Bridging the gap

Winter

In the winter of 2017, I stepped away from long bike rides to get stronger. Following a consistent routine of ever heavier squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, bench pressing, and chin-ups required time to recover. So I set aside long rides in the cold for shorter, intense sessions under the unforgiving steel bar. Each session was a simple pass/fail test of will and growing strength: either I lifted or I failed.

February

By February 2018, the sessions had paid off. I found myself stronger than I had been in decades. Truth be told, physically, I am far more suited to strength training than Randonneuring. This kind of training may be the polar opposite of the endurance needed for Randonneuring, but I knew that when I took the step back to rebuild and rebalance. Yet, in the process, I had let months pass without my riding a 200K or even a 100K,

But as the days grew longer, I found myself questioning the wisdom of taking that much time off the bike. Before this break, for eight years I had maintained a streak of monthly 200K rides in part because the prospect of starting over to regain that necessary endurance intimidated me. The first go around to build it, to put it mildly, challenged me. Now, I found myself older, stronger, more experienced, but basically having to start again. 

{"I found myself" - what a strange expression. When you think about it, it becomes complex, hard to explain. Who is the  "I"? What is the "myself" that was found?  How did "I" lose "myself" and what is it about that moment of the discovery that leads to the expression "finding yourself? But I digress, let's return to Spring 2018 ...}

New Holland 200K

It was a hot afternoon. Even now, sitting in the house as the last light of the June sunset languidly eases into the horizon, my body radiates heat. It's as if the afternoon sun soaked deep into my flesh the way summer heat soaks into asphalt and concrete and then lingers before it finally releases into cooler evening air.

The morning started off cooler. We met just before dawn. The New Holland 200K is the last 200K of the Pennsylvania 600K that started the day before. Some of the 600K riders who arrived in the night would start at 5:00 am with those of us just riding the 200K.

A good place to be (notes from the Boston 600K)

It is the middle of a sunny Saturday afternoon in July.

I am on an audacious New England adventure, riding my bike up yet another hill, in temperatures well over 90 degrees.

The sun relentlessly beats down on the sun sleeves that protect my arms and the white wicking skully cap that protects my head.

My short sleeve, green plaid bike shirt is unbuttoned to my belly so that passing breezes can lift the sweaty fabric and cool my back.Fortunately, after weeks of summer bike commuting, I've acclimated to the heat and humidity and actually enjoy the hot weather.

On the descents, the wind cools and refreshes. I soar through the curves of the rolling hills having earned these moments of flight.

This is my life today, any for most of tomorrow, because this is a 600K in July.  

Spirited rides (or revisting the hierarchy of needs)

"Abraham Maslow (1943) stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs. 

When one need is fulfilled a person seeks to fulfill the next one, and so on." Link

Maybe Maslow was wrong. If you're so inclined, hear me out on this one.

At this point in my life, at the tail-end of middle age (almost halfway to a century), I am acutely aware that I am fortunate. No. That's not right. I am acutely aware that I am blessed. I am blessed  to be able to satisfy the first four psychological needs that Maslow identified. My biological and physiological needs, for air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sleep are pretty much a given.  A nice house in a nice neighborhood give me protection from the elements, security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear.  I enjoy love and belongingness in the form of friendship, intimacy, affection and love. My career provides some of the esteem needs such as achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, self-respect, respect from others. So according to the theory, I should be working on Self-Actualization - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

But this past weekend, I find myself once again returning to this sport and once again randonneurring takes me back to the basic needs. It is a place where breath (air), food, drink, shelter, warmth and sleep are no longer a given. Where I face the elements, vulnerability, and, yes, even fear.

I do keep the sense of love and belongingness. These are tools that I carry that as surely as I carry the things I need to survive. 

Maybe I jumped into the deep end of this discussion too soon. There's a back story. Forgive me. You weren't there. Let me fill you in on that before we come back to this. 

A Fleche of all seasons.

Maybe we should celebrate the start of a new year at the Spring solstice like the ancients once did. Gather with friends and strangers at the time of year when the seasons are in a state of flux and day and night balance for a moment on the needle of time. Maybe that is the time of year to celebrate new beginnings, not in the midst of winter's cold slumber but later, at the leading edge of Spring, as the world awakens, when anything seems possible and the promise of a new season of growth rises clean and bright on the horizon. Perhaps it is appropriate that a PBP finisher is called an Ancien because the Randonneuring season begins in the early Spring. At this time of year, in our part of the world, it is the season of the Fleche and this year, I rode a Fleche of all seasons.

On the last day of Winter: Lackawanna 200K

The first edge of sunrise lightens the sky. The surrounding woods slowly materializes from the darkness. Close to thirty randonneurs are here, ready to set out on the Lackawanna 200K. Bill, acting as ride organizer, gives the pre-departure briefing. Outside of the Hostel, sharp crisp air reminds me that it is the last day of Winter, not yet Spring.  It's been a long time since I rode a Pennsylvania brevet. My mind wanders. Standing here, in this familiar setting, on the landing outside the hostel as the dawn breaks, random memories of past rides seem to emerge with the daylight. I relive them without intervention, a raft of consciousness floating on a slow river of thought. Collectively, they carry me back to this time, this place. I have ridden before but each ride is different. Am I wearing the right layers? I don't want to be too cold or too hot. I just want to ride. It's time to ride. Let's go.

Living the dream. One account of Paris-Brest-Paris.

I thought I was prepared. I was wrong.

After five years of randonneuring over different distances, through a vast assortment of weather, after climbing hundreds of thousands of feet, after earning a shelf full of rando trinket awards, after a full season of training specifically for this ride, I thought I was ready for the 1230 Kilometer Paris Brest-Paris (PBP) bike ride that starts in the town of St. Quentin (pronounced Can-tan) located in the outskirts of Paris, goes to Brest, a port city located deep in the Bretagne (Brittany) region on the western edge of northern France, and then returns to St. Quentin. After all, according to my friend JB, who completed PBP twice before and would attempt it this time on a tandem, PBP was "just a bike ride." JB has been right about many things, but about this, he was just wrong.

One cannot simply ride this route whenever one chooses and then claim to have ridden PBP.

PBP is more than a bike ride.

PBP is an entire region of France coming out to welcome and support a diverse collection of worldwide adventurers.

PBP is a rolling Tower of Babel speaking the common language of cycling for three plus days.

PBP is an arduous personal challenge, testing body and spirit, that reaches back into history to the very birth of the cycling.

PBP is a moment in time.

PBP takes place outside of time.

PBP is its own reality.

PBP is a dream made real. 

This brief account cannot capture the experience of 6000 participants from 48 countries - no one account can. Add to that the fact that I spent the days that followed the ride in a narcoleptic fugue state, sleeping deeply, often and unexpectedly, as my mind and body swam up from the murky depths of exhaustion and sleep deprivation and the challenge of writing an accurate ride report grows greater. But, most of all, telling the story of PBP is like recalling the details of a dream - some are strong and clear, others linger at the edge of recall, slipping away from easy description and some may be lost in the haze of time. But this remarkable event remains a story worth telling, so, with those shortcomings in mind, I shall try to share a sense of living the dream that is PBP.

Hawk Mountain 200K - Digging the well

 "We dig the well of our personal reserve to the depth

and breadth of our experience"

My uncle Frank used to call it digging the well. Back in the 80's, when I was a teenager, uncle Frank introduced me to long distance cycling. He used the phrase to describe hard training, pushing back limits, the process of building of a deep reserve of strength and will to draw upon when things get tough, when you needed to go to the well.

The image stuck with me. I picture shoveling dirt, doing the hard work, again and again, to create a space to store that something extra to call upon in times of need. The well must be dug deep enough and big enough to meet the needs of the event. I also knew that an empty well is just a hole. To make it useful, you have to dig it far enough in advance so that, while you rest and recover, it can fill with the reserves that you may one day need. With the 768 mile Paris-Brest-Paris ride just over six weeks away, now is the time to dig the well.

Boston 400K - New Roads in New England.

            A night in Transit 

At 6:00 am on Friday morning I walked on the Gulf Coast beach of Naples, Florida, carrying my sandals in one hand. Tropical warm water swirled around my ankles as sea birds strolled on stick like legs along the raked sand. That afternoon, I flew to Philadelphia, got in my minivan and drove over five hours to a small airfield on the outskirts of Boston.

At 3:00 am on Saturday morning, I arrived in the parking lot of Hanscom airport in Bedford, Massachusetts.

The Boston 400K was scheduled to start at 6:00 am. The ridewithgps description reported 17,000 feet of climbing. The New England Randonneurs page reported that the ride went through three states: Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The latter two would be new States in my randonneuring collection - bringing the total to 18. But first I had to do the ride.

East Creek 600K - a simmering melange of desires

Close to 40 Randonneurs stream out from the Days Inn located off Exit 8 of the New Jersey Turnpike. Our red bicycle taillights stretch out along the roads that lead away from the north south Interstate  highway, away from the destination driven journey that the highway represents, away from that thoroughfare where every mile is made fungible, forgettable, less than a passing thought, less than a minute's consideration. On the small roads we ride, the miles grow large, significant, they take on their full meaning. This morning we set out to ride 600 Kilometers, 377 miles. The travel, the distance that we take on with our legs and our machines, is the destination. Over the course of this brevet, we will test ourselves where the only outcome that matters is pass or fail. For me, completing this ride will qualify me to ride Paris-Brest-Paris. I have been waiting five years for this. I have 40 hours to finish.

 seeking upekkha

In the darkness of 4:00 am, the cool air sits heavy with dew. As I ride through, tiny drops  collect on the tips of the individual hairs on my arm. I begin the ride searching for balance, equanimity, a place between extremes to accomplish the extreme, looking for that pace that will carry me through the uncertain miles before me. In my randonneuring, I have failed enough to know that success is not certain, but I have succeeded enough to know that perseverance and patience, especially now, in the first few hours of a major ride, can overcome almost any distance. I ride on, working on patience and building perseverance, as the world turns beneath my wheels toward the rising sun. 

The season starts anew.

March 28, 2015. 

Photo from PARando.org

Spending four hours riding uphill into a freezing headwind gives you lots of time to question your decisions. Especially when riding solo. I pressed on, pushing through the harsh chill, even while relearning hard won lessons.