I’d Miss the Suffering

“No, I’m not going to buy an e-road bike. Yes, it would mean I could ride with you and the group
again, but I can’t do it. Not yet.”

A number of friends have suggested recently that I buy an ebike, so I can rejoin group rides,
sharing the chat, the laughs, the coffee stops, the beer stops, the hang. I understand their
sentiment. It is well-meaning. These are friends, after all. I would like to ride with them, but I
can’t. I’m slow. Extremely slow.

My cancer treatments have robbed me of strength, so my riding, especially uphill, is a barely
noticeable crawl. The key is that I can still do it. It might take me all day to climb 4,000 or 5,000
feet, but I have all day, and I can get it done. That’s all that matters.

Climbing is such sweet agony. I love everything about it – the pain, the commitment, the mind
games we mere mortals play with ourselves on our way to the top – and there is no way I would
get that special kind of joy and satisfaction from riding an ebike up a long, winding mountain
road. Riding slowly under my own power puts my mind at ease. Anxieties fade as the struggle to
turn the cranks occupies every nook and cranny of my mind. It is peace, pain and pleasure all at
once.

Cancer tests one’s will. Luckily for me, the love of riding overpowers the urge to be sedentary
(most of the time). Fatigue is a very real issue, but the carrot-on-a-stick is being out on the bike
in a beautiful setting, working, accomplishing, taking it all in. The leap from providing my own
pedal power to “cheating” with an ebike is a concession I’m not willing to make at this point. It
would crush me, emotionally and psychologically.

The fear and self-loathing following such an acquisition would be brutal. I would ride my new
ebike all the time because that is what I always do with a new bike. I lie to myself whenever I
get a new bike: “I’ll still ride my old favorite once in a while because I love it so much.” Nope,
doesn’t happen. My former lover gathers dust while I ride my new love that is
lighter/faster/better/whatever-marketing-gobbledygook-I’ve-swallowed. The rejection of my self-
powered bike would haunt me. I’d have to hide the old steed away in a dark, dank corner of the
basement so it couldn’t torment me.

“Bought an ebike, have you? So you’re throwing in the towel. Sad. How can you live with
yourself?”

So, no, I am not getting an ebike. I love you, cycling friends, but I have some suffering to do.
See you on the road. Don’t wait for me. But do let me know where and when you’ll be stopping
for a beer.