Cycling Smackdown - Man vs. E-Bike

Introduction

If you’re a cyclist, you are probably now accustomed to being passed up by non-cyclists on e-bikes. When this happens, you may be puzzled, for a fraction of a second, by how some non-racer-type in a big puffy jacket sitting bolt upright on a humble commuting bike is so much faster than you, and then you realize. My eyes still dart to the down-tube of the person’s bike, to confirm the presence of a giant battery pack, as if to reassure myself that the universe still basically makes sense (if it does).

Mind you, I am 100% in favor of e-bikes … for adults. Especially for commuting. But I am also 100% not in favor of kids on e-bikes. If you agree, and particularly if you don’t, read on.

Cycling Smackdown – Man vs. E-Bike

I was on a solo road ride. I was not happy. I felt old and slow and fat. This isn’t very charitable and you likely wouldn’t call me fat, especially if I remembered to suck in my gut if I thought you were looking at me (but then, why would you be?). But being fat and feeling fat are entirely different things. I think anyone can feel fat. As a cyclist whose midsection used to be concave, I am admittedly unfair with myself.

I almost cut the ride short. I’ll confess I was indulging in a disgraceful amount of self-loathing and self-pity. Some days you have it, some you don’t, and I was really lagging, dragging a baggy, deflated ego behind me. I guess that’s the problem with ever having been really fast on a bike … you can’t help but compare. But enough of this.

At about the halfway point of my 30-mile loop, I turned onto Happy Valley Road to do “Half Happy,” which is halfway up what would be a pretty tough climb if you didn’t take the merciful turnoff down Sundown Terrace. The grade starts out at 1% for a tenth of a mile, then dabbles between 2% and 5% until a final really steep bit and then the turnoff. Half Happy is 2.5 miles at an average grade of 3.5%. (You can view the Strava segment here.)

As it happened, two teenagers on e-bikes turned onto Happy Valley Road just after I did (coming from either Happy Valley Lane or Hester Lane, just after Highway 24). One of the kids was on the kind of total cop-out e-bike that doesn’t even pretend to be a proper bicycle and that nobody actually pedals (see photo above). It’s more like a mini-bike, with the fat tires and the manual throttle. The kid yelled at me, something I didn’t quite hear (not expecting to be accosted). I said, “Huh?” and he yelled again, “You wanna race?!”

In the same millisecond that I parsed the question, I answered it. This was long before I devoted any thought to actually considering his proposal. It turns out my lizard brain is able to direct my vocal chords, tongue, and lips without needing to engage my neocortex, because I was surprised to suddenly hear myself yelling, “Yeah, I’ll race you! Let’s GO!” My naysaying inner voice—that is, the wimp in my brain that had been complaining the whole ride—said, “Oh boy. This is not going to end well.”

But my arguably better brain, the impulsive one that at least isn’t so pathetic, shouted down the inner voice, yelling (silently, internally), “GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!” And for better or for worse, this wilder, bolder part of my brain was, at this time, in charge of my body. I launched the hardest attack I’m capable of.

Here is where we started our race:

This is of course the part of the story where, according to classic narrative tradition, I am supposed to say, “I threw her in the big ring.” If this were fiction, that’s how I’d structure it. But full disclosure: I was already in the big chainring (i.e., higher gear range) because the climb is only 1% at this point. Nevertheless, as I accelerated, out of the saddle, I shifted up a few gears on the back so I could really dig in. It was crazy: out of absolutely nowhere, I just had this enormous rush of energy, like I was a surfer who’d just caught a 40-foot wave. I was flying! I glanced at my bike computer: I was doing over 25 mph!

The two kids, who’d been flanking me on either side, were quickly falling behind, and one of them—to my delight—yelled, “Oh, SHIT!” Needless to say, now I was fully committed and as the climb got steeper I had to go harder and harder. My suffering increased exponentially as the grade went from 1% to about 4%. I was still hauling ass in the big ring, and couldn’t believe how much energy I actually had. I felt strong like bull! But how long could this last? Of course I didn’t want to just start well and fizzle, because as we all know, he who laughs last laughs best.

Why did I even care about this pointless duel? It’s because, like I mentioned earlier, I hate to see kids on e-bikes. Why do their parents think kids need this product? Kids throughout time (well, at least for the last hundred years or so) have gotten around just fine on regular bicycles. It’s a great form of exercise and, given that riding a bike replaces walking or running—undeniably slow, hard, and inefficient ways to travel—kids have historically loved the increased speed and range that a good old fashioned bicycle can provide. Perhaps modern helicopter parents (or recovering helicopter parents), having habitually driven their kids everywhere, have finally had enough, and now refuse to drive them—but feel guilty about adding difficulty to their kids’ lives, and thus get them e-bikes to cushion the blow. Or maybe these parents think the kids will have more energy for studying and extracurricular activities if they don’t have to pedal their way around. Maybe these kids are so oversubscribed that they don’t have time to ride regular bikes from one activity to another. Or it could be these parents are not only sedentary and out of shape themselves, but lack the imagination to think of their kids as able-bodied people perfectly capable of pedaling their own asses around. Whatever the case, these parents are clearly defective. The kids, for their part, are lazy and shameless. If, when I was a kid, my parents had offered me an e-bike (had such a thing existed, and had they been defective parents), I’d have been offended. Thus, when I see a kid on an e-bike, it’s as galling as seeing a cat on a leash, or a dog in a stroller, or a toddler with an iPad.

How could I keep this pace up? Could I keep this up? A boss once advised me, when I had an important decision to make, “Go with your gut”—but then, after a moment’s reflection (and likely remembering the business zeitgeist of the moment), he added, “but make sure your decision is data-driven.” Well, which is it? I guess you can do both: decide what to do based on intuition, but then keep yourself honest via whatever objective metrics are at hand. My decision to pick up the gauntlet having been purely impulsive, it was now time to look at the data side of things. I figured the e-bikes, if they hadn’t been tampered with, were configured not to go over 15 mph, therefore as long as I could average higher than that, I could hold the kids off. The climb was close to 5% in places so my speed dipped below 15 here and there, but overall this pace seemed doable. I now know this analysis was flawed: having reviewed my own research on this, and corroborating this with friends, I’ve confirmed that Class 2 e-bikes such as these kids were riding will actually go up to 20 mph. Fortunately, my oxygen-starved brain couldn’t really do math (e.g., calculating how long I could go below 15 mph and still maintain that average), so I had to err on the side of going as hard as I could anyway, numbers be damned.

I allowed myself a glance back to see how my opponents were doing. The kids were still at it, but my gap was pretty good. The really peculiar thing was how blasé their effort looked … until I considered what “going hard” on an e-bike means. On a traditional bike, of course, the rider is out of the saddle, his body thrashing as he rocks the bike, generally with an agonized expression. Often his mouth will gape open; sometimes I wonder, during an all-out effort, if I’ve managed to unhook my jaw the way some snakes can. But on a Class 2 e-bike the pedals are practically just for show, and once you’ve twisted the throttle to full-on, there’s not much more you can do … the bike is doing all it can, and its capability is governed not by pluck, grit, determination, or anything glorious like that, but just by the limit of its design (i.e., its governor). There is no “digging deep” on an e-bike … the outcome in a man-vs.-e-bike contest is in the hands of the real cyclist. I focused on the road ahead and kept the pressure on. My legs and throat were burning, but by God, I kept the speed up. Stroke after stroke, my legs kept turning over the big gear. It was like those trick birthday candles that relight themselves every time they’re blown out.

Protracted suffering ensued which there is no point describing other than to say it seemed to go on and on. Finally I got to the really steep part, just over two miles since the start, and still no annoying teens had buzzed by me. I looked back again … and they were gone. (There can be no fixed finish line in such an impromptu race; suffice to say, I gave the kids all the runway they wanted to try to beat me.) Looking down at my bike computer, I noticed I’d actually increased my average speed for the whole ride! On a climb! Frickin’ glorious. The hapless teens, through their hubris, had done me a solid!

In a perfect world, those teenagers would declare my victory “iconic,” and—inspired by what’s evidently possible even for an ancient guy like me—they’d go get real bikes and become athletes. But surely the more likely scenario is they’ll tell their parents their e-bikes suck, and demand better ones. Or, they’ll go on YouTube and learn how to disable their bikes’ governors. But whatever their story is, I’m sure I have the better one to tell!

Epilogue

At what point did the kids give up? Who knows … but if they’d stayed at it all the way to my turnoff, they’d necessarily have beaten me. Going back to the data, I see that the KOM for this Strava segment, set by a far faster rider than I, was at an average speed of 19.4 mph ... that is, below what the kids’ e-bikes were able to sustain. I find it remarkable that the kids quit the effort even though it didn’t cause them any pain or suffering. I guess they weren’t being “data driven.” Maybe without the opportunity to consult ChatGPT, they just didn’t know what to do...

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More Q&A With a Cycling Coach

Dear Cycling Coach,

What is this “glycogen window” I keep hearing my dad talk about? Sounds like basically carte blanche to eat a bunch of sugary snacks just because he rode…

Lydia L, Portland, OR

Dear Lydia,

The glycogen window is legit! No less an authority than the National Institute of Health advises, in this article, “To maximize glycogen resynthesis after exercise, a carbohydrate supplement ...  should be consumed immediately after competition or a training bout.” In other words, you’ll recover from hard exercise better if you have a sweet snack right afterward. (Most articles agree that the window is about 30 minutes.) This doesn’t mean walking around the block justifies a whole package of red vines, though; “walkies” does not equal a “bout.” Also, not all snacks are created equal. I recommend sweetened yogurt, chocolate milk if you’ve got it, or some fruit (apple slices with peanut butter being my favorite). The NIH notes, “The addition of protein to a carbohydrate supplement may also increase the rate of glycogen storage due to the ability of protein and carbohydrate to act synergistically on insulin secretion.”

But you don’t need to take the NIH’s word for it! My own daughter did an elaborate experiment on this for her science project and you can read all about it here.

Dear Cycling Coach,

There’s a guy on my mountain biking team who’s always saying, “I’m gonna do bad in the race,” or, worse, “Oh, I’m not gonna try in the race.” It kinda bums me out and I’m sure he’s not doing himself any favors either. Any advice here?

Wally M, Mill Valley, CA

Dear Wally,

Without knowing your teammate I can only speculate, but I suppose his spoken sentiments are either performative (i.e., downplaying in advance any sense that he tried and failed, to save face), or are the public version of what he tells himself all the time. If I were his coach, I would try to draw him out a bit on that, and encourage him, and remind him how long it takes to get good at this very difficult sport.

If his utterances are indeed an echo of some interior monologue, he should be aware that negative self-talk can be very detrimental to an athlete, even beyond sport. A friend of mine, a licensed psychotherapist and founder of Ceely Sports, an athlete coaching company, discusses self-talk on his blog, here. He describes negative self-talk as “a natural psychological mechanism that all humans have” that tries to “problem-solve by pointing out your (real or imagined) errors and flaws.” He goes on to say, “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. Here’s the cool thing: you don’t have to believe everything ‘you’ think.” That is, you don’t have to listen to that negativity and let it become a self-fulfilling prophecy; you can take control of your internal narrative. Maybe you can convey this to your teammate, or forward him this post.

For a deeper exploration of this topic, see my post “Self-Talk in Action” here.

Dear Cycling Coach,

In last week’s column you referred to bike clothing as a “costume.” Nobody calls it that! If you’re supposed to be a coach why don’t you call it a “kit” like everybody else?

Lisa H, Charleston, SC

Dear Lisa,

Oh my goodness, you appear to have no idea how contentious the term “kit” can be. It was the topic of a highly animated email thread among my road cycling teammates. In fact, it’s a good thing our debate was confined to the emails (all gazillion of them) instead of a mid-ride discussion, because then it might have escalated into a riot. (Yes, I’m exaggerating.) I ended up getting three blog posts out of this fraught topic (so far) and you can read the final one here.

The short answer is, many feel “kit” is a Euro affectation, like “bidon,” and avoid it for reasons of taste, even though its meaning is plenty clear. I won’t call you out for using it, but I’ll ask you to extend me the same courtesy for “costume,” which I believe is the perfect term since compared to actual pro cyclists, the vast majority of us are posers (or poseurs in affected Euro parlance).

Dear Cycling Coach,

Should I use a bike computer? What are the benefits? Any downside, other than people thinking I’m a fitness dweeb?

Ben F, San Diego, CA

Dear Ben,

Given the prevalence of smart watches, and even smart rings, that can monitor sleep, heart rate, and blood oxygen levels, I doubt anyone will think you’re nerdy for using a bike computer. It might disturb the clean line of your handlebar, but trust me … nobody but you and other bike geeks are looking at that.

Meanwhile, bike computers really are handy, if for no other reason than tracking your mileage. Even a relatively cheap one like this Sigma can sync with your phone (and/or Strava) to serve as an automated training diary. I myself don’t use Strava but can still gamify my workouts by sending a snapshot to a pal, who reciprocates. We have an informal contest: who can beat 5,000 miles for the year, and by how much?

If you do get a bike computer you’ll be in good company. A while back I surveyed my road teammates and some other cyclists I know, and (as detailed here), 87% use a bike computer, and it’s not because they’re hardcore racers. Among those surveyed, 80% don’t follow a strict training program and only 17% (at the time of the survey) still raced regularly. In particular I find the heart rate data interesting. If you do a lot of solo rides, the arguably trivial data are even more welcome.

Dear Cycling Coach,

What’s the best way to deal with poison oak? Are we mountain bikers doomed to suffer that rash or is there a way to escape it?

Jill M, San Francisco, CA

Dear Jill,

Noting that you live in the Bay Area, which doesn’t feature very hot weather, I’ll suggest one really easy hack: wear long sleeves when you can. I almost always ride in leg and arm warmers and never have trouble with poison oak. Beyond that, I have learned that there is a really great way to prevent this rash even after exposure. You scrub your skin with a washcloth (and also soap, with Dawn dish soap being recommended). The washcloth makes all the difference in the world, as explained in this helpful video.

For more on poison oak and cycling, check out this post.

Dear Cycling Coach,

I am a budding young road racer in a dispute with my dad. I like to point my brake levers inward for better aerodynamics but my dad says I shouldn’t, simply on the basis that it looks stupid (or so he says). I say if it’s more aero, it’s worth it. Who’s right?

Megan G, Boston, MA

Dear Megan,

I am presumably of your father’s generation … whom do you honestly expect me to agree with? Look, your dad is right. The part of the lever you rest your hands on (that the rubber hoods cover) should point straight forward. This isn’t just the opinion of your wise father and me, but also the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the governing body of road racing globally. A new UCI regulation actually prohibits inward-pointing levers as detailed here. This is supposedly for safety, but I really think it’s because the sport depends on sponsors, and the UCI grasps that if all dignity is removed from the peloton nobody will want anything to do with the image of cycling. So if your levers look like what’s below, straighten them out, quickfastninahurry.

I recently had a debate about this with a high school rider whom I coach, who (like you) seems to care only about aerodynamics with no regard for proper aesthetics. I compared inward-turned levers to putting ketchup on a hot dog, to which she replied, “What’s wrong with that?” No offense, Megan, but I really worry about your generation.

Dear Cycling Coach,

Last week in this column you mentioned “stealth training.” What exactly is that?

Jack F, Ventura, CA

Dear Jack,

Stealth training is when you could be riding with your pals, but instead you pretend you can’t go and then do a longer and/or harder ride solo, to try to improve your fitness faster. This solo ride is kept secret from your friends (sometimes to the point that you don’t even post it on Strava).

Sometimes mention of stealth training takes the form of a hurled accusation, quite possibly without merit. For example, when a pal declines an offer for a group ride, someone may well say, “Oh, sure you have a schedule conflict. I’ll bet you’re just looking to do some stealth training.”

For more on this topic click here.

Dear Cycling Coach,

What tools, etc. should I bring when I go mountain biking? I’m told that since my tires are tubeless, I should bring bacon strips. Huh? And besides flats, what should I be prepared for?

Suzie L, San Luis Obispo, CA

Dear Suzie,

“Bacon strip” is the nickname for these little tire plugs that you can stick into a hole in your tire, using a special tool. (Don’t worry, they’re actually vegan.) These plugs are helpful when the hole is too big for the sealant to plug up. Best of all, you don’t even need to remove the tire, so they can be really handy in a race. I’m not sure I can really recommend them, though, because I’ve never tried them myself, and I’ve watched seasoned mountain bikers—coaches, even—futz around with them without getting anywhere. Maybe my experience isn’t representative, though … you should ask around. Myself, I always bring a spare tube and just throw that in the tire (even if you were running tubeless before). That’s more foolproof.

Beyond the bacon strips and/or spare tube, you should bring food (energy bar, pop tart, PBJ, fruit) if your ride is much longer than an hour; tire levers; a pump (greener than a CO2 inflator); a patch kit; a multi-tool; one of those spiffy rechargeable taillights, mounted under your saddle; something to use as a tire boot; your phone; a chain tool if you know how to use it; and, last but not least, extra clothing. You never know when the weather will take a turn, and if you crash or have a mechanical you won’t be staying warm by working hard; you’ll be standing around getting cold. I was on a team ride recently and a kid crashed pretty hard. It took me fifteen minutes to patch him up, and since we were above 1,700 feet elevation, the temperature dropped quite a bit, down to the low forties, and a couple kids were freezing their asses off. If it had been a bit colder, and especially if it started raining or the wind picked up, they’d have been at risk of hypothermia.

(As a coach, I carry all kinds of stuff like tubes of various sizes, arm warmers in various sizes, a first aid kit, all kinds of tools, and extra food. More on that topic here.)

Dear Cycling Coach,

Is it true that cyclists have the highest pain threshold of any athlete?

Robert B, West Milford, NJ

Dear Robert,

I’m kind of afraid to answer that, because if I declared, for example, that cyclists were tougher than football players, I might get my ass kicked. But I do have some experience measuring cyclists’ pain thresholds, based on a methodology called the cold-pressor test described in this New Yorker article by Atul Gawande. As Gawande describes, when taking this test ballet dancers demonstrated far higher pain thresholds than nondancers. Several other articles also hold up dancers as the gold standard in pain tolerance. In my own study, all of us cyclists were able to outlast the cold-pressor test, something even the dancers hadn’t managed. You can read all about my experiment here. Suffice to say, even if we’re not the toughest of all athletes, we’re surely in the running.

Dear Cycling Coach,

There’s some disagreement on my high school mountain biking team about what bike is better: full suspension or a hardtail. One of my teammates insists that riding a hardtail will “make you a better rider.” Is this really true, or is she just saying that because it’s the kind of bike she has?

Scott H, Tallahassee, FL

Dear Scott,

Riding a hardtail not only makes you a better rider—it makes you a better person.

A Cycling Coach is a syndicated journalist whose advice column, “Ask a Cycling Coach,” appears in over 0 blogs worldwide.

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Cycling Smackdown - Small Cog Tale

Introduction

I’m an assistant coach for the Albany High School Cougars mountain biking team. As described in a previous smackdown post, my bike—with its triple crankset—seems, to the Cougars, as antiquated as I am. (More on gearing later—I’ll bet you can’t wait!) Part of my role as coach is to inspire these kids, so I need to convey, through actions alone, that I’m not actually obsolete. This can mean giving them a run for their money which, as you can imagine, gets harder every year. Read on for a white-knuckled (or at least old-knuckled) account of my latest endeavor.

Small cog tale

The weather looked iffy but none of the forecasts matched, so although it had rained all morning, the ride was on. Coach M—, our fastest, was MIA so I got put with the fastest group. As we set out and headed up Thousand Oaks Blvd, I noted that C—, our top rider, was rocking his NorCal League Champion jersey from last season, with the California flag on it. I said to him, “Nice jersey! Where can I get one?”

C— said to S—, “Where’s Coach M—, our fearless leader?”(or something to that effect). S—, who looks like a Pixar superhero, and who almost beat me in two all-out sprints last week, said, “Actually, Coach M— is 0 for 2 this season.” C— asked, “Who’d he lose to?” S— gestured in my direction and said, “Coach Dana.” C— replied, “Oh, shit!” He was surely thinking about the final sprint of the ride, a tradition that, several years ago, was oddly named “VO2.” It’s contested along the final stretch of Wildcat Canyon Road, which descends at 1-2% and winds around like a serpent. The finish line is the intersection with Grizzly Peak Blvd, near the Summit Reservoir where the Cougar ride groups (and those of other teams) tend to congregate before the final (controlled-pace) descent to the high school.

By the end of the first climb a wind had picked up, big dark clouds had rolled in, and the temperature was dropping. We regrouped at the reservoir and then I dragged everyone along Wildcat Canyon Road, heading east. Several times I gestured with a flick of the elbow for somebody to pull through but either I haven’t successfully taught that signal to the riders, or they just didn’t want to help. I was hoping for a team time trial type of group effort, but when I pointedly pulled off and looked at C—, he launched a devastating attack. He totally soloed and S— dropped me too. I overhauled S— on the short downhill toward the Botanical Garden, before the climbing resumed, but never caught C—. We regrouped at Inspiration Point and as the rest of the kids (and the other coach) trickled in, it started to rain.

I decided to lead everyone down Wildcat to where it hits El Toyonal, and back up. Several kids protested but only pro forma … I think we were all electrified by the rain, which increased as I drilled it down Wildcat. Before the ride I’d put a new clear lens in my sunglasses and it worked great deflecting the spray off the road. I could actually (basically) see, though the ridge of hills and all the trees had effectively hastened the sunset. I reached the junction with El Toyonal and turned around. We’d agreed to regroup again at Inspiration Point again after the climb, so I didn’t wait for anyone … they’d be along soon enough.

True to form, C— blew by me with S— dying on his wheel. S— came off and I managed to stay with him to the top. When we arrived C— was jumping up and down to stay warm as he had no jacket and no body fat. Eventually the others arrived, and we turned on our lights and put on all the gear we had as the rain was pounding down now. I loaned C— a spare pair of arm warmers but his arms were too wet and he lost patience pulling them on and chucked them back to me.

A— was still futzing with his gloves when a number of riders rolled out. I yelled at them to hold up. They ignored me—a mutiny!—and ramped up the speed. The cowards! Apparently certain Cougars didn’t want me around to contest VO2. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for cunning tactics, but this didn’t seem very sporting.

Annoyed, I hammered to catch up, moving through our group like in a racecar video game, but it was pretty hopeless. Three of the kids were way off the front, taking turns pulling, fighting the wind together, and I was only one guy. Still, on the downhill toward the Regional Parks Botanical Garden I felt I could close the gap a bit since I’m bigger than these kids and punch through the wind better. But my progress was incremental and not enough.

I was ready to just call it a day—I mean, who cares, really?—when I remembered my mantra: “I … WILL … NOT … LOSE … EVER.” I guess it’s not really my mantra in the sense that I came up with it or anything; I stole it from some rap song. Plus, it’s kind of disingenuous because I actually lose all the time. But “I … LOSE … ALL … THE … TIME” is not a suitable mantra, and when I’m slaying myself on the bike in a dim rainstorm with possibly toxic levels of adrenaline coursing through my system, I sometimes become pleasantly delusional and can pretend I never lose. But how could I possibly manage to prevail now, when already so far off the back?

Ah, I thought. There’s always the “I hate pain” hill.

The “I hate pain” hill is the short, somewhat steep (perhaps 9%) climb between the Botanical Garden and the Brazil Building. My wife gave this hill its name, back when we were first dating. She rode over it and said, “I just learned something about myself. I hate pain!” I can usually do this one in the big ring, after getting up as much speed as possible on the downhill before. For some reason, the mountain bike team always goes around it, via Anza View Road, even though they’re young and strong and fearless. Probably the coaches set the standard ages ago and nobody ever thought to change it up. Well, on a previous showdown, during a ride with my road team that a former Cougar had attended, I’d had a chance to do a little A/B test. He’d dropped our entire group including me and, not knowing any better, went around the hill while I, in desperate pursuit, went over it and discovered that up-and-over is actually faster. So now I figured that maybe, just maybe, I could make up enough time to get back in contention.

Well, it worked perfectly. I came over the top, and as the road dipped down again I could just see the top three riders rejoining the road ahead. I gave it full gas and managed to claw my way across and latch on to the back. I hung out there for a bit, recovering, and before long the last of the three, G—, looked back and saw me there. Haha! Surely they’d looked back several times and confirmed I was nowhere in sight. It must have seemed like I came out of nowhere.

C— was on the front driving a furious pace. I was getting a pretty good draft off G— (who must have grown three inches since last season) but he was dying and letting little gaps open, so riding behind him was unwise, like getting too close to a drowning victim. To G—’s credit, it took me a few tries to take S—’s wheel away from him. As I’ve taught the riders, you look at the wheel you want, not at the rider who’s on it, and you just have to kind of insinuate yourself onto the wheel. Eventually I had S—’s wheel but he’s not such a good draft. I was bent way over the bars, but I’ve got this giant Camelbak stuffed with the tool set, the first aid kit, every size of inner tube, extra clothes, and other bulky stuff so I wasn’t very aero.

The pace was relentless, and pedaling was even harder than usual because my shoes, being absolutely soaked, seemed to weigh about five pounds each. The chamois in my shorts was also sodden and droopy … is this what it’s like having a full diaper? I sensed S— starting to tire … so it was time to move into second. He didn’t seem to mind when I came past him; he knew he’d get a sweet draft off of me and have plenty of time to recover, so he could try to come past at the last second. (He’d come so very close to pulling it off last week, after all.) So now I was right on C—’s wheel and he’s just as lithe and wiry as a greyhound, blocking the wind even less than S—. It was absolutely brutal staying in that draft at that searing pace. C—’s rear tire sprayed up a rooster tail of water right in my face, but my clear goggles protected my eyes, and the water hitting my mouth, though befouled with grit, was almost refreshing. Meanwhile, C—’s unrelenting verve was inspirational, and as I clung to his wheel for dear life I tried to conjure up a plot to defeat him.

This kid had been pulling ever since I’d caught up, and probably almost the whole way from Inspiration Point. Sure, he’s the League Champ, but he’s not invincible … possibly I could come off his wheel with like 100 meters to go and punch his ticket. I was actually more worried about S—, who was just sitting perfectly in position behind me, and who’d have a pretty good idea of when I’d launch my sprint. I decided I had to go early, for the element of surprise.

There’s a spot maybe 300 meters from the end where the road curves around and the downhill gets just a bit steeper, from like 1% to 1.5%. It’s subtle, but the perfect moment to take advantage of my 11-tooth cog. I guess that’s not really such a tiny cog by modern standards—after all, my daughter’s bike has a 10—but that’s because most kids are running the so called “one-by” setup, with only one chainring, which is typically a measly 32-tooth. My triple crankset has a 42-tooth big ring, giving me a 20-30% higher gear than they have, and at a high enough speed, it’s like having nitro or something (if only my legs can manage to push hard enough).

Needless to say what you’re reading here isn’t technically a Big Ring Tale, because we’d all already been in our big rings, and/or our highest gears, for several minutes before the denouement of our battle began. For me, the battle came down to the cog. All last season I couldn’t use my smallest rear cog because it was worn out and skipped like crazy. This season I finally got around to addressing it—but I couldn’t find the new cassette I thought I had somewhere. I ended up finding some random, lone 11-tooth cog floating around in my big bin of extra parts. I had no idea where it came from or what kind of shape it was in, but  to my delight it works great—no skipping at all. So instead of setting up the climax of this yarn with the standard convention of  “I threw ‘er in the big ring,” this is the part of the story where I get to tell you “I dropped ‘er in the small cog.” (Who knows, perhaps with the growing popularity of these one-by setups, and mountain biking vs. road, the term “big ring tale” will become obsolete, and “small cog tale” will take its place.) Now, full disclosure, I might well have already been in the small cog, but that’s immaterial … the point is, now I launched the big move that demanded the 42x11 gear. I was going to spin that gear all the way up or die trying.

Well, the good news is, I did succeed in taking both kids by surprise and quickly got a good gap. The bad news is, with the rain and the dark and my somewhat fogged-up goggles I’d totally misjudged where we were; maybe it was wishful thinking that we were finally close to the end. I’d gone several curves too early! No wonder my sudden move had been so effective: you’d have to be a  fool to go from that far out! O my god, what had I done? But there was no way to change my plan now … if I let up at all, both kids would fly by and that would be the end of me. There was nothing to do but try to make the move stick. I had that 42x11 turning pretty well now. (Having gone back and done the math, I can tell you my cadence was just under 100 rpm, which isn’t so fast for a track racer, but pretty much perfect for a mosher like me.)

I died over and over again with every pedal stroke, and the wimp in my brain was chanting its usual defeatist litany, notions like “It’s over, you went too early, you’re doomed, just sit up, these kids are in their prime, S— looks like a Pixar superhero, C— is the reigning League Champ, there’s no shame, you gave them a good run for it.” Fortunately the song in my head (there’s always a song in my head), which was “King of Pain” by the Police, was drowning out the inner voice. Going early had not been the plan, of course, and yet I seemed to be following a familiar script. There seemed something so inevitable about the excruciating suffering I was going through once again: the blood-taste in my mouth, the turbine-like whoosh-whine of my breathing, the white-hot burn in my legs. It could be no other way and I wasn’t going to let up for a second until I’d won or lost. No looking back, either—I cannot fathom why pro racers in solo breakaways so often look back; it’s like the kiss of death. Just face forward, face the music: “I will always be King of Pain!”

I was around the final curve, out of the saddle now, thrashing, feeling like I had a bear trap clamped to each leg. This twisty road with the tall trees around it, and the dark and gloom, with sometimes even a bat or two, have often made me think of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and now I felt very much like Ichabod Crane dashing madly toward the final bridge, the Headless Horseman hot on my tail. The end in sight, I flogged myself like it mattered, and less than 50 meters from the finish still no kid had flashed by. With 25 meters to go I finally looked back. C— was there, of course, but well behind me, not even in my draft, and S— was nowhere to be seen. I’d pulled it off! Something like a wicked laugh fluttered to life deep within me but couldn’t make it anywhere close to my mouth, not with all that sucking wind and other respiratory havoc. But the feeling that flickered there was real and joyful. Can you imagine it? Actual joy, at my advanced age?

Needless to say my triumph, for all the thrill of the moment, was actually meaningless, a matter of pure trivia, something to be forgotten almost instantly (were it not for the stubborn persistence of this text). Surely C— didn’t much care. It’s just one more sprint of many, and like every coach I’m just a stepping stone on the kid’s way to greater things, if even that. But hey, that’s what I’m here for … my glory days were over thirty years ago and the point here is the current crop, the Cougars. When, some weeks from now, an actual race—a sanctioned NorCal mountain bike race—comes down to a final sprint, and C— wins it through timing, tactics, and grit, I will be stoked to have played any role at all in helping him reach that level. As for myself, I’m just glad to still be in the mix.

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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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Cycling Smackdown - Middle Ring Tale

Introduction

I am an assistant coach for the Albany High School mountain biking team. The age difference between the student-athletes and me keeps growing, and my bike isn’t getting any younger, either. In fact, it sports a triple crankset, a technology that has all but disappeared from the mountain bike racing circuit. One of the kids said, “We were trying to imagine you on a modern bike with a one-by, but it just wouldn’t seem right.” So this configuration has, for better or worse, become part of my “personal brand.”

What’s that, you ask? What’s a “one-by”? It’s a crankset with only one chainring, which is what most modern mountain bikes have now, paired with a  wide-range cluster of gears in the back (the opposite of the “corn cob” I coveted as a youngster). The problem with the one-by setup is, how do you properly execute the maneuver required for a Big Ring Tale?

I did not coin the term “Big Ring Tale”—at least, I don’t think I did, having used this term since the early ‘80s—but when I googled this phrase just now every single hit was this blog. Suffice to say, “Big Ring Tale” refers to a story of a showdown on bikes, with the climax coming when the hero, just before launching his final, devastating attack, “throws it in the big ring”—that is, shifts into his bike’s higher gear range. But this tale takes place on a climb far too steep for the big ring, which is why we’ll have to make do with a smaller one.

Middle ring tale

Our team rides are largely on dirt trails, but getting to them and back requires some asphalt. There’s a classic climb we do, on the road, that’s short but very steep. It’s called Canon Drive and it gains 244 feet in 0.39 miles, for an average grade of 11.7%. The top stretch is a fricking wall, topping out at 24.7%! Canon Drive is the last big hurdle we must get over during our weekday rides before descending all the way back to the high school. Most kids hate this climb because we usually have to tackle it when they’re already pretty knackered. They’ll beg for crazy long detours just to get around having to face it; one coach calls this chorus of whining “the ABCs,” for “anything but Canon.”

In my group (only the second fastest, but hey, I’m old!), there’s a kid named S— who is what we call a pocket climber. His physique is just ridiculously spare and lean, his upper body an inverted trapezoid from somewhat aerodynamic shoulders to an ideally narrow waist, and the inevitable “ripped” (i.e., lean) legs. He looks like a Pixar character, someone who could feature in the next “Incredibles” movie or something. On the big climbs I can almost never keep up with him. Today I was hoping he’d be tired enough, this having been a long ride, that I could prevail on this last, beastly climb.

So, I took the front right from the get-go, hoping to perhaps demoralize everyone into just slacking off (being teenagers, after all). I kicked out the hardest pace I could handle, which had my heart into the low 160s, which is over 90% of my maximum heart rate. The wimp that lives in my brain said, “Anyone who can come by me when I’m going this hard deserves to drop me.”

(Obviously the above photo is from a different ride when I had the opportunity to futz with a phone camera. Note the heart rate percent-of-max display, in the upper right, showing 84%, with the “ring of fire” showing in red how close to maxed out I am.)

Notwithstanding this fatalistic sentiment, my self-talk in such cases isn’t all negative. Much of the time I’m simply marveling how high I can get my heart rate when I’m riding with these kids. On no level do I feel like I need to beat them, or that anything is at stake; it’s just that their verve is infectious. Overall think my spirit animal is the cat; that is, I’m kind of a loner. But these team rides bring out my inner sled dog and I can’t help but exuberantly run with the pack, no matter how hard that is.

Soon enough, S—, the pocket climber, as if following a script, came drilling it past me. This was about 5/8 of the way to the top. (Why don’t I just say “about halfway”? Easy for you to say, armchair reader. On a climb like this, practically every foot of every effort is metered out.) S— started to pull away and I thought, “Well, he’s gone, but at least maybe I can hold off Z—.” Z— is the head coach’s kid, who has been putting the hurt on me more and more on every ride, in the process of eventually becoming faster than I, which most of these kids do (and which, let’s face it, is the whole point of coaching them, though it’s a bittersweet experience when they leave you, often literally, in the dust). Sure enough, Z— pulled level a moment later: the next thread in my weave unraveling.

Except it wasn’t Z—! It was this other kid, T—, who is a bit stockier than the others and generally isn’t a factor on the climbs. He’s not naturally built for uphills, perhaps even less than I am, plus he’s pretty new to the sport. Something about how he squares his shoulders, especially when I see him next to a pocket climber, makes me think of Frankenstein’s monster. And, when the hammer goes down, he really thrashes, body rocking all over the place. But here he was, totally going for it, attempting to burst forth and chase S— down, just flying in the face of Fate, despite the iron seeming stone cold!

It was such a cheeky move, so dismissive of  the established hierarchy, it inspired me! So I thought, heck, I’m already in the middle ring, which isn’t bad, on a grade this steep, and even though we’d just reached the final wall, where I would normally shift into my largest cog in the back, I thought: what if I just fricking shifted UP, into a harder gear? Or, even, like, two gears up? As in, what if I put the bike in the gear a real man would use here if he were going to lay down a rubber road straight to freedom?!

(Yes, I know in a classic Big Ring Tale I’d be honor-bound to throw her in the big ring at this point, but let’s be real. The grade is more than 20%. I guess I could have taken some liberties and written that I’d been in the little ring, and now threw her in the middle, but that would be false. Could I have called this a “smaller cog” story? No, that just doesn’t make any sense. And one more thing: if “lay down a rubber road straight to freedom” confuses you, you need to go watch “Mad Max” as soon as possible. I believe the expression has to do with accelerating so hard, even when already at highway speed, that you spin the tires and burn rubber.)

Could I really do this? Decide to shift up two gears, and just honor that crazy commitment? Well, my back to the wall, I was just crazy enough to try it. So I stood up (so I’d be standing already when the shift was complete) and clicked the lever twice. My derailleur is pretty bent, so under load it takes a while to shift into a smaller cog, and during this process I kind of lose some power, so mid-shift Z— finally came up next to me, like I’d known he would...

Except it still wasn’t Z—! It was this French kid, G—, the son of a fellow coach who is a brilliant world class physicist living in the US for a while helping America’s best scientists solve some crazy problem using a giant multibillion particle accelerator, but I digress. He (the kid, not the physicist) is normally off the back on these climbs, given the elite group he’s in, but he was having the ride of his life! He had dropped Z— and A— and was about to drop the fricking coach, that being me!

But it was not to be, because suddenly my bike was in gear and I fricking went! I accelerated with astonishing effect and I heard G— make this kind of odd noise, between a sigh and a puff of air bursting from his lungs through his mouth as his dream was instantly scuttled.

Okay, so, at the risk of exhausting your patience with another aside, I need to get something straight here, because when I regale my wife with tales such as this, she doesn’t quite understand the dynamic and to her, these acts of aggression are puzzling, even disconcerting. She ran track in high school but it was mostly a social thing, without much rivalry within the team. But the fact is, high school mountain bikers are just aggressive. Every climb, every descent, heck, even the rare flat section, is an opportunity to thrash your teammates. It’s automatic. It’s not the same as the road teams I was on at their age, where we were on a team with adults who let us ride with them so long as we behaved (i.e. rode predictably). And when we teen roadies went on long rides together, sure, the hammer would go down from time to time, but we also chatted quite a bit, at a casual pace, and at other times relied on each other for a good draft, taking turns facing the wind because it was a long way home. Mountain biking is different. The rides are shorter, more intense, and generally a free-for-all. And as a coach, my job is to lead, inspire, and demonstrate the subtle arts of tactics, psychology, and (when I can manage it) brute force. This isn’t like other team sports where the coach just does a lot of talking from the sidelines. We NICA coaches suffer right along with our student-athletes, on every ride. And, in the faster groups, we coaches pwn these youngsters whenever we can because our window for doing so is slowly but inexorably closing. We know it, and the kids know it: virtually anybody who sticks with the program for all four years can look forward to eventually surpassing the coach. Until that moment, we coaches are all-in, comfortably confident in the knowledge that even the most solid drubbing we can inflict won’t discourage these kids. They look at us: we’re old, we’re oddly fast, but we’re mainly old, and eventually, one day, vengeance is theirs. They will repay. [Insert winking emoticon here.]

Okay, where was I? Ah, yes, I’d completed my brave upshift and launched my quixotic attack. I was drilling it like a madman! Now, as you already know, anybody—even a guy who’s already hammering, even at >90% of his max heart rate—can stomp on the pedals and accelerate for a little while, maybe 50 or 100 feet, before he totally detonates. Such accelerations are impressive until they fizzle. Except that I didn’t! I just felt this crazy surge of power, like a giant wave had just swept me up and was hurtling me toward the beach—except it wasn’t a beach, it was a wall! The ruthless final stretch of Canon Drive! And I was flying!

The pain was so severe it just triggered some altered state where nothing could stop me, and I flew up that hellish pitch with absolutely no regard for the abuse I was inflicting on myself, much less for the laws of gravity. I felt like a squirrel running straight up a tree! It seemed impossible to catch the other two, except that suddenly they were in great difficulty—the difficulty I should have been in, but somehow wasn’t—and I was gaining on them with a quickness!

As I raged up the slope, fate caught up to T— and he detonated, right near the top, less than fifty feet from the prize, and as I overtook him I was in striking range of S—. As we went around the ridiculous corner at the top (where it’s so steep it’s impossible not to peel out in your car after stopping at the stop sign), I squeezed past S— and just nipped him at the line! Or did he nip me? There was no photo-finish camera, but either way, he must have been astonished I was even there, after having been so thoroughly distanced earlier. I looked down at my heart rate monitor, and for the first time ever, I mean in my entire life, it read 100%! So this was kind of a triple-victory! Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Man, and Man vs. Himself! Daaaaaamn!

So was there a victory salute? Applause? A ticker-tape parade? An engraving in some memorial plaque? Of course not: just a fist-bump and a breathless “NOOICE.” Of course in the moment this tête-à-tête felt like kind of a big deal, as in “What a rush!” but it was ultimately just another hill, just another sprint. And when intense, all-in suffering like this becomes routine, that’s when the humble teenager becomes an athlete, ideally for life.

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