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.

Train like a pro

 In 1980 I was somewhat sketchily employed and had a chance to ride regularly with a sponsored "amateur" bike racer. While he did not receive a direct salary for riding, he had reached a high enough level that he was able to ride as if it was his job.

During the spring and summer he was often around Annapolis. He welcomed company on his long, easy days, and on many of his interval training days, the pattern of effort and recovery allowed a few riders far below his level to play along anyway. When he had something really serious to do, he generally did it somewhere else, with riders in his category.

Because he had to ride, but he had complete control over his schedule, he mostly rode in the nicest part of every day, if the day actually had a nice part. I did go with him on one rainy day, for hours, getting steadily more soaked and gritty, but for the most part we went when the air was mild, and the gentle sun shone just enough through perfect puffy clouds -- or so it seems in memory. He did say that he preferred to train during his highest energy level, which was the heart of the day. It was a pretty seductive life. Eat well, sleep well, ride a lot, tune your bike...

He did have an obligation to perform in return for this indulgence. I got a small closeup of it one day when the group wanted to go long and mellow, but he needed to do a time trial effort to prepare for a race. I went with him when he peeled off to do this on the way back to Annapolis from south of town. We were on Route 2, for anyone who remembers what that was like in 1980, with the classic Chesapeake southerly wind behind us. He accelerated steadily to top gear as I stayed an inch off his wheel, as he had taught us. Then he pulled left so that I could ride through on the inside to take a turn at the front.

I felt like a flag in a gale. I clawed my way past him, with a bit of shelter as he dropped back. He looked down at my bike.

"You've got two bigger gears," he said.

I knew that, but I was finding out that they were mostly decorative. I shifted into them and promptly roasted my legs. I lasted about seven seconds out there before he pulled through. We tried to switch off a couple of times after that before he just told me to stay back and hang on.

There's a reason that the time trial is called "The Race of Truth."

That day offered a rare chance to see a tougher part of the process. When I was in an actual race with him, the district road championships, I saw him depart on his breakaway with a couple of other riders, and saw him no more until we were back at the parking lot when it was over. He had a job to do. I was just playing.

I think of those days now as I try to train up for commuting season more than 500 miles north of central Maryland. I try to ride in the nicest part of the day, but with a regular job, and with early season niceness often less nice, for shorter periods, I'm out there with a cold wind leaning on me on the few days when I have the option to ride when it suits me. Even so, I find it easier to dress for a slog in the frigid gale than for stationary riding in a room that is too warm and too cold at the same time.

After a lackluster winter, we're told to expect a cold spring. Once I get into the commute, the ride time is set and the weather just comes along with it. The nicest part of the day often takes place outside the shop windows in the middle of the work day and is gone by the time I head out into the chilling evening.

Bike riding is seen as a hobby and an indulgence in this country, but for me it has been a vital part of a life less reliant on fossil fuels, and more conducive to physical fitness -- not for vanity, but for the ability to live more economically within humanity's global family budget. It has also helped me to survive on really pathetic paychecks by reducing my transportation expenses. If I could go back to living without a car, I would. However, by the time our urban areas are redesigned actually to support the workforce, I will be a very old man, or the decomposing remains of one. So for now I indulge myself in rural surroundings, and push my rusty old car through the seasons when transportation cycling is not practical in this climate.

Helmets and face masks

In the 1970s, a helmeted rider was a rare sight. Only racers wore helmets. This persisted into the 1980s, fading gradually in the decade after that. Now they have become a normal sight in our culture.

After telling us for months that masks do little or nothing to prevent the spread of disease in the general population, the official position seems to be shifting in favor of masks. At the same time, masks are in short supply for the people who need them most, caring for the sick or for first responders attending to people who might be sick. We're told to improvise. This does open the field to fashion statements and home hobby projects.

One guy in Italy posted a video using a feminine sanitary pad. I don't know if there are any of those hiding in a cabinet around the house, but there may be some leftover tampons I can shove in my nostrils.

I did notice in the grocery store that the empty toilet paper shelves were right next to fully stocked displays of adult diapers. They could be used for really heavy breathing.

A breath helmet would seem to be a minor concern for a cyclist flying free in the open air, six feet or more from anyone else. When traffic thickens up, however, we end up close to the occupants of motor vehicles, who might have the window down, and fellow riders on crowded paths. Air movement should make any contagion highly unlikely in the moving environment of a road, street, or bike path. The slower the speed and the more calm the air, the greater the chance that a cloud may hang. Stopped adjacent to each other, people could exchange sneezes.

Judge the odds for yourself. With incidents of door handle licking and targeted coughing, cyclists might want to take extra precautions because we already suffer the bad jokes and outright malice of motorists who don't think we belong out there. In this area, business traffic has diminished, but with many people released from their workday schedules some of them have nothing better to do than drive around. I haven't launched my commute yet, but I'm hoping to do it soon. Training rides are part of that preparation, so even though I'm not in the workday riding groove I'm still putting myself out there. My favorite training loops go in a fairly serene direction compared to Elm Street and the Route 28 corridor. Drivers are always more aggressive on that trade route to the outside world. I don't look forward to that. But driving sucks.

Back to the subject of PPE, I did not see many mask users in the grocery store yesterday. I had wadded up a couple of bandannas in my pocket, but I wussed out and didn't tie them on. I did bring in my own bottle of alcohol to douse the cart handle and periodically rub on my hands. Reusable gear is only as good as your cleaning procedures. Disposable equipment needs to be replaced regularly. And people being people, they're chucking used gloves wherever they feel like it: leaving them in a cart for the next person to deal with, or overworked and under-protected grocery store personnel to throw away, or just ditching them in the parking lot. Roadside litter and the contents of any trash can are now biohazards.

Stay classy!

COVID-19: time trial rules in effect

No drafting. No close passing. That's obvious.

Stay out of snot rocket range. Watch where you spit. What was formerly just a gross breach of etiquette or a grossly humorous mishap could now be fatal to a susceptible rider unfortunate enough to intercept your phlegm projectile. At the very least it would be an inconvenient interruption to someone's training schedule. Of course you're not infected. You're fine! But whoever you landed it on might go through a couple of weeks of anxiety watching you for symptoms. And let's not forget asymptomatic carriers. It also invites retaliation. Who's to say that that other joker is fine?

On the road at any time, cyclists are vulnerable to the bodily fluid assaults of disapproving motorists. Indeed, I once got into a roadside punch-up with a car full of teenagers who had clammed on me as they drove by. That was about 40 years ago, when I could be lured into such a confrontation pretty easily. There have been other spitters since then. It usually just blows back on them because of the wind created by our forward motion. But when you have to worry about micro droplets the risk factor goes up.

For now, our noses run because the weather is cold. About the time the weather warms up, our noses will run because of all the pollen. Always assume your nose is loaded and point it in a safe direction.

Commuters are time trialists more than pack riders. Some of that depends on your area and work schedule. Around here, only a handful of people commute by bike, and that includes every direction leading into town. I almost never see any other riders on my commute. Schedule makes a difference too. The other commuters seem to have to arrive earlier. They're already finished before I come through, and they've headed home before I get out at the end of my shift.

For any part on the rail trail I will encounter other riders, but far fewer of them when I head out in the evening than coming into town in the morning. And there's no way you can stay six feet apart when you're trapped between the rails. Even a lot of the path outside the rails is too narrow to keep a safe distance. That will become a factor as the weather warms up and the trail dries out. Walkers would have to step out and down the crumbling banks of the causeways to keep their proper distance from each other. Riders can't do that. Even the most talented mountain bike trickster would find it slow going to hop along the embankment for yards at a time. It's not a realistic option if you have to be somewhere at a particular time.

Robbed of the last of autumn

After a genuine winter-style snowstorm late night Thursday through a good bit of Friday, the roads cleared enough for me to snatch a ride before the next set of snowstorms. The snow has trashed the trail conditions, so my park and rides have become inconvenient. The next stage is to park and walk, which requires a longer drive to get within efficient walking distance. And I'll be walking back out in the dark. I would be riding in the dark anyway.

Some people just submit to the inevitable and ride the trainer in these conditions. I'm not sure what would give me sufficient incentive to ride the trainer or rollers on a regular basis. I would always prefer to be doing something real, outdoors. Not to disrespect the trainer riders. I salute them. The poor bastards.

Just over a month ago it was nice enough to stop for photo ops along Lake Wentworth.

New England says, "You knew what I was like when you moved in with me." It's true. And for the most part I just roll with it. Only after the park and ride became a realistic option did I get used to it and come to rely on it. And, every year, the park and ride season gets interrupted by some amount of snow. Early snow has tended to go away quickly enough to let the season continue, but the current storm pattern may blow that average.

Winter riding is best when conditions are "freeze dried." Dirt roads are firm and fast. The brine stays locked in the roadside snowbanks. It evaporates on the pavement to leave the classic white dust.

We're looking at a high of 19 and single-digit lows on Thursday. This follows snow chances starting tonight and running through Wednesday. With the sun approaching its lowest angle, it has no strength to attack even a small accumulation, and it's not up for very long anyway.

This time of year reminds me of my early years out of college, training and commuting in all weather in Maryland and northern Virginia. The winters are milder down there, but it's all relative: I was reacclimatizing after eight years in Florida. Beyond mere meteorological reminiscence, I can also tap into the blend of hope and desolation that permeated the period. There were roads, but no clear path. I was gathering information, while others in my peer group charged forward with learned certainties. The system works for those who do not question its validity.

That's not necessarily a good thing.

A raven spread its wings and wheeled above Route 25 as I rode toward the Ossipee River. A mountain rose to my right. Woods and fields dominate the scenery there. The cadence connected to every spin through every cold landscape in the same gear, year after year.

The Evolution of Cross-Training

In ancient times, when I felt free to play, winter was a time to explore as widely as time and money would allow. I did it all -- or mostly all --: I climbed ice, I trudged up above treeline in what you could call mountaineering, I skied cross-country and some Telemark, I hiked. The cross-country skiing was mostly exploratory, on ungroomed terrain, but working in the business put me close to groomed trails. Learning more about the equipment and technique became a professional necessity and an enjoyable addiction for a time.

Mind you, I never intended to get into the gear business or the recreation industry. These happened by accident in search of basic income. Having put my eggs in the "creative" basket, I had little to offer the world of office jobs or practical trades. What I know I have learned by doing. Being a bike mechanic still seems like a worthwhile skill set, made less enjoyable by the consumerist avalanche that buried the industry and the pedaling world in the 1990s. The industry dumps more debris on the pile every year, rather than showing any inclination to dig some away and focus on simple pleasures. So it goes.

Wrenching has not been a gold mine. And the creative eggs are either spoiling in the basket or are easily overlooked in the tall grass and the jumble of other people's more brilliant output. So I guard my resources and spend nothing on journeys long or short that I do not need to take.

Ice climbing was easy to quit. The tools are expensive and the problems don't entice me. As a subset of mountaineering, ice and rock climbing made sense, within my conservative comfort zone. No longer mountaineering, I no longer think much about the supportive skills.

Achievers need mountains to climb. Artists just need mountains to appreciate. I don't need to be clinging to a couple of microscopic rough patches above a deadly drop to have a nice day out on the crags. I'm not keeping a score card of peaks bagged and waiting to be bagged. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's a matter of personality.

Two elderly men I know provide a perfect example of the pros and cons of each approach. The achiever now spends most of his time sitting in a recliner, watching cable news and analyzing situations over which he no longer has much influence. He spent his entire adult life in organizations: government service, sailing clubs, yachting associations. He has plaques, certificates, medals, trophies, attesting to his performance in various hierarchical settings. He has memories of when life was fun, even though his performance focus made it very hard to tell that he was having fun at the time. The artist bought himself a Kevlar solo canoe a couple of years ago, and still goes out paddling, even after a heart attack and the usual pain and stiffness of an aging body. He's in his 80s. He will stop when he is no longer physically capable of going.

Some competitive types manage to remain competitive in their age group until they drop. Some tourist types probably stop and rot sooner than they need to. There are millions of people I've never met, so I can't say for sure. I do observe that the artistic appreciative types, and the achievers with something of the artist about them, seem to remain alive until they're dead, compared to people who need to be at or reaching for the top of a given activity, who stagnate when they realize that big glory is now out of reach.

I'm just trying to stay strong enough to continue my self-propelled lifestyle.

As winter has deteriorated over the years, opportunities to charge right out the door onto usable surfaces have diminished. At the same time, the odds of finding something worth the trip at the end of a self-indulgent drive have diminished as well. I can take a slog in the slush from my own back door more easily that I can take one miles away. From a pure fitness standpoint, the slog from home is more enjoyable than any indoor training, and just as effective as a slog for which I had to burn gasoline.

Winter riding seems less inviting now than it did. Are the roads less clear, or is it just my dwindling testosterone? Can't tell you. I know that the slop storms we get seem to inspire the road crews to slather way more salt than they used to, and the glop impinges on the travel way a lot. Micro-climates also affect riding conditions on most routes around here. Areas that don't get as much sun remain colder, with persistent snowdrifts and ice. Increased population puts more drivers on the roads. Decreased bike use among young people means that more and more of those drivers have not had much -- if any -- experience as riders. Most mean well, but they lack the empathy born of personal knowledge. And some lack empathy entirely.

Then there are simple logistics. In my care-free years, my house was tiny and easy to care for. When it grew into a music school (now closed), the building itself became permanently larger. I would not get a refund if I removed part of the structure. The money is spent. The building is here. And the driveway doesn't clear itself. I gave up on plow guys, because they never live up to the promises. So, every snowstorm, I have to be out there with the snow thrower. You learn a lot you might not already have noticed when you have to move all of your own snow. Moisture, density, depth, can make the difference between a one-hour job and a three-hour job.

At least in this crappy snow year I have not had to go up and shovel the roof. Even though that is the only technical climbing I do anymore, I can live without it. The roof is the quicker part. Moving the avalanche piles afterward is when the real work begins. And none of it was easy.

All that home maintenance stuff does count as exercise. So does splitting and stacking wood. But it's not complete and balanced exercise. For that you need to get out and find something you can do for more than an hour, arms and legs, like cross-country skiing. And not much else is like cross-country skiing, in the way it incorporates the entire body and mind. Metaphorically, things are similar, but they don't provide the conditioning benefits.

In desperation a couple of weeks ago, I dug out the old Nordic Track machine, intending to flog myself through at least a half-hour on it before letting myself have supper. It's not much like actual skiing, but it does use arms and legs in a similar motion. Because you are working hard, but going absolutely nowhere, with no swoop and glide, it is absolutely the most tedious, miserable toil, unrelieved for me by any musical or video distraction. I just want it to be over. As it happened that evening, the cellist called when I was 17 minutes into it. After we finished talking, it was that much later, I was that much hungrier, and I couldn't get myself to start again. And, the next day, I felt like total crap. Joints hurt, I had none of the feeling of cleansing and residual endorphins that usually follow a good workout. So screw that. I'm back to trying to get out and wander around at any opportunity.

Right now I have to go move 3 inches of slush that fell yesterday, in case daytime highs in the 40s to 50 don't get rid of enough of it. Cross training, man. March is a wild card when it comes to winter weather around here. I may be out riding soon, or we might get shut down until mid April. The second half of winter is like another whole season. Animals are fighting it until the end, trying to get to the easier feeding of the growing season. Hut-bound humans atrophy every day, right up to the very day that they manage to break out and start moving around again.

Blast from the past

Yep. It's just not training unless your upper lip is stuck to your top teeth in a rictus of agony, moistened only by occasional vomit.

For all my insistence that I do not want to flail myself through a training schedule, I rode to work this morning thinking about options to put tighter gearing on the road bike. Certainly not higher gearing, I assure you. But closer steps in the geezer range I can push will make the pain more micro-adjustable.

It might be kind of a hoot to throw a straight block 6-speed on the old Campy Record rear hub I took off when I built the cassette wheel that's on there now. Swapping wheels is quicker and less grimy than changing cassettes. For flat-road intervals, how many gears do I need? I certainly don't need an enormous big meat gear.

The danger of training is that I might become stronger. Then I plateau, fall into half-fast syndrome, and have to climb the pain ladder to a higher rung to keep from getting stale.

I'm pretty averse to pain, so suddenly discovering masochistic drive in myself is not a huge worry. In any case, closer steps in the freewheel or cassette will make life better. Either that or just keep slogging with what I have, remembering that this is only for a couple or three weeks, in all likelihood.

When there's nothing to do right now, one can't help but think.

I'll go through the cog stash when I get home.

It's all in how you say it

Her breath came in ragged gasps. Her words, half-formed sounded somewhere between a sob and a moan. Our hearts pounded. It was starting to hurt, but we couldn't stop until we'd gotten her where she needed to be.

She'd asked me to do this with her. She said she could do it by herself, but it never seemed to work as well. She's my friend. Even though it was something I swore I never wanted to do again, she asked with such sincere desire that I could not refuse. So now, here we were, committed to see this through, not once, but over and over, to the limits of my dissipated endurance.

I tried getting verbal, but she hadn't really told me whether she preferred gentle encouragement or rough talk. This was happening on its own schedule, without much of a plan. Should I tell her to prove to me how much she wants it, or just tell her she's doing great? Mostly, I was too out of breath to speak, anyway.

Since I got married, I hadn't done this with any woman but my wife, and with her it hadn't been this vigorous. My wife and this woman know each other. There'd even been some inkling that we might all three get together for something like this. My wife and I had done some group stuff at this woman's house, in a special room she had made, with straps and devices... My wife had been more into it than I was. She went pretty regularly until the group disbanded.

My crotch was on fire. She said that hers hurt, too. It's only to be expected, going at it like that.

When we had finished, she asked if I would meet her again. I said I could only do it until my wife gets back. She said she understood.

It sounds racy, but it was only training.

We were riding intervals. My friend suffers from a problem that many competitors face: finding training partners. When I raced, I did a lot of riding alone. I also rode with groups, but you have to keep up the schedule, whether a group is handy or not. My friend remains highly focused on competition. As luck would have it, an indolent commuter and tourist like me still has enough residual energy to be able to accompany a female triathlete in her early 50s on a set of four, 5-mile intervals and only completely blow up on the last one. Not sure how much of that is beginner's luck. But she's asked to do it weekly for a while, so I'll get to find out if it kills me or makes me stronger.

I can do it weakly. That plays into another sex joke: the stages of sex life are tri-weekly, try weekly, and try weakly.

As a writer, I have a lot of things going through my head at any moment. On the first interval, when I felt okay and we had a nice tailwind, she was half a bike back, hammering hard, producing noises of effort that were, well,...evocative. Not surprising really, considering that effort is effort. Absolutely nothing else about the situation was evocative, but my brain just snatches up a bit of imagery and takes off like your ill-behaved dog with the half-eaten steak you left unguarded for ten seconds on the picnic table. It made me laugh, silently, as I breathed just as audibly as she did. I had no goal but to help her get a better interval workout.

As we discussed it in the cool-down after the last heart-stabbing, thigh-rubberizing fiver, we concluded that someone like me would be a good training partner, because I have absolutely no athletic ambitions of my own. But I have to tell you. This shit hurts, and I'm not all chuckles and smiles looking forward to the next session.

I had forgotten the energy that follows a workout that demanding. My legs feel like lead, but I didn't just flop when I got home. I resumed domestic tasks and I'm still awake now, without my usual afternoon coffee. The real stiffness will no doubt catch up to me in a couple of days. But tomorrow starts the commuting week, so I'll be spinning that sludge out of those thighs.

Hit the rollers!

As the season advances, colder than average still becomes inexorably warmer. The persistence of subfreezing days and snow cover masks the fact that April is near. I may have only a few days to shift my training to launch the bike commuting season.

With a minor background in racing I use the term "training" a lot. Don't be put off. It's a convenient term for the physical conditioning that benefits anyone self-propelled. I don't consume the magic potions racers do, or meticulously plan my workouts to hone my physique and technique to perfection. I just throw together a few ingredients that seem to help the transitions from off-bike to on-bike. With the best of intentions it's increasingly hard to get myself to actually do any preparation. But I remember how and why I did and should.

I prefer rollers over a stationary trainer because on rollers the bike can be a bike instead of a fixture clamped in place. You don't want to lean into any imaginary corners, but you'll develop an unbelievably smooth and efficient pedal stroke. If you're maintaining strength in other ways, even a half-hour on the rollers helps a lot to keep you saddle-ready and smooth.

Getting ready to ride indoors seems like much more of a nuisance than getting ready to ride outdoors. Indoors you don't get the rewards of actual motion through the landscape. All you get is sweaty. Really sweaty. If you set up a fan to simulate the breeze over you, you have to regulate the temperature and your clothing to maintain your comfort during what is basically an uncomfortable activity. I wear as little as possible in a warm room and let the sweat fall where it may. Dry the bike off afterwards.

The fixed-gear is a great choice for roller riding because it has the fewest moving parts for you to sweat all over. It also forces you to develop smoothness over a wide range of cadence.

As previously stated, when the snow is good I will use the snow. But, inevitably, some winters have little or no snow, and all winters end. They don't start on a fixed, predictable schedule, either.

Going into winter my efforts emphasize weight-bearing locomotion. In recent winters, the weights have been 12-ounce containers of liquid and small musical instruments, but before that I would run, hike, mess around with free weights and specific exercises for strength and flexibility so I wouldn't cripple myself when whatever passed for skiing might finally arrive.

Coming out of winter, my recipe favors cycling. Shape the existing body to the bike. Ride rollers, mostly. If it's been a bad winter for exercise I'll run the stairs in my house as much as I can stand, and then ride rollers. If it's been a good winter for skiing, roller riding reshapes the pedal stroke, alerts the "saddle contact area" and begins to redistribute arm and shoulder mass I won't want or need for propelling a bike.

Time is short. I'll be happy just to go ahead and get the crotch-bruising out of the way and remind myself how to pedal smoothly. Get ready to split the car's hard shell and emerge for another season of free flight.