MAMILs in Action - a Big Ring Tale

Introduction

What is a “big ring tale,” you may ask? Well, you know about pickup games of basketball, where players head over to the court to shoot some hoops, encounter other players there, and have an impromptu game. This exists in cycling as well, when angry bikers happen upon others on the road and duke it out. (“Big ring,” as discussed here, refers to how the hero of such a tale, just before launching his final, devastating attack, “throws it in the big ring”—that is, shifts into his bike’s higher gear range.) This post recounts my latest showdown on the road, while also examining a fundamental question: is it lame to compete with road randos? Am I some sort of hothead?

MAMILs in Action – Wildcat Canyon Road, 10/13/2026

As our story begins, I’m ten minutes in to my standard road ride, a 20-mile loop with about 2,100 feet of climbing. I’m not feeling super hot, and I’m not warmed up, so I’m going pretty easy, or at least as easy as I can while climbing Los Angeles Avenue and Spruce Street. I’m maybe halfway up Spruce when I see this dude joining the road from a side street. He’s going pretty well so I figure he might overtake me. Which is fine. I’m not some guy who always has a chip on his shoulder. There are a lot of fast riders in the East Bay and there’s no shame in getting passed.

Still, I gauge this guy’s ability as I sense him approaching. I’m putting out a little over 250 watts, not too shabby, so I figure this isn’t some fred I’m dealing with. And sure enough, when he comes by, I note all the expected traits of a legit road cyclist: high-end bike (i.e., at least $8,000), roadie attire, shaved legs, good form, a flat back (though more ramrod-straight than relaxed), and an almost complete absence of body fat. He looks very fit despite being my age, possibly even a year or two older, so I won’t say it rankles that he’s overtaken me. But I’m not exactly impressed either, and cannot deny feeling a tiny but non-zero level of annoyance. Why? For a few reasons.

For one thing, he didn’t say hi. I don’t expect everybody to, but classy riders invariably will. It’s just friendly, and softens any sense of implied hierarchy, like I think I’m something special just because I’m going faster. (And since you asked, yes, I do in fact greet every single rider I overtake, even the one I see all the time who’s on a folding bike, with no helmet, who has only returned my greeting once, when I was with my wife.)

There’s also the matter of this guy’s clothing. I am not a snob and as detailed here I would like this sport to be more newbie-friendly and less elitist, and I am on the side of the 49% of my cycling community that feels inexpensive, even house-brand cycling clothing is perfectly acceptable. The problem is, this guy’s clothing is too expensive , and without being … how do I say it? Proper? Correct? If you’ve ever read the Jeeves books by P.G. Wodehouse, you’ll recall that the main character, Bertie Wooster, has more money than taste, and occasionally gets into a standoff where his butler Jeeves, the real brains of the operation, discourages him (albeit with almost infinite tact) from wearing this or that unfortunate outfit. If everybody had a Jeeves, there would be no Rapha clothing company. None of the veteran cyclists I know wears Rapha. The sleeves are too long, and the fit is, I don’t know, a bit too close, and it just has this yuppie-meets-hipster air about it. I am tempted to say Rapha is trying too hard, though I don’t like this expression since obviously we should all do our best. But Rapha is just too much. Too expensive, too idiosyncratic, somehow just douche-y. This guy is wearing sleek, racer-style Rapha shorts that happen to be tan, which just isn’t done. And his Rapha jersey is salmon-colored. There’s nothing tasteful about his combination, and yet it also lacks the devil-may-care look of somebody who can’t be bothered with matters of attire and would happily dress in the dark. It’s the sartorial equivalent of saying “whom,” to sound educated, when “who” would actually be the correct grammar. This guy is trying really hard to look cool, but he’s not cool, and trying and failing to be cool is even more uncool than what I do, which is to not bother trying to look cool because I know I’m not. (For the record, I’m wearing basic black Pearl Izumi shorts—a classic, tried-and-true garment that has never tried to make a statement—paired with the unassailable Albany High School Cougars team jersey I got for free because I’m a coach. It’s a Hyperthreads jersey, which says “good enough” instead of “only the best.”)

Another thing: this guy increased his pace as he approached, and then increased it a little more after passing me. Don’t get me wrong, I sometimes do this too, if I don’t want, say, a relative newcomer to the sport to latch on, draft for a while, and then pull alongside and engage me in conversation. It’s not that I never want this, but sometimes want to ride alone. And if I do increase my pace to discourage this latching-on, I make sure the change in speed is extremely gradual, so it’s basically undetectable. A rider with true class, in fact, can increase the pace while still appearing to actually slouch. Meanwhile, more often than not, particularly when the rider I pass is someone whose ability I perceive to be similar to my own, I don’t speed up at all … I overtake him or her simply because the speed I happen to be going is slightly higher than his or hers, and I say hi, and if I perceive he or she has subsequently latched on, the only difference in my behavior from that moment forward is that I’ll point out potholes, etc. as a courtesy. This is just the standard etiquette of a tried and true roadie.

But again, I couldn’t really care less that the guy has passed me. I’ve been in this sport a long time, and I know my place in it, and his, and any rando’s relative pace simply does not matter. The guy gradually pulls away, and I’m just doing my thing, and it’s a non-event … though there’s just this faint whisper of a voice in my head, but not even in words, it’s more of a nonverbal half-formed feeling that, if it were to be put into words, would be something like the musing of Pechorin, the character in Lermontov who, considering a poseur of his acquaintance, writes in his journal, “I feel that one day we shall meet on a narrow path, and one of us will fare ill.”

I hope I’ve made it clear that I don’t ride around looking for trouble, ready to lash out if I don’t like the cut of someone’s jib. So here’s the next thing that happens: after reaching the top of Spruce, and when beginning the flat-to-slightly-uphill section of Wildcat Canyon Road toward Inspiration Point (after which the road plunges downhill), and seeing the Rapha dude still ahead in the distance, I perceive another cyclist coming up from behind. He passes me too. No greeting from him either, but he gives a quick nod.

This guy is also on a high-end carbon road bike, an immaculate one in fact, and his non-Rapha clothing is impeccable. In fact it’s some kind of team kit, and the team has some funny name that I wish I could remember. It’s an odd phrase that suggests either something lost in translation, or an inside joke. Like the Rapha guy, this dude also has totally lean, ripped, shaved legs, and good form, but the big difference is, he appears to quite young, early twenties tops. He’s going at a fair clip and I quietly latch on. I give him some space, in case he’d rather be riding alone. (Is there a way to indicate this preference? Not that I can think of. Perhaps if he accelerated that would send a message, but his pace is unchanged.)

Now we’re going a fair bit faster than I would have by myself; after all, I don’t need to be warmed up to hold his wheel. (Drafting works, duh.) My legs are starting to wake up, and we’re cooking along at like 23 mph, up a 1-2% grade. The odd thing is, as fit as this kid is, he seems a little unsure carving through the curves. There’s just a bit of hesitation, suggesting he doesn’t have bike handling totally dialed, like maybe he’s come to cycling recently from another sport. There’s no particular value to this realization but I sense it being filed away as if for later use. Make no mistake, I have no opinion regarding my place in the roadie universe vis-à-vis this rider either; I’m happy enough just to be on his wheel, since going fast is more fun than not.

Well, I think you can guess where this is headed. Sure enough, after about a mile we’re bearing down on the Rapha dude. It would be perfectly reasonable to assume that Rapha would just hop aboard the train and we’d keep moving through space, like molecules that happened to form a bond until some other reaction reforms it. But I’ve got this feeling that something else will happen, that will create an interesting opportunity for me. It’s not that I have ambitions and am thus looking for opportunities; it’s just the race tactician that took up shop in my brain decades ago and never left.

The Rapha dude looks back and pours on more pace, and as we approach I note that his straight but stiff back has something aesthetically disturbing about it, the way we look at a hyena and cannot admire it as we would a tiger or wolf. Suddenly this guy is simply no longer acceptable to me. And here’s where everything seems to take on a familiar scripted quality for me: I can almost see in advance how this will play out. We will reach him right at the bottom of the short climb to the Brazil Building, following which the road plunges down a hill, around a curve, and climbs again. The short climb is probably where things will erupt, and I sense that the young guy is untested, and non-battle-hardened, and this will give me an opportunity. The downhill, meanwhile, will suit me perfectly. And when the climb resumes, the rest of it is shallow, and lumpy, and inconsistent—in short, complicated, thus favoring those like me who have ridden it a thousand times. Hell, I was probably hammering along Wildcat Canyon Road before this kid was born. Best of all, it’s still a mile and a half to Inspiration Point, where we’re all three likely headed, so it’s not like I’d be sucking the young guy’s wheel until the last second and then coming around. Randos do that with me from time to time, and there’s no valor in it. I need to give these guys the opportunity to bring their best counter-move; we need enough remaining road to let the best man win.

So tactically, everything seems to be shaping up perfectly, but there’s one problem: tactics only work if you actually have the athletic ability to execute. All the expertise in the world won’t matter if you’re weak, or old, or both. Weakness is all relative, of course, and I wouldn’t ever sincerely describe myself as weak per se, but then both these guys have already overtaken me. And when I think about how much stronger I was in my twenties … do you think I’d attack my twenty-year-old self? Forget about it. So as stoked as I’m starting to get, I don’t kid myself: this is pretty quixotic to even contemplate and chances are I’m headed for a spectacular defeat. My move might be impressive for a moment or two, but I have no delusion that fate will be on my side. My growing ambition is likely hubristic, except that this is ultimately just three guys on bicycles and nothing is at stake, ergo there can be no tragedy. It’ll be Hubris-Lite.

My only remaining hesitation, as we bear down on Rapha, is the inescapable sense that I might be being silly. Could it all be in my head that either of these guys even cares? It’s not like they’ve thrown down a gauntlet. It’s just guys going fast and guys going faster—no trash talk, no sudden accelerations, for all I know I could launch this huge attack and they might look at each other, puzzled, as if to say, “What’s his problem?” So I have the attack kind of coiled up but I’m still not sure I’ll use it. If everyone just keeps rolling along in some status quo way, I might just stay the course and channel my internal Gilda Radner: “Never mind!”

Ah, but right as we reach Rapha, he stands on the pedals and goes for broke. Excellent! And even better, the kid completely responds and launches a counter-attack, out of the saddle, thrashing the bike. So there you have it! Rapha has thrown the first punch! And the young guy has taken the bait! It is on! We’re hauling ass up the little climb and my lizard brain finally syncs with my neocortex, which issues the non-verbal equivalent of this executive dispatch: “Excessive use of force in overhauling the randos has been approved.”

And so: I make my move. This is the part of the story where literary convention would have me writing, “I put her in the big ring.” But of course I’ve been in the big ring practically since our story began. But I do launch as hellish an attack as I am capable of—no testing-the-waters nonsense, no looking over to see if it’s working, just an all-in, all-cards-on-the-table full-gas assault, not only on them, but on myself. I blast over the top of the hill with a lead of some kind, I dare not look back to see how large, and here’s the coup de grâce: I follow up the initial attack with a blistering sustained effort on the downhill, a stretch of road that I call the “I hate pain” hill (in reference to what it’s like climbing it). I shift all the way down the stack to my 11-tooth cog (in fact, I could call this a “Small Cog Tale”) and bomb the descent (watching like a  hawk for pedestrians because those who appreciate speed enjoy it responsibly). I generally figure I’m doing pretty good if I hit 35 mph on this stretch; today I hit 40. Around the bend I go, climbing again, still in the big ring, nursing all the speed I can out of my legs, shifting to larger rear cogs reluctantly, one at a time, fighting the loss of speed that’s demanded by physics—that is, the grade of the climb—and by biology, that being the age of my legs. I can’t believe how well my body is managing the effort. I’m almost incredulous. These legs!? These lungs? This heart? Seriously? Who knew I had this in me? It feels almost like a miracle. And of course experience figures strongly here: I know, by feel, exactly how hard I can push without going anaerobic. Whatever this best effort is, I can sustain it for the remaining mile-and-change to Inspiration Point where the blessed descent begins.

Paradoxically, the difficulty of sticking such an attack doesn’t lend itself very well to description. What can I say? It’s a savage effort. My respiratory system is turned up to 11, the kind of whooshing airflow that blows papers around a room. My legs burn like they drank habanero salsa. My entire body feels like an overextended rubber band I could expect to snap at any second. I’ve managed to instill that sense of actual crisis that tricks my body into delivering its best effort. And, pedal stroke by agonizing pedal stroke, it eventually works: I reach Inspiration Point without having been caught. So now I’ve got a really good hand.

Because of course it isn’t over; it is exceedingly rare that a legit roadie does an out-and-back to Inspiration Point. Where I’m headed, my opponents likely are, too. But descending is something I’m pretty decent at, and the young guy had showed some weakness at this discipline, and I know this road really well. I keep the heat on, and hope that I don’t catch up to a line of cars routed here from Highway 24, thanks to Google Maps. I hate the way that algorithm clogs up this park road just to save commuters a few minutes.  It would be anticlimactic for us all to get stuck in traffic.

Well, guess what: halfway down, there it is, the nose-to-tail commuter clump. Curses! I know from experience that getting stuck here will cost me about thirty seconds. (Not that the time is an issue; it’s just no fun inhaling exhaust fumes and riding the brakes.) So if I’ve managed to build a decent gap on the randos, I figure, I might just hang on to the end of Wildcat where it meets Camino Pablo where I’ll take a right. Sure enough, on the final stretch I look back, and here comes Rapha, barreling down toward me and the cars. I still have about fifty yards on him when I make the right turn. And guess what: I’m completely warmed up now, amped up on adrenaline, and newly inspired by the rando’s having in fact given chase. So I kick it in the guts and manage around 400 watts for the next half-mile. I never see him again.

Epilogue: who cares?

Of course this whole smackdown is literally a non-event. There are over 10,000 Masters 55+ racers in the United States, the vast majority of whom could kick my ass, and the time to distinguish myself as a bike racer is long past. And it’s not like I have this insatiable ego that constantly needs to be fed; if I did, I’d still race. But something about the absolute simplicity of this random tête-à-tête really satisfies. My career usually does not; it’s complicated and involves giant, months-long projects in which many dozens collaborate, so any sense of accomplishment tends to be so diluted as to essentially escape notice, often completely buried in the frustration it took to get there. And so something so elemental, so in-the-moment, a feat so inextricably wound up in pure will, is a rare and special treat that I can savor even as it burns. Reliving it through memory, and through this post, is also gratifying. I hope I’ve inspired you to let yourself take the bait should you find yourself facing a similar opportunity.

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