Epic Trans Alps Cycling Trip - Part IV

Introduction

Well, albertnet used to be a blog about nothing. Now it seems to have become a blog about my cycling trip in France. Part I is here, Part II is here, and Part III is here. One day perhaps I’ll run out of Alpine tales to recount, and meals to describe, but that’s still a long way off. In this post I cover the famous Col de la Madeleine and the relentless Col du Glandon. Is the Glandon also famous, the Madeleine relentless? Yes and yes. Do cured meats figure strongly in this report? Yes!

Col de la Madeleine

Day 5 featured the second and third hardest climbs in the Alps, according to the organizers. We started with the Col de la Madeleine, 14.9 miles long at an average grade of 6.6%. The ride was hard even before the climb began because we had ten miles of gradual descending first, at a motor-pacing tempo behind the tour guide. My pool-cue-to-the-gluteus pain was still there, plus after four hard days of riding I was pretty knackered in general. When the climb started I was dropped instantly from our Epic A group (which had dwindled from ~15 riders initially down to 5, the others having switched to Epic B). Only a kilometer into the climb, my pals (along with some rando you see there on the right) stopped to wait for me at the only intersection, knowing I’m just dumb enough to take a wrong turn.

In this case I wouldn’t have actually gotten lost because a) my bike computer navigation was working fine (see Part II for details) and b) I remembered what the tour leader had said in the pre-ride meeting: “Don’t go towards Pussy!” (Click the above photo and look at the signpost on the right.)

From here I was immediately dropped again and made my slightly dejected, slow way up the mountain. There were lots of switchbacks, and tree-lined ravines to stare blankly into. The cement guardrails were the perfect height to flip a cyclist over the bars.

After some time I came upon Ian and Craig, stopped along the road. Craig had punctured and Ian was hanging out during the repair. I left them for dead and continued on up the road. This gave me the opportunity to watch their gradual progress, switchback after switchback, as they reeled me back in.

They eventually, inevitably, caught me and we rode together for a while, and then with about 7 kilometers to go they sailed off into the distance again. I slogged along solo, and a bit later came across a bunch of cows, their bells making a pleasant sound. Cows and cowbells normally buoy my spirits, but then I saw something kind of disturbing: many of these cows had weird plastic things attached to their snouts.

They looked kind of like the thick plastic ring-thingies you get with expensive four-packs of craft beer. What the hell were they, and did they have to be plastic? For some reason this brought to mind the frightening plastic-faced children in the train tunnel scene of “Pink Floyd: The Wall.” I was starting to kind of dislike the Col de la Madeleine.

That said, it sure was scenic. Check out this view, with Mont Blanc at the left edge of that range there.

I made the summit and enjoyed a brief picnic with my pals. I made a sandwich of good French bread with olive oil, guacamole, and these weird cigarette-sized sticks of cured meat; the package said simply “Galibier.” This weird creation was oddly tasty, under the circumstances. By the way, there tended to be a tub of guac at every picnic, and it was never very good … pretty much whatever you get in a tub at Costco. But then, we can’t expect the French to be great at everything and it’s nice to know the U.S. can still be better at something. (After all, the tub guac at Whole Foods is better than this, albeit more expensive than cocaine.)

Here’s the photo-op. I know “Altitude 2000m” might not mean much to my American readers. It equates to 6,562 feet elevation in Imperial units (or, as my brother calls them, “Freedom units”). Of course those of us who have conquered Mount Evans, with its summit of 14,270 feet, might have a harder time thinking 6,562 is any big deal. But the Madeleine gains over 5,000 feet and it has cows with weird plastic nose things, okay? Take my word for it, it’s grueling.

We had another glorious descent. Permit me an aside here on the topic of risk management. During my nights of poor sleep throughout this trip, as I tossed and turned, I often contemplated the danger of descending and the high stakes. “Oh dear!” my wussified, disgracefully declawed middle-aged psyche would say. “What if I crash?” Probably this interior monologue wasn’t actually about bike safety at all, but was based on some generalized anxiety that needed something specific to latch on to … basically an excuse to fret. Whatever the case, I as I lay there having these self-defeating thoughts I would resolve to take it super-easy on the remaining downhills. Fortunately, this soul-degrading inner voice was somehow vanquished during each ride as my normal, justifiable confidence reasserted itself. That is to say, the descents were glorious affairs, grand and sweeping and flowing and perfect. To paraphrase Faulkner, middle-age might have kilt me but it ain’t whupped me yet.

So, according to the tour organizers, the Madeleine is the third hardest climb in the Alps, and the Col du Glandon—which was our next climb of the day—is the second hardest. That’s a lot to throw at us, particularly the day after we conquered the very hardest climb, Col de la Loze. I had some butterflies heading into the Glandon, which were somewhat assuaged by this amusing sight:

We ultimately decided to brush this praying mantis off of Ian’s jersey, because what if this little insect hitched a ride all the way to the Glandon summit, out of his element and far from his kind?

Our group broke up right away, and I went straight out the back in accordance with what seemed to be the new status quo. I didn’t really mind; I have a talent for resignation (which serves a cyclist well). That weird pain in my gluteus maximus (or perhaps gluteus medius—what am I, a doctor?!) was still bedeviling me. But one of the great things about cycling is that there’s scenery to enjoy, even as you suffer. Prizefighters, for example, don’t get to look upon landscapes like this as they’re being pummeled.

After a few miles I caught up to M—, my roommate on the tour. We paced each other and chatted for a good while until I found myself in a strange dilemma. Riding in the saddle, my glute hurt. Standing on the pedals, I got some relief. But the very low gear on my rental bike (35-tooth chainring, 33 rear cog) was so low, pedaling out of the saddle felt lame—mincing, ineffectual little pedal strokes that barely move the bike forward. My ego couldn’t handle it. So I had to shift up before I could properly ride out of the saddle. Obviously this increased my pace and thus my labor, but burning legs is the proper kind of pain, the kind caused by hard work, as opposed to this blunt stab in my glute that suggested injury. The upshot is that I gradually dropped my pal and thus faced another endless Alpine climb solo. But I’m used to it. Bernard Hinault said once, “No kind of progress will ever overcome the loneliness of the long-distance rider,” and he would know.

As the climb progressed, the scenery changed from what you’d see on a postcard to something more spare, sparse, even kind of bleak—or maybe this was just my psychological state filtering what I saw. All the trees disappeared, and the grasses had a cropped, stubbly look, their green turning to a mossy yellow, suggesting (at least to me) a pallid, wan lack of health, as though the plant life couldn’t get enough oxygen. More and more, the rock seemed to be winning out, beating back the flora. The views were impressive but not exactly pretty. In the final kilometer of the climb (which averaged 10%) a guide dropped back to pace me along.

It was a relief to be near the summit because, as disciplined as I try to be, it’s hard to stop negativity from infiltrating my thoughts, sometimes even of the “can I even make it?” variety. Normally, as discussed here, I am good at stomping down this negative self-talk, but the sheer leg-wringing length of these Alpine grades can start to wear down even the most stubborn resolve. That’s where decades of accumulated suffering start to pay off, with a deeply resigned attitude that embraces the fatalistic notion that there is no choice, no alternative, just the reality of serving out your sentence. There’s almost a comfort in this, eventually; as Dostoyevsky wrote, “Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!”

Even as I reached the Glandon summit I had this other quiet voice gradually insinuating itself, with a message I knew was important but didn’t want to hear. We’d been briefed that the Glandon wasn’t our final summit, that we had to head from there to the top of the Col de la Croix de Fer, which I’d been up once before, twenty years ago when I first raced La Marmotte. The Croix de Fer summit isn’t far from the summit of the Glandon, and it’s not a steep pitch, but nothing seems trivial this far into such a brutal day of riding. I pushed the matter out of my mind until the end of the Glandon when it could no longer be ignored: I had another three kilometers to go. I dragged myself the rest of the way and eventually reached the true high point of the day, at 6,782 feet. The iron cross you see on the left there may or may not be the croix de fer. I didn’t have the energy to investigate.

A picnic was waiting at the van, and a staffer volunteered to make me a sandwich. What service! He sawed a couple slices off a perfect French bâtard (proving in the process that the expression “greatest thing since sliced bread” is way off-base). He added olive oil, and can I just interrupt this post for a moment to say how much I hate it when a menu at an upscale restaurant employs the abbreviation “EVOO” for “extra virgin olive oil”? When I see that I almost want to head for the exit. Below the menu item “Herb-crusted beef medallions” you see the accompaniments, “Tomatillo-garlic salsify, braised parsnips, EVOO hummus.” Pretentious fuckwits. Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, so some oil, then groovy French cheese (what type? doesn't matter), prosciutto (of course), and the albeit mediocre guac (and again, who cares because this isn’t a chichi bistro). Oh yeah.

If I ever open a restaurant I’ll serve this (with proper guac, of course, or maybe just avocado) and call it “Le Glandon.” I won’t explain the name on the menu and the description won’t say anything about “EVOO.”

There was a corny picture frame thingy up there and I tried haplessly to do a selfie with it. A German motorcyclist intervened and got a passable shot.

As you can see, the day’s effort has both grown and deepened my crow’s feet. Too much more of this and my face might just crack.

We started the descent but abruptly halted because we didn’t have everyone. I took the opportunity to snap one more photo, and as I did so the missing guy showed up and everyone sailed by, so I was chasing like a madman after that. The photo came out well, though, so it was worth it.

The little town of St-Jean-de-Maurienne where we finished up does not have a fancy hotel, so we were at a Best Western next to what looked like a rock crushing plant. It was the nicest Best Western I’ve ever seen, with little bicycle pictures all over the wallpaper. It had no restaurant so we went to this greasy-spoon type pizza joint, all Formica and linoleum, of such barebones tacky aspect it even had advertisements on the menu. In the U.S., this would be your sign to flee immediately, but we’d heard this place was good. The menu was entirely in French which led to some confusion. I almost ordered a pizza with “thon” on it, before learning what thon is: chunk light tuna, like out of a can. If memory serves tuna was a topping on the pizza they called “California,” though I may be conflating this with the Dutch frozen pizza line “Big Americans.” Anyway, I was able to find a pizza with no thon, though I think all the pizzas had some form of cured meat. The food ended up proving out my theory that the French are simply incapable of doing a bad job, even at their greasy-spoons. The pizza was excellent. Fun fact: in France, they don’t cut up the pizza for you. You have to hack away at it with a fork and knife. 

Some of the guys around me made the shock-and-awe move of ordering dueling entrees, such as a pizza and a calzone. It’s rare for me to be out-eaten, but I’d had a big-ass snack right after the ride in accordance with the glycogen window principle of sports nutrition, which has been scientifically proven by my daughter.

Ian ordered profiteroles and they were majestic.

All who know me understand that a) I have a massive appetite, b) I have no fear of saturated fats, c) the idea of “guilty” pleasures or “sinfully” rich never enters my mind, and d) I absolutely love free food. Since I’d already paid for this trip (it’s an all-expenses-included deal), all signs pointed to me ordering a dessert or two. Reader, I did not. I’d had too many gels, too much energy drink, too much chocolate milk, and too much Coke that day to even contemplate any more sweets. This is how you can finally begin to understand how difficult cycling in the Alps truly is.

Check back soon, because I will be reporting on Day 6, the hardest one yet....

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Exercise & the Gumption Trap

Introduction

When it comes to exercise, I’m a disciplined person. Last quarter, I managed some kind of physical activity for 89 out of 90 days, and I rode my bike 51 times (that is, four times a week). Would it surprise you, then, to learn that I struggle to find the motivation to exercise pretty much every single day? This post documents that struggle: why it persists, and how to overcome it.

The struggle

Among those of us fortunate enough to have the spare time and energy to exercise, I don’t think there’s anyone who’d dispute its benefits. Articles on this topic pepper my inbox and browser constantly, like one of those machines that shoot tennis balls. For example, today I stumbled on this one providing eighteen reasons to work out (among them higher energy, better mood, better sleep, better sex, lower anxiety, and lowered dementia risk). I really have no philosophical issue with the practice of exercise; I’m totally on board with the program.

Why, then, is it so hard to motivate myself, in the moment—to actually get out there and ride? You might answer, “You’re just lame, Dana!” but you know I’m not alone in this. We all struggle, as is documented every year in articles about failed New Year’s Resolutions. I think the problem comes down to gumption. You can resolve, at a macro level, to follow an exercise regimen, but that’s the easy part. As I’ve mentioned before in these pages, the intellect is adept at contriving lofty resolutions, but when it comes to remembering pain and suffering, the less sophisticated lizard brain is more realistic, and exerts an awful lot of influence over the organism as a whole.

Don’t get too hung up on “lizard brain,” by the way. I realize I’m no expert on brain science, but this is a useful concept metaphorically. The point is, the rational part of our brains fully grasps the many benefits of exercise, but it has to argue with the older part of our brain, that evolved over a couple hundred thousand years and understands the need to conserve energy, in case of famine. Sloth actually produces dopamine. To overcome our laziness impulse, then, requires gumption.

Gumption and gumption traps

A basic dictionary definition of gumption is “boldness of enterprise; initiative or aggressiveness.” For more nuance, I like how Robert Pirsig describes gumption in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

If you’re going to repair a motorcycle, an adequate supply of gumption is the first and most important tool. If you haven’t got that you might as well gather up all the other tools and put them away, because they won’t do you any good. Gumption is the psychic gasoline that keeps the whole thing going. If you haven’t got it there’s no way the motorcycle can possibly be fixed.

Even more helpful to this exploration is Pirsig’s concept of gumption traps. Pirsig points out that gumption isn’t “a fixed commodity” doled out at birth; it is, rather, “variable, a reservoir of good spirits that can be added to or subtracted from,” so we can define gumption trap as “anything that drains our enthusiasm.” He defines two main types: 1) setbacks, which are those caused by external circumstances, and 2) hang-ups, which derive from “conditions that are primarily within yourself.”

Where ego is concerned, it’s surely easier when we can blame setbacks for not exercising. For example, you figure you’ll exercise when you get home from work, but then you end up working late. Or, you get home from work and realize you’re too tired to work out, so you decide, “I’ll do it tomorrow instead, without fail!” (This little subroutine, of course, gets you nowhere.) Or, your buddies talk you into getting a drink after work, or your spouse/other has made a nice dinner or wants to go out. Or, or, or…. It can seem like almost anything can short-circuit the mythical evening workout.

Of course, many of these setbacks could be overcome; for example, did you really need to work late, or did your deep-seated fear of pain and suffering trick you into pretending there was work to be done? (Working from home may well increase the likelihood of this kind of rationalization.) For me, most of the struggle is around the non-circumstantial cause of not riding: that is, it’s the internal hang-up.

Internal gumption traps

Pirsig, who jokes about starting “a whole new academic field, gumptionology, in which these traps are sorted, classified, structured into hierarchies and interrelated for the edification of future generations and the benefit of all mankind,” identifies a variety of internal/hang-up gumption traps. The most germane one to my study of exercise resistance is anxiety, which he describes thus:

You’re so sure you’ll do everything wrong you’re afraid to do anything at all. Often this, rather than “laziness,” is the real reason you find it hard to get started. The gumption trap of anxiety, which results from overmotivation, can lead to all kinds of errors of excessive fussiness.

“Do everything wrong,” in Pirsig’s context, refers to screwing up a motorcycle repair, since that’s his central metaphor. But the concept applies also to sport, in the sense of performing poorly. In theory, only competitive athletes would care how well they go, one day to the next, but the widespread success of Strava proves otherwise. For anyone who used to race or still dabbles, the habit of monitoring, evaluating, and documenting our performance is deeply embedded. We don’t just want to get out on the bike; we want to ride well, we want to shred some gnar’, we want to put the pussy on the chainwax! This, to continue Pirsig’s concept, is the overmotivation. Which is why, as ride time approaches, we get anxious. At least, I do.

Ageing can compound this anxiety, because as we get older our bodies become less predictable, so heading out is like tossing the dice. Overmotivation aside, anxiety accrues because when we aren’t going well, a bike ride can be a pretty miserable affair, at least in the Berkeley hills where I ride. Based on my bike’s gearing I’m forced to suffer—there’s no taking it easy. If I’m not on a good day, this isn’t a matter of mere disappointment; it’s a case of Mother Nature kicking my sorry ass. Sure, when I have good legs (or “positive sensations,” in pro racer parlance), I get all kinds of adrenaline and endorphins and I “don’t feel the pedals,” as they say. Other days, it’s a brutal slog—and alas, I never know beforehand how it’ll go. No wonder I get anxious.

Does this lead to excessive fussiness? Well, that’s part of the problem: I have to mix my energy drink, suit up, check over my bike, clean the last ride’s sweat off my sunglasses, etc. but that’s not the real issue. (Pirsig, remember, happened to use motorcycle repair as his example, which surely is a much more complicated affair.) With working out, the excess is in rationalization, in pretending you’re too busy at work, or that you’re too tired, or that you should be worried about that sore throat, etc. Etc. Etc. A friend of mine used to like to say, “Listen to your body.” To which I reply, “Ignore your body. It’s a fricking liar.”

So what is to be done?

“Ignore your body.” Sounds kind of harsh, doesn’t it, like a dickhead coach or drill sergeant? Yeah, I was playing around, but only sort of. The fact is, self-loathing can play a part in this internal gumption trap dynamic. If excess motivation leads to anxiety, which in turn leads to procrastination or rationalization, and then the ride doesn’t happen, it’s natural to feel disappointed in oneself. To some degree, this disappointment serves a valid function: it inspires us to try harder next time. It’s a hedge against shameless laziness.

On the other hand, being more compassionate with oneself can help temper that excess motivation, to reel it in a bit, and perhaps reduce the anxiety. As I prepare for an evening ride (since, notwithstanding  the photo above of me procrastinating with the cat, my workday now starts too early to ride beforehand), that inner voice starts saying, “What if you’re not recovered from the last ride? What if your legs are shit?” My more compassionate side needs to answer, “Who cares. I’m not out to set any records or beat anybody. It’s enough just to ride.” Of course, this is easier said than done, which brings me to my next strategy: scale down the difficulty.

I stumbled on this by accident. One day, not feeling great, I skipped my first big climb, South Park Drive. Instead, I descended Wildcat Canyon Road. Such a cop-out! I was actually coasting downhill at the very moment I was supposed to be flogging myself going up! What a delicious sense of relief!

Of course, I still had to get back up over those hills to go home, which could have meant going up El Toyonal and Lomas Cantadas, which isn’t only a harder climb, but is harder to write a poem about, as explained here. Rider’s block and writer’s block at the same time! But instead, from El Toyonal I took a little bail-out road (part dirt) to get back to Wildcat, and thus a new route was born. It follows the dotted line labeled “cutover” below. Click the image. (Click ‘em all.)

Even though on most days I could do a much harder ride than this, I almost never do. If I finish my ride wishing it’d been longer, I’ll be that much more motivated the next time. This is how I “act my age” while still being an active guy. (And no, self-compassion will not make you a wuss.)

If you don’t feel like taking my word for it, here are some schematics showing how much easier my current standard route is from the route I did for like fifteen years, which I called the “Hill Climb Extravaganza,” aka HCE:

The HCE entails more than 4,000 feet of vertical gain in just under 25 miles. The modern ride climbs only 2,100 feet, in just under 21 miles—it’s basically only half as hilly.

But wait, there’s more. It’s not enough just to cut myself some slack due to age; since my tired days are really slow and awful, I have to make sure they don’t leave a bad taste in my mouth. So I also cut myself a deal: going into every ride, I promise myself that if I’m really riding badly, I’ll cut it short, shamelessly and unapologetically, even if that means turning around abruptly and retracing my route. After all, any ride is better than none.

Does this work? I wish I could say my scale-it-back protocol completely wipes out the gumption trap and the daily dread of the workout—but it doesn’t. For some reason, even though my rides are almost always fun, and I’m always glad I did them, I still routinely struggle with motivation beforehand. However, I’m almost never snared in the gumption trap—my system gets me over the hump, almost every time. And once I’m out there on the road or trail, if I’m feeling good, I give myself a jolly good thrashing. You don’t need a long ride to get a killer workout, after all … and prevailing in this daily struggle is what keeps me from becoming a mere former athlete.

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Self-Talk In Action

Introduction

Ageing isn’t all bad … I think I’ve acquired some wisdom, and at least the money is better. But, being an athlete, I find the inevitable decline of my body a bit hard to take, especially as I have a long history of judging my performance. Sometimes I begin to feel resigned to putting sport behind me … but then I catch myself and dig back in. It’s a constant struggle, and I’m having to talk myself down from negativity time and time again. This post explores the role of “self-talk” in how we see ourselves, and what it “sounds” like when this self-talk is put into action.

What is self-talk?

My cycling friend Mike Ceely, a licensed psychotherapist and founder of Ceely Sports, an athlete coaching company, describes self-talk on his blog, here. It’s a way that an inner voice responds to, and reinforces, a belief system. For example, he considers a gymnast who is a perfectionist: “Maybe her first coach taught her that mistakes were unacceptable. Because of this, her belief system is ‘people won't like me if I make mistakes.’”

Ceely goes on to explain, “The key to changing your beliefs is to listen to the language—often subconscious—that we use to evaluate ourselves.” I completely relate to this, as I beat down the nascent belief system that I’m too old to be an athlete. This comes into play regularly, when I try to keep up with the high school mountain bike racers whom I coach. My self-talk starts up when we’re five minutes into our ride and cranking up a 10% grade. This is the hardest part of the whole ride for me, as I really need to warm up but the kids clearly don’t. So I have this battle of voices: “I’m just not warmed up,” one says, and the other replies, “I’m making excuses. I’m just too old for this.”

Can self-talk be tamed?

What I experience going up that first hill is a fairly typical dialogue for those who don’t just give in and accept the unhelpful belief system. Ceely advises, “Stop using negative self-talk, and start using positive self-talk. This is the ‘outside-in’ approach. Tell yourself something long enough, and you start to believe it. Instead of saying ‘I’ll never get better’ say, ‘I want to get better.’”

Of course this doesn’t mean I should tell myself, “I will get younger.” Ceely points out that “positive self-talk must be realistic. Saying ‘I will win’ when you’re up against tough competition is not smart. Instead say something positive and unconditional like, ‘strong’ or ‘smooth.’”

The psychologist and author Benjamin Hardy, in this article, points out that past success can actually make it harder to stand up to negative self-talk. He notes, “Some of the most difficult negative thoughts will relate to your past. If you’ve been relatively successful in the past, your mind will always make you believe that you’re not as good as you used to be. Your mind will try to convince you that you’ve lost your touch.” In my experience, this seems like a very rational approach. After all, I have all this data—heart rate, average speed, stopwatch times up my favorite climbs—showing me that yes, my body is slowing down, my power output dwindling.

Hardy goes on, “The first step of silencing your mind is to not believe the negative and limiting thoughts that will relentlessly plague you if you’re growing and learning. See these thoughts for what they are—your subconscious wants certainty and predictability.” How true. So often I’ll be riding and will try to match the speed of a kid I used to drop, only to discover that my legs have checked out for the day. My body used to be pretty predictable … it performed pretty much the same, day after day. Now it’s like all the planets have to line up for me to feel “on.”

So what is to be done, when that negative voice comes over my mental PA system reminding me I’m in my 50s? Do I just ignore it? No, it’s more complicated than that. Hardy explains, “Simply trying to avoid negative thoughts is not enough. You must load-up on goal-directed stimuli, which include information, behaviors, environments, etc.”

Ceely describes the inner dialogue really well in this article, saying:

The inner critic is a natural psychological mechanism that all humans have. Its purpose is to problem-solve by pointing out your (real or imagined) errors and flaws. Historically, its purpose was to protect you. Pointing out your errors back in the caveman days was advantageous.

Because your brain uses language to represent ideas, it’s easy to confuse the messages of the inner critic as your own. Instead, think of the inner critic as a linguistic personification of a primal survival mechanism. It’s useful, but tends to overreact and be a bit hyperbolic… The key is to know that your inner critic is just one of many voices, or internal mechanisms, that try to communicate information to you. Think of your inner critic and other internal voices like members of a board of directors, where you are the Founder, CEO, and majority shareholder. You’re in charge. Your job is to listen to the board members, take their words into consideration, then make executive decisions.

Here’s the cool thing: you don’t have to believe everything “you” think. This means you can take the role of the higher self, the observer, the one who dis-identifies from the automatic narrative playing in the background. 

How this plays out fascinates me.

Self-talk in action

All year I’ve been focusing on mountain biking, which for the Albany High team means trail rides of generally 2-3 hours, with lots of breaks along the way. This past weekend, one of the guys on my road team emailed the group suggesting a (road) ride up Mount Diablo, which would be over 80 miles—twice my longest ride of the year—with lots of climbing and very few breaks. As you might imagine, this would be a real stretch for me. But I cautiously accepted, replying, “Sounds good, if you don’t mind a mellow pace,” etc., which I knew would come across as a coded message that actually meant “I’m gonna try to rip your legs off,” because that’s just the typical bike racer ruse. But I meant it … I’ve ridden so little on the road, my road bike still feels weird to me, like the handlebars are way too narrow. I literally haven’t ridden with the team once this year.

As we headed over the Berkeley hills the little voice in my head popped up and said, “I wonder if there’ll be a sprint.” As I’ve described here, and as you’ve surely noticed yourself, one’s self-talk leverages his or her entire history and doesn’t have to spell everything out. The sprint in question is the inevitable race to a particular pedestrian crossing in Moraga, a challenge which virtually every group I’ve ridden with in the last 30 years has taken up, until a bridge washed out and disrupted the tradition. The last time I rode that route, the new bridge was still under construction and had just one lane with a traffic signal installed, so for the group to make it through without stopping would be a toss-up.

Now the voices in my head started bickering:

“If there’s a sprint I should sit it out. This is my first group ride in months.”

“That’s nonsense. I always sprint.”

“It’ll be shoulder-to-shoulder, slicing & dicing, I’m not ready.”

“I’m always ready. I know how to do this.”

“What if my chain breaks under full power?” [This notion arose because recently, pre-riding a mountain bike race course, my chain did break and I crashed.]

“Stop being ridiculous.”

The negative voice, you’ll notice, was just making excuses, the kind that would serve the “I’m too old” belief system (which Ceely rightly abbreviates BS, pun intended). My self-talk CEO didn’t explain his rationale because he wants to rule with an iron fist. The problem with that kind of leadership, of course, is getting real buy-in from everyone. My inner critic wouldn’t be silenced.

We made our way down Pinehurst Road and the speed ramped up. Over the painful little climb on Canyon Road, a couple of guys were drilling it on the front, clearly starting to set up their sprint.

“I’ll probably get dropped right here and miss the sprint.”

“Pfff. No way. Start at the front, drift back, and work back up.”

“Missing the sprint would be kinda nice.”

“Missing the sprint is out of the question.”

Down the other side of the hill my inner critic worried about safety.

“There’s a giant pothole somewhere. It destroyed your car tire last year.”

“It’s a paved descent. This is just not that complicated.”

As we headed toward the sprint, the pace ramped higher and higher. Suddenly D— launched a blistering early attack, starting at the back and flying by us on the left. Everyone dove for his wheel. I got gapped and shifted into my highest gear to chase.

“They’re gone. I missed it. I don’t have the jump I needed.”

“They’re right there. At this speed the slipstream is huge. I can latch on.”

“What am I even doing trying to mix it up with these guys? I never had a sprint to begin with! I’m not a fast-twitch guy! What am I doing here?”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

If you were starting to get bored, fear not … this is where things get interesting. As you may have noticed, my inner critic isn’t very sophisticated. As Ceely described, this critic operates mainly out of fear: fear of failure, fear of injury. It’s old messaging, like a broken record. But an upside of being old is that I have a wealth of experience in road racing bunch sprints, and the movements have become so ingrained, they become almost automatic. My neocortex loves the tactical complexity required, and finally the thrill of the hunt becomes irresistible. All the negative self-talk drops away … I’m like a cat going after a laser pointer. Now the self-talk is more focused and intelligent … it hones in on the “goal-directed stimuli” described in Hardy’s article.

“B— is on the back but he’s just getting going. He’s the fastest sprinter here. If I get his wheel I’m golden.”

“And there’s his attack! And I don’t need a jump—I’m already going faster than the group because I’ve been chasing! Getting dropped was a gift! I love this sport!”

“Nobody saw him jump—his wheel is wide open! Get it! Get it! Harder, harder, drill it, I’m almost there!”

“I’ve got the wheel! Hold that wheel! Hold it! Shit, I’m golden!”

In case you haven’t had the pleasure of a cycling bunch sprint, this was the part where I was putting out all the power I was capable of, but without the wind resistance I’d have fought if riding alone. It’s a bit like catching a wave, I suppose … this extraordinary rush of speed and the delicious sensation of doing something I’d be incapable of if not latched on to my teammate’s wheel. Meanwhile, I could tell from my peripheral vision, and from the decrease in sound, that the rest of the group was gone. We’d made the jump to light-speed.

“Can I get around B—? No. I’m topped out. Can’t do it.” [This isn’t technically negative self-talk … it’s just stating a fact.]

“God, what a rush.”

“Second place in Walking Man is not bad.”

“Holy shit, who the hell is that?!”

Another rider inexplicably came flying by right as we reached the pedestrian crossing. It was Y—, D—’s  14-year-old son and a rising star in both road and mountain bike racing in NorCal. He’s got the build of a climber, which should make such a phenomenal sprint impossible, except that he’s clearly hugely talented. He also played his cards almost perfectly … the only reason he didn’t beat B— in the end is that he chose my wheel, probably assuming I’d start to pass B— and then (and only then) he’d launch his own sprint and overtake both of us. But I didn’t go fast enough, and didn’t start to pass B—… I just kind of sat there. Y— probably won’t overestimate me again. He’ll be going directly for B—’s wheel next time.

Did my negative self-talk start up again after the sprint? No, I’m more realistic than that. What would be the point of faulting myself after the fact, especially when I’d done a good sprint? Besides, since Y— races against my Albany High team, I automatically considered his feat from the perspective of coach. (My result doesn’t matter, it’s just for kicks.) Besides, I had more on my mind anyway: we still had Mount Diablo to tackle.

Epilogue

Sure, there was a little more self-talk on the way up the mountain, as I tried to keep up with Y— for as long as possible while still having enough in the tank to make the summit, and then make it home. But the inner critic quiets down a fair bit when adrenaline and endorphins enter the picture and things are going well. I ended up climbing Diablo a shocking nine minutes faster than last time (which was all the way back in September, when I was still coasting on my fitness from my DIY Everest Challenge). On the way home, I kept waiting for my body to give out, but it never did, and I even clocked a decent time on Wildcat Canyon, the last climb. Next time my inner critic starts naysaying, my inner CEO will simply reply, “You know nothing. Remember that Diablo ride? I got this.”

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