent ride home I spotted a length of synthetic webbing on the side of the road. The Roadside Tool and Supply Company has had many useful items over the years. I stopped to pick up this latest offering.

I didn't want to put the webbing inside any of my packs, so I tucked it under a strap on my rack pack. For several miles I kept glancing back to be sure it was secure. After several such checks I returned my attention to the scenery.

Especially in the summer, drivers can express intolerance of cyclists, as irritable local types chafe at summer traffic and visitors from away bring their own prejudices. I cannot count on peace and quiet even in the last couple of miles or even yards to my driveway. Most days no one does anything too overt, but the chance remains.

As I negotiated a series of curves and intersections in the final half-mile I had to use lane position and body language to communicate with drivers entering from side roads. There were a couple of pickup trucks and some cars in the mix. In this section people may join the route I'm on or cross it, so I might get a lot of company or none at all. Flowing down to the Pine River bridge and up to the stop sign I've been brushed back and honked at by drivers who felt they deserved to get to that stop sign first.

This time I found myself alone at the stop. I glanced both ways and floated through. It appeared I could relax.

Suddenly, a large, white pickup truck appeared next to me. It matched my pace. This usually is not a good thing. Drivers who get an urge to communicate with cyclists don't usually have supportive things to say.

A young man leaned out of the truck. Here it comes.

"This fell off your bike," he said, holding out the webbing.

"Dang, man, thanks," I said, with an instant friendly grin replacing the cold snarl I had been preparing. I took the webbing. They eased ahead to resume their journey.

What about THAT, now? They had to have stopped while someone got out of their truck to retrieve the webbing. That's why I was so unexpectedly alone at the intersection. That's way above the most basic courtesy I hope for from drivers. Once in a while it happens.

Most road-hardened cyclists learn to deal with honks, yells, swerves, thrown objects and Dopplered shouts of profanity or disdain from the lords of the road. I've also received badly-timed honks of support from inexperienced friends who don't realize what an instant rage car horns inspire in cyclists. We have to sort through all these messages and avoid automatically replying with a metaphorical machine gun burst. We can't afford any friendly fire casualties. We need all our friends out there.

What a Spaz!

Ibuprofen, my old friend --
I've come to chew on you again.
It's been four hours since my last two pills
that take the edge off this pain that kills.
And it hurts even worse than a swift kick in the balls,
or cycling falls...
leaving the sound of groaning

Thursday morning when I tried to put on my socks my back exploded in pain as a muscle spasm gripped it. I dropped to my knees, sobbing profanity, trying to breathe.

Within a minute or two I could move a little. I managed to evade my wife's notice as I made my way to my bike. Maybe I could ride my way out of this. Perhaps spinning the gear would ease the spasm and end this misery.

Then again, perhaps not. I crawled to work at about 14 miles per hour. Once I got on the bike the actual pedaling wasn't too bad. Getting off it was another matter. I could barely drag it into the shop. But what the hell. If I was going to be in miserable agony I might as well be at work. Who wants to waste a day off on that?

Every few minutes I had to sit down as the pain made me nauseous. Good times! I left my wife a phone message to tell her I was incapable of walking across town for a violin lesson. In return, she brought me pain killers and a cold pack to put on the knotted muscles.

My boss dragged my twisted carcass to my house after work. Friday I only left my house to get a massage.

Things are getting better. No disks seem to be involved. Massagiste says the likely trigger was the psoas muscle, a deeply-situated hip flexor. Stretching it as part of an overall campaign seems to be helping, along with fistfuls of my one-time favorite snack food, ibuprofen.

This is the problem with mindlessly cycling hard, day after day, with an aging body. Things like this sneak up on you. I used to be obsessive about stretching and supportive conditioning. Unfortunately, between work, domestic chores and transit time, I have to slice the remaining minutes pretty finely. The weights and stretching kept getting squeezed out. The stretching obviously has to squeeze back in.

I'll just cut back on work.

Pains like this are scary when they seem to come out of nowhere. I felt absolutely fine, with none of my usual warning twinges. It was a classic case. Pain like that makes you wonder if you'll ever move freely again. Prior to the Big Stiffie of rigor mortis, that is.