Cycling Spotlight: “I Must Do This … Alone”

Introduction

There are so many reasons why cycling is the coolest sport ever. You get to go fast, you cover vast swaths of terrain every ride, you get to eat whatever you want because you’re burning so many calories, and there’s all this cool equipment besides. But one of the best things about it is that you can keep doing it well into middle age. I went to a Coors Classic bike race reunion a couple decades ago and saw all my childhood heroes (Andy Hampsten, Davis Phinney, Ron Keifel, Alexi Grewal, pretty much every great American pro from the ‘80s), and they were in their fifties, and all still looked great and were still riding. Can you imagine an NFL reunion of fifty-somethings? Especially if they’d all kept playing football?

The low-impact nature of cycling isn’t the only thing that makes it a good choice as we age. Cycling is also logistically simple. Other sports, like Ultimate and soccer, require two entire teams to coordinate their schedules and play on a designated field. Golf requires reserving a tee time, paying a bunch of money, and wearing dorky clothing (while getting relatively little exercise). Tennis is only two people, but again you need to secure the court. With cycling, you obviously just need your bike and some public roads or trails. Thus, this sport can accommodate the most unpredictable of schedules. Perhaps only running is logistically simpler, though ageing runners usually have bad knees, tendonitis, lockjaw, and depression. (Yes, I made all that up and I have no fact checker.)

What I didn’t realize until the last few years, though, is that not all cyclists ever learn the art of riding solo. My brothers seldom ride alone, and my older daughter (a former racer) almost never does. As an assistant high school mountain biking coach, I occasionally encounter graduates from the program who, I’m disappointed to learn, stopped riding once the team element came to an end.

This post is about the particular joys and challenges of riding solo.

I must do this … alone 

Often as I head out for a ride, I’ll tell my family members, “I’m going out there. Don’t try to stop me.” This is a family shibboleth, and they’re supposed to respond, “You fool! You’ll be killed!” (I guess it’s been long enough since my worst ever cycling accident that this isn’t too sore a subject.) To this I reply, “I must do this … alone.” My brother and I have been saying this last part since about 1988, quoting some junior I coached back then who was, I believe, quoting “Buck Rogers.” Googling this quote now, I find it attributed to “Thor,” “South Park,” “Lord of the Rings,” and “Monsters vs. Aliens.” I guess it’s kind of a classic sentiment, perhaps particularly for Americans, with our love of the individual and the individually heroic.

Solo riding has been part of my routine since about 1984. That was when, as described here, my cycling friends kind of “outgrew” me, because while I was still floundering in races, they were winning, and they became too fast and—they evidently felt—too cool to even hang out with me, much less ride with me. We went our separate ways and I realized I would have to either train alone, make some new friends, or quit the sport. So for about a year, before making new cycling friends, I rode alone most of the time. I had a part-time job on top of school, so a fair bit of this training was after dark as well. It’s remarkable I was able to build much fitness during that off-season; the next year was when I finally broke through and got some results.

Philosophy

I suppose the willingness to ride alone is related to a tolerance for drudgery, or at least for resignation. As I’ve discussed elsewhere in these pages, gaining the fitness to succeed at bike racing requires a lot of sheer repetition, just like with anything difficult. Endless repetition produces the incremental improvements in performance that matter to the diehard. It’s not always that interesting and it’s not always that fun, but that doesn’t stop the committed athlete.

The more recreational cyclist, on the other hand, rides for fun and as a social outlet, and probably has better things to do than ride alone. If he or she can’t get a group organized, or at least one pal, perhaps the ride simply gets postponed. My wife likes to ride with me, but not so much by herself. And when we do ride, she doesn’t want to ride my standard, well-worn routes. She’s curious—what’s up this street? Where does this go? We end up touring the residential streets of the Berkeley hills which I otherwise seldom do. When I ride alone, I stick to a plan and a route and it wouldn’t occur to me to alter it. (Actually, that’s not entirely true; sometimes Lomas Cantadas, a particularly hard climb, beckons, like it’s actually taunting me, and ignites my caprice by being such a pointlessly difficult way to get home. For details click here.)

For those who develop a taste for solo riding, subtle pleasures do accrue. Sure, it’s not as fun as riding with a group or a pal, but it’s a way to get outside your routine, remove all social interaction from your plate, and get both inside and completely outside your head. You can ponder something, or alternatively zone out completely, without any specific demands on your attention (other than navigating and negotiating the terrain, of course). Nowadays, when I haven’t had a solo ride in a while, I begin to crave it.

Anecdote

It was spring of 1986 and most of my training was with my friend Pete, and often our pal Dave who had been on my team in the 1985 Red Zinger Mini Classic. Pete was way stronger which could make things difficult. He’d be hammering at the front and I’d be hanging on for dear life, and then when I would take the lead, looking forward to slacking off a bit, he’d yell, “Don’t let the speed drop below thirty!”

One cold, windy spring day we were riding around the Morgul Bismark course east of Boulder (a route made somewhat famous by the Coors Classic bike race and the movie “American Flyers”) and I just wasn’t feeling it. I couldn’t match Pete’s pace and, he, being an angry young man (actually, more moody than angry I guess), was getting ornery. I in turn was getting fed up, and we finally agreed it was best to part ways. He kept going, and I turned around and started heading home. Well, this was no better because now I was pedaling straight into the wind. (It was well known in those days that you always had a headwind on the Morgul; the theory went that there was a tornado in the middle, blowing counter-clockwise unless you turn around and then it reversed itself.) I plodded my miserable way along, more lugubrious than ever, and at one point I happened to look behind me. (Who knows why; maybe I thought Pete might have changed his mind and would come scoop me up.) In the distance I saw a rider in a red and green uniform; I took him to be one of Boulder’s 7-Eleven juniors coached by Dale Stetina. This guy was coming up fast. And then I realized he looked pretty big. Too big to be a junior.

Well, whoever it was, he came blowing on by, and I dove for his wheel and managed to catch it. He was moving at a great clip and somehow I found the resolve, and the strength, that had been missing throughout my ride thus far. I was absolutely dying on this guy’s wheel but totally stoked to get these miles done faster, with no more headwind, and besides, who was this guy? Somebody important? I hung on all the way into Boulder, when the guy slowed down and sat up, and I rode up alongside him. He gave me a friendly greeting and asked my name. Though shy, I managed to introduce myself. He grinned and put out his hand for a handshake. “Davis,” he intoned. Daaaaaamn! Davis Phinney, the famous pro, who later that year became the first American to win a stage of the Tour de France! Just think: had I continued my original ride, instead of being willing to peel off and ride home alone, I’d have never had a chance to ride with this great champion.

Alone, but not alone

If you’re lucky enough to live in a community where cycling is popular, you’re seldom really alone out there. (In there—meaning at home on a stationary trainer or rollers—is of course a whole other story.) Where I live, in the Berkeley area, there are always all kinds of cyclists out and about. I see the same guys out there all the time whom I recognize though they’re still strangers, and then I see all kinds of random riders I’ve never seen before and may never see again. I always say hello if I’m passing someone or being passed, and offer a head nod or chin lift to a cyclist coming the other way. Some riders are too cool to acknowledge me, or perhaps just too far into their heads. It does seem like a slick club-racer type is more likely to ignore me, to a point … the pros I’d see as a kid in Boulder always smiled and acknowledged me (though perhaps it’s just because I was young?). The riders I encounter whom I like the most are generally the more novice ones who really light up when I nod or wave. They flash a big grin, like they really appreciate the novelty of becoming a part of the cycling community.

I guess ever since suffering through the COVID-19 pandemic, I have developed a keener appreciation for just being among my fellow humans, even if just to share a public space with them, however briefly. I want to see people and feel their presence ... even if I do not actually wish to interact with them beyond a simple greeting. I guess this is what you get when you cross an introvert with a claustrophobic. 

During the high school mountain bike season, I coach the Albany High Cougars a couple times a week. Sometimes the late afternoon ride isn’t possible for me due to work commitments, so I don’t get out until well after five to do a solo road ride. Several times this year I’ve seen the team heading home along Wildcat Canyon Road as I’ve been heading out, and they’ve waved and called out, “Hey, Coach Dana!” I’m stoked that they notice me even though I’m on a road bike and in a different kit. It means they’re paying attention, and moreover I’m setting a good example of riding alone when meeting others isn’t possible. Nota bene, Cougars!

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Five Home Remodeling Mistakes to Avoid

Introduction

Spring is in the air. Out in their driveways, your neighbors are beating on old Turkish rugs with broomsticks, maybe more enthusiastically than is really necessary. Birds are building nests in your trees, without asking. No matter where you look, spring cleaning and other restoration projects are underway. The warm breeze is whispering in your ear: “Time to start pulling your weight.” Or maybe that’s your spouse, and it’s proceeded from a whisper to plain speech to aggressive beseeching all the way up to a flat-out demand, which has become increasingly hard to ignore. So it’s time to bite the bullet and agree to a home remodel. This experience can be anything from transformative to ruinous to existentially harrowing, like a Lars Von Trier movie. Here are five mistakes to avoid.

Mistake #1: create a budget

Too many earnest homeowners think the first step in planning their renovation is to figure out how much they can afford, and scale the project accordingly. This is pure folly. As all home improvement veterans know, every single task will run over budget, and every part of the structure that is touched will unveil previously hidden damage. For example, what you thought of as a simple case of catastrophic dry-rot will turn out to be an ongoing termite infestation, and a foundation you thought was only rotating will turn out to be twisted like a strand of fusilli. That seismic retrofit you paid $5K for, to have the foundation bolted, will turn out to be purely cosmetic, as the foundation is bolted to nothing—that is, to thin air in your crawl space. And as often as not, routine excavation will turn up a body, meaning the murder squad forensics team is going to turn the whole place upside down. Where remodels are concerned, the #1 rule is, “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.” Rule #2 is, “If you have to borrow money to pay for a remodel, you can’t even afford the home you have.”

Now, if you’re one of those data-driven people who simply must have hard numbers to work with, budget your entire nest egg for this, and what’s left over at the end will determine how long you’ll need to postpone your retirement. If you’re not prepared for that kind of commitment, you can opt for the “zone defense,” meaning you start with a single room to renovate and then if there’s any money left over, you can start to think about the next room, or at least the hallway.

Mistake #2: collaborate with your partner on the design

In some cases, a widowed or divorced homeowner will renovate his or her home, but usually these people are spending their money on fancy clothes, cool cars, and plastic surgery—as well they should. The truth is, most remodels are the work of a couple. And since this project will disrupt both of their lives for months or years, and define the space they’ll get old and die in, it can often seem like the two should work together on design decisions that will please both of them. But this is just a fantasy. It is the exceedingly rare couple that could agree on anything aesthetic or functional, and trying to find common ground is a sure way to bring on a protracted, acrimonious battle, threatening the marriage to the point that the house may end up being sold off instead of fixed up.

Where real-world remodels are concerned, one party or the other needs to call all the shots. Am I saying that one member of every couple should be a complete pushover? Not at all. I’m saying every good couple includes a person who is completely devoid of any opinion on matters of home design and décor. This person won’t mind foregoing all input and having blind faith that his or her spouse will make great decisions. In my own marriage, I have a verbal prenuptial agreement that my wife unilaterally makes all the choices, aesthetic and otherwise, about the home. I, in turn, get to store my racing bike in the home office.

Mistake #3: find alternate lodging during construction

Home remodels create an incredible amount of dust, noise, and other disruption, so it’s tempting to relocate your family to a hotel or Airbnb during construction. Bad idea. If your situation is typical, there’s about a 50% chance that your contractor will bail on your project halfway through, totally ghosting you and pocketing the hefty retainer you unwisely doled out. You need to do everything in your power to improve your odds of seeing your project through, and being onsite is part of that. As the saying goes, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”—and your contractor so close he can smell you. Breathing down his neck and threatening to micromanage his crew is the best way to motive this person and his minions to get the work done, get their tools packed up, and get the hell out. (And if you’re worried about the health effects of inhaling all that dust, sawdust, and the welding fumes, consider that these people do asbestos abatement for a living, and they seem a hell of a lot healthier than you.)

Mistake #4: pay attention to ROI

Unlike many things we spend money on, fixing up our homes improves their value such that the project can seem to pay for itself. But this kind of thinking is a trap, and a sinister one. Real estate agents will tell you that all that matters, financially speaking, is location and square footage. This is true if you’re hoping to sell your home to a complete idiot, but hopefully you live in the kind of neighborhood that idiots can’t afford. The fact is, if you’re lucky, your home was designed by a professional who knew what he or she was doing and made the most effective use of the space available. And now you’re going to go tack some extra room onto the side of your house, like some kind of tumor, just to add square footage so your kids might inherit more money when you die, if some idiot buys the house? How does that serve you, exactly? The floor plan was right to begin with. Stop being greedy, and just resurface a couple floors, replace that grody tile, slap up a fresh coat of paint, and honor what your home is supposed to be: a living space, not an investment vehicle. In other words, forget about ROI.

Mistake #5: get all the necessary permits

A responsible homeowner doesn’t cut corners, and gets all the necessary permits when remodeling. Though this obviously makes all kinds of sense, it’s not enough to protect you from serious financial distress or even complete ruin—because permits don’t prevent cost overruns, they enable them. That’s where the proper approach to permitting can really save you. Just follow this rule of thumb: if you need to pull a permit to get something done, that shouldn’t be part of your remodel. For example, if you want to add a bedroom, that definitely requires a permit, whereas adding a bed to the existing room does not. (May I recommend a bunk bed in this instance?)

Obviously there are simple things you can do without a permit—such as painting, tiling, carpeting, installing new counter tops, and finally scrubbing that toilet—that will make your home much more livable without burying you financially. But did you know there are other, bigger improvements that still don’t require a permit? In Berkeley, as you can confirm here, you’re allowed to construct an oil derrick without a permit! Do your neighbors have one of those? Didn’t think so!

One mistake you shouldn’t avoid

You might have thought it redundant that I’ve listed “mistakes to avoid,” since “something to avoid” is baked into the very meaning of “mistake.” But we’re not robots, we’re people, and I’m going to actually recommend a mistake: dare to fall in love again. You loved this house once, with its avocado-colored appliances and its knob-and-tube wiring, its total lack of insulation and its single, overworked bathroom. How come those weren’t show-stoppers before? Didn’t you used to find it charming when you’d start the microwave oven and all the lights would flicker? Wasn’t it cozy staying in bed because it was too cold to venture out? Isn’t it possible that all this desire for so-called “improvement” is just a result of boredom? Haven’t you lived ten, twenty, or more years in your home without having an oil derrick out back?

Gosh, I made such a good case just now for leaving well enough alone, I might have convinced you this isn’t a mistake. Well, it is. Once your spouse starts lusting after home improvement, you’ve have to be crazy to stand in her way … but it just may be a lunatic she’s looking for. No, it isn’t. Damn, I’m really losing the thread here. Let’s just say at least you now know what the mistakes are. Make them or don’t—it’s none of my business.

Disclaimer

As you may have gathered, I’m not really qualified to dispense advice here. I did very little research for this post, and what I try to convey as sound practices are based mainly on my own knee-jerk reaction to a prospect that frightens me. Also, my neighbors have never beaten their rugs out in the driveway … I don’t know where I got that.

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From the Archives - Guitar Man

Introduction

In 1986, I took a high school creative writing class. The teacher, Mr. Kroop, wore Jams and played whale music and didn’t do a lot of lecturing; instead, he gave out gobs of assignments. We seemed to have something due almost every day. One day he assigned us a character sketch. I think my effort came to more than that, in its primitive way. (Note: by “sketch” he meant only in the literary sense. The drawing below had nothing to do with the assignment and Mr. Kroop never even saw it.)

Guitar man – February 3, 1986

Olga leaned back in her chair. It creaked, threatening to collapse. She belched loudly, and then slumped over the little built-in desk. She was in a meeting at an alcohol rehabilitation center, where she had been sent as part of her sentence for shoplifting at a Liquor Mart. Having smuggled in a flask of Jack Daniels, she was too inebriated to pay attention to the lecture that was being given. Plus, she spoke almost no English.

A bearded man came around passing out magic markers and big sheets of butcher paper. Olga assumed they were to write lists of some kind. Goals? Reasons to do better? Excuses? She wasn’t feeling inspired to write anything, and nobody would be able to decipher her Cyrillic characters anyway. So she just slumped at her desk, her cheek resting on her arm, watching the proceedings unfold sideways. The bearded man said something to her which she ignored. Then she happened to spy, on the wall, a framed picture of a man playing a guitar.

Something was weird about the picture. It was sideways. Of course, Olga’s head was turned on its side, so the picture ought to look sideways, she reasoned, but it just wasn’t right. It was, like, double-sideways. She sat up and looked at again, with her head straight. Now it was upside-down! She shook her head a bit as if to clear it. She looked again. Yes, she had been drinking, but not that much, and the picture was definitely upside-down. What was this, some kind of joke? Some kind of trick? Or a result of very haphazard janitorial service? Was this some visual aid, to be used in some group exercise, serving perhaps as some metaphor? Well, it didn’t matter. Not Olga’s problem. And then she remembered something she’d learned once in an art class, decades ago, back in the old country. Something about drawing upside down, and how it helped you draw what you see, not what you suppose something looks like. Olga realized that, with her butcher paper and marker, she was in a position to draw this right now. Upside-down.

She hadn’t drawn anything with a marker in ages (a spray can being her preferred medium), and she held it tightly in her fist like a toddler with a crayon. She drew rapidly, looking at the framed picture rather than her paper. Once in a while she glanced down and was thrilled to see her drawing taking shape and looking, actually, a bit like a work of art. Some of the lines kind of did their own thing, some petered out instead of joining anything up, and she noted with a frown that the guitar player’s right hand looked a little palsied, but all in all it wasn’t bad. Now if she could just not screw up the face! She focused on the lines and tried to forget what they were supposed to be leading up to. Halfway through finishing his head she couldn’t go on—there was too much goodness on the paper to risk screwing it all up. It had to be considered Done.

She turned the paper around so it was right-side-up and gazed upon her work. Had she really just drawn this? How much time had passed? She realized suddenly that the room around her was in motion, chairs scraping back as people stood up. Somebody was collecting the papers. No! Not hers! She started to roll it up but her fingers were fumbling. It was like she’d used up all her skill and had nothing else left for this task. She stood, stepped back, and tripped over her chair. Her arms flew back and she caught herself from falling, ending up in a crablike position. Her contraband whiskey bottle flew from the pocket of her baggy overcoat and spun across the floor. This caused massive commotion—with all the alcoholics in the room, that bottle was like blood in shark-infested waters. Olga lumbered off toward the exit as if in flight, embarrassed and ashamed to have her smuggling operation discovered. The door swung closed behind her, letting out a little sigh.

The bearded man shook his head and strode toward the abandoned whisky bottle, which was still half full. Nobody raced him for it, but all eyes were on it. Suddenly there was motion again at the double doors, a struggle from the other side, and they started to open together. Olga staggered through, a look of fierce determination on her face. The bearded man practically sprinted for the bottle, but to his surprise Olga marched right by him. There was a large sheet of curled paper near the chair she’d overturned, and she snatched it up, rolled it into a tight scroll, and—flashing a defiant and satisfied look—strode off, in her galumphing way, back out through the door.

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My (Hypothetical) Post-Race Interview - NBS Criterium

Introduction

If you’ve ever read my “biased blow-by-blow” reports of pro bike races, you’ll have noted that I like to put words in the racers’ mouths when covering their post-race interviews. This is because they so often have so little to say (either because their brains have been too deprived of oxygen, or they’re just camera-shy and/or vapid to begin with). Since the bike races I’ve done myself over the decades haven’t had media coverage to speak of, I have had very little opportunity to try fielding reporters’ questions myself. But what if I did?

Here’s how I might have described a certain race I did as a 15-year-old, had the press seen fit to interview me about it (and had a lot of time and patience in doing so). Note that, unlike in the case of actual interviews that I take liberties with on this blog, what I recount in this hypothetical interview really happened as I describe it, to the extent I remember everything accurately (which I do). Naturally, I needed to put words in the mouth of the fictitious interviewer, so I had some fun with that.

Note: the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in Boulder, Colorado is now known as the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) and is the home of one of America’s atomic clocks. Note also: the photos in this post aren’t from the race I recount, but from the final stage of the Red Zinger Mini Classic on the same course later that year.

Interview – NBS Criterium – Spring 1985

INTERVIEWER: What does it mean to race here at the National Bureau of Standards?

DANA: Well, it’s a very cool course; any time you have a figure-8 shaped criterium on a hill it’s gonna be exciting. And I guess the Bureau is a pretty important place for, like, scientists.

INTERVIEWER: I understand your dad, a rocket scientist, works here and was out watching you race today. Did that make this race extra special?

DANA: You heard wrong. He doesn’t work here, and it wouldn’t have occurred to him to watch me race. He did drive me to one race last year, but he didn’t have a very good time because I got my ass kicked. I think he was ashamed of me. It was a very quiet, uncomfortable drive home. It’s too bad he wasn’t here since things obviously went better today.

INTERVIEWER: Walk me through the race. It really looks like you had a solid plan and executed it.

DANA: No, not at all, that was an illusion. Things actually started off really badly. My mom drove me to the race but had run out to do some errand first, which took longer than she thought, so she got me there too late and I couldn’t race in my normal division. Fortunately they let me race with the men later in the day, but of course I wasn’t nearly as confident in that group. I was pretty furious, because even though I’ve historically kind of sucked at this sport, over the winter I finally hit puberty and was riding well, and was really pumped to have a go here. But going up against grown men … that’s another thing entirely.

INTERVIEWER: Were you excited to have your big brother in the peloton with you? Did you guys work together?

DANA: Not at all. Several times this season he’s come in second to the same guy, and of course it would make sense to help each other out to try to finally beat this dude. But my brother naturally assumed I’d be useless. In fact, when we were suiting up for the race in a restroom here at the Bureau, he advised me that if he got in a breakaway, he wasn’t going to wait for me, I was on my own. I was thinking, like, thanks for the support, asshole.

INTERVIEWER: Tell me about your big attack. It really seemed perfectly timed.

DANA: Actually, it was totally spontaneous. I was staying up near the front watching for my brother or his nemesis to make a move, kind of waiting to see how things shook out. Although I was feeling really good, my breathing was pretty loud—I have some seasonal allergies which can make my respiratory system a bit noisy. So some douchebag with a mustache says, “Jesus Christ, kid, are you about to collapse a lung or something?” It just pissed me off so bad, being spoken down to like that by this complete stranger who just assumes, like my brother, that I’m a hopeless case. I wasn’t going to take that, but then I couldn’t figure out a clever response, so I just decided—very spur-of-the-moment—to attack the shit out of him, and of course everyone else in the process. It was a very unguarded, uncalculated move, born of pure anger and adrenaline, and I think I caught everyone—including myself—completely by surprise. When my attack blew the pack apart and only two guys were able to join me, I was stoked, especially since the two were my brother and his nemesis, both of whom had done well all season, so I knew they were super strong.

INTERVIEWER: You seemed to work really well together.

DANA: Yeah, we knew the break had a chance to survive so we were all motivated to share the work and really commit. In my case, less was expected of me since I’m just this scrawny-looking kid, right?

INTERVIEWER: It seemed like you were actually dangling at the back quite a bit, like you might even get dropped.

DANA: Yeah, it really sucked because the last time I raced here, I crashed out and was hauled off in an ambulance. Everything had been going great—this was the last day of the week-long Red Zinger Mini Classic and I was in a 3-up breakaway with the GC leader and the guy in second overall—but it started raining, and got a bit slippery. In my case it was especially bad because I’d punctured during my warm-up and borrowed a wheel from a friend. Unbeknownst to me and probably to my friend, he’d mounted a track tire on there that was not designed for wet conditions. So on the fastest corner, in the descent, I slipped right out and that was the end of that. My shorts were so badly ripped, my junk was hanging out as I lay on my back being attended by paramedics. All these spectators were crowding around, including my brothers, who gave me endless shit afterward for reaching down and tugging the ripped Lycra to cover my johnson. Their point was that if I’d really been injured, I wouldn’t have had the presence of mind to do this. Whatever, dudes. Anyhow, I was really spooked by that crash, and my mojo was shot, so I couldn’t keep up on the downhill today. Every lap I’d lose ground and have to chase like a madman on the climb to catch back up. So that kind of sucked.

INTERVIEWER: Did you figure you were doomed, then? How could you possibly go for the win if you’re always gapped like that?

DANA: Well, in the end I managed to use it to my advantage. The other two were so sure I wouldn’t be a factor, they only marked each other. With a couple laps to go I realized that if I could possibly get my head together and not get dropped on the downhill on the final lap, I’d be in perfect position and have the element of surprise. So I just gritted my teeth and willed myself to just bomb the last descent and not get gapped, and it worked! I was tucked right in as we made the final corner! Heading up the hill toward the finish, seeing my brother and this guy watching each other, I decided to go early and see if I could get a big enough gap to hold it. So I went right up the fucking gutter and totally caught them napping—it must have seemed like I came out of nowhere. So now I was just going for the line, absolutely all-out, kind of channeling into my effort a lifetime of sibling rivalry and being bullied, so I didn’t care a whit if I pedaled so hard I ripped myself in half, and I was watching that finish line approach and just kind of begging it to come closer before I got caught. And to my shock and pure delight, finally I was over it and nobody had come around.

INTERVIEWER: Your victory salute was really something … a whole lot of whooping and punching the air. What was going on there?

DANA: To actually win, and against my big brother, and all these men, after having been so distraught at missing my start earlier, and to have success after so many fruitless years in this sport, particularly after my friends had kind of abandoned me since my sucking at racing apparently made me a dork … there’s just so much satisfaction in winning here, such a feeling of absolute vindication. It surpasses my wildest dreams. And now I get to give my brother so much shit, for the rest of our lives. I just wish I could go find that dickhead with the mustache and give him a hard time for bagging on me. I’d love to tell him, “I hope the rest of your race went better, not having to hear me breathe anymore because I dropped your ass.”

INTERVIEWER: I think you’d better head to the medical tent. You’re showing signs of acute testosterone poisoning.

DANA: Naw, I think I’m okay. I’m a teenager, these levels are normal for me!

Postscript

So, forty years on, is it the case I’ve given my brother endless shit about having beaten him in this race? Well, yes, but it hasn’t been quite as satisfying as I’d hoped: he maintains that he doesn’t remember it. At all. I find this astonishing. I mean, if I never brought it up until recently, yeah, that kind of makes sense, but I feel like I’ve reminded him a great number of times! I guess at the end of the day, this was just an unimportant local bike race, not any kind of championship or anything, so nobody would bother to remember it at all, much less care. Except me.

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