Giving Up

Cycling has taught me a great many lessons. Some of the lessons it has taught me I didn’t want to learn. Discipline? Pfft. Consistency? Thpppt. Determination? Urgh. I didn’t want any of those things in my life when I was young. I thought they were antithetical to the sort of creative person I thought I was and what I wanted to nurture within myself.

Then a funny thing happened. I got dropped on a ride with my UMASS teammates. There was a climb, one that was not long—just long enough to see me spit out the back of the group in some town in the Berkshires. I’d been living in Massachusetts less than a year and at the point I lost contact I had no clue what road I was on or what town I was near.

I found my way home, so that stopped being an issue in less than 90 minutes, but I hated being dropped.

I hated being dropped so much I made a decision as I stood in the shower, trying to warm up. I was going to train more. What that really meant, in practical application, escaped me. The training necessary not to be dropped was not something I understood. The changes my diet would require eluded me. What’s more, the sort of willpower necessary not to give up during a race’s hardest moments existed in a space well beyond my comprehension.

But I did learn not to give up due to a lack of previous success. It’s a lesson I have sublimated.

Recently, I had the opportunity to take my eldest son, Philip, on some mountain bike trails in Issaquah that I love. I suggested the ride as if it was a lark. I suspected he would pass, but I threw in the possibility of him riding a full-suspension bike, my Ripley AF. He bit.

I led the climb, going slow enough to keep him in view and when we got to the top, I asked if he would like to lead the descent. He gave an emphatic yes.

As I rolled behind him, what I saw thrilled me: He attacked the descent, standing up to pedal out of turns, hitting the brakes only when he had to and letting the bike dance over roots and rocks. He enjoyed the riding enough we went back the next day. On that occasion, as we neared the bottom of the final descent, his rear tire slipped and he had to lean the bike hard to keep it under control. Somehow he kept the bike rolling and as he passed a couple sitting at an intersection of two trails, he said, “Wow, did you see that?” He was referring to the 45-degree angle he’d leaned his bike, a move he found as surprising as it was fun.

In the moment, I couldn’t hear what he said. I just saw how it landed, which is to say the guy sitting there laughed like he’d just watched standup comedy. I didn’t know what Philip had said, but it was hilarious. Once out of the forest I asked him what he’d said and he told me about the 45-degree angle, and I told him how funny the spectator thought he was.

Success can come down to how you define it. Two rides over the course of a week may not seem like much, but my goal wasn’t to get Philip to fall in love with bikes (again). I just wanted him to have fun on a bike. And he did. The key, as has so often been the case, was simply not giving up.