On the Road Again?

The road bike had a thin layer of dust on all its horizontal surfaces, as did its owner. We, the two of us, needed a ride, so I dusted us both off, topped up the tires, and rolled out. It had been raining, and the air was thick, but you know how it is. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

I was feeling undercooked after a few weeks off the bike and a bit of lingering jet lag, and I thought, “Well an easy solo spin might be just the thing.”

To make sure I didn’t ride too hard, I did a thing I don’t normally do. I opted for the long, and very popular bike path that snakes out of my town into the Western suburbs. All manner of humanity uses it, walkers, runners, roller bladers, and every variety of cyclist, from the very casual to the overly serious. To my mind, if you’re very serious about a training ride, you probably ought to avoid this minefield, requiring as it does, so many unplanned stops, starts and slowdowns.

For what I was after though, it was fine.

The previous night’s rain and the cloying humidity tamped down the crowd, so that gave me a chance to roll along at my own leisurely pace, staring at the wet sheen on the black bulb of my front tire, a wisp of water spraying off it, catching the light. I also made an effort to say ‘good morning’ to everyone I passed, a little diplomacy, I hoped, on behalf of the cycling community. I’ll not bum you out by recounting the number of ‘good mornings’ that were returned. This is New England. We’re a taciturn lot.

Some days nothing will put you off though.

My road bike is whisper quiet and smooth, effortlessly fast. It carves turns like a hungry raptor zeroing in on a rodent. It’s the sort of bike that will produce, unbidden, a spontaneous joy, a stupid grin. Quite how I let it sit, stationary, in the basement, as the particulate drift of life settled upon it, dulling its bright gleam, is a question for the Karmic Court of Questionable Life Choices.

Anyway, I was doing well, nestled safely within the confines of Zone 2, not that I was monitoring things. I was too busy gazing off into the trees on either side of the path, smelling the smells of the still wet ground and the low-crouched plants at the path’s edge.

In short order I reached my turn around point and headed home. There is a false flat there that challenged my serenity, that suggested subtly that, despite my euphoria, there was an underlying dearth of fitness I might want to address. I expected as much.

Given what you’ve read above, you might reasonably wonder why I’ve neglected the road bike this summer. It’s a question I pedaled along, asking myself. Of course, there are the other bikes, gravel and mountain, and only so many hours in a day and days in a week. But there’s also a vibe, and I have not been feeling that road vibe. There are overlapping reasons for this.

First, I rode an awful lot of miles and dizzying number of vertical feet between 1998 and 2011. You may have ridden more, but for me, it was a lot. To sustain the effort, I basked in cycling culture, past and present. I leaned all the way in. And I really enjoyed myself, but by 2011 I was reaching point of diminishing returns. That’s when gravel bikes came along and stole my heart.

Having said that, my heart is pretty fickle, and I am anything but exclusive in the way I ride bikes. I am never just riding one kind in one way.

Second, road cycling began to feel pretty constrictive to me, a lot of people taking things very seriously all the time. You can always do your own thing, but if this is the culture you’re living in, it’s hard to shake it off day-after-day. I felt the need to get away from counting miles and pulling on road kits.

Third, I stopped watching racing, for all the reasons that so many people stopped watching racing. I’ve started again recently, after having made peace with the vicissitudes of blood doping and the attendant drama, and that may, in some part, explain why I’m as interested in my road bike as I have been in a long time.

Finally, my ankle fell apart. A heavy sprain led to an MRI that revealed an array of current and past injuries that had gone undiagnosed (As it turns out, a doctor who has 7 1/2 minutes allotted to your diagnosis will miss some things), including tenosynovitis, an old fracture, and multiple tendon tears, as well as bone spurs and some inchoate arthritis. This put an end to my trail running habit, which was wear so very much of my base fitness came from. The road bike turns out to be an awfully good way to build that base fitness.

Does this mean I’m a roadie again? Well, I never stopped being a roadie, just as I never stopped being a gravellie (logical name for this type of person) or a mountain biker. I love all the bikes, and as Pete Seeger wrote, and the Byrds sang over and over again, to everything there is a season, turn, turn, turn. I am only happy that my road bike doesn’t hold grudges, and that dust is easily swept away, with a soft cloth or a good ride.