(Pictured: The author, racing a bike again. It’s been a while.)
It’s been a little while since I raced a bike. In the intervening years I realized that I don’t have a great deal of useful stuff to say about cycling and racing and this “Gradually Faster” project dried up. I was okay with that; it’s better not to expound on something if you don’t have anything interesting or useful to say. My goals and motivations changed over the years and I wandered away from the bike. Metaphorically. They were still hanging in my garage.
Anyway, I raced for the first time in a few years last week. I think I finally have something useful to say.
Prelude
At the time of this writing, the Tour de France is happening, and it has been for about 13 days. I’ve never raced any of the asphalt-oriented formats but I am impressed by the feats that these riders undertake. As such, I passively consume news and highlights about the race.
It’s interesting, but also I will never meet these people and I don’t really have a frame of reference for what it is they’re doing. It’s closer to fantastic mythology than it is vicarious experience. You could just as well tell me that Pogačar reached into outer space and consumed the very sun itself to power a record-setting climb up the Tourmalet, which is a four thousand mile high mountain somewhere in France. I’d nod knowingly because that sounds like the kind of thing a once-in-a-generation rider would be capable of. Maybe. Even if I went and looked some of this stuff up, it’d still just be numbers to me. This thought will be important later, but it doesn’t really connect to what comes next. You’ve been forewarned.
I also spent a great deal of time trying to figure out why one would race a bike at all. I knew that I wanted to but I felt that I had to justify the time and expense that the whole endeavor requires. You need to spend time and money on equipment, training, traveling, fees, etc… All of that to ride the same stuff you could generally ride for free on any other given day of the week. There had to be something in there that made all that effort and expense worth it. I figured if I just spent enough time overthinking things, I’d be able to deduce what that something was. I’ve long since aged out of becoming a pro, of getting any compensation for racing and riding (I estimate that I aged out of being a pro at birth, given that it is vanishingly unlikely that I had the correct genetics for this whole thing) so monetary rewards were right off the table. Whatever I was searching for had to be found elsewhere.
I ultimately realized I was trying to understand a complicated system from the outside. I was never going to draw a satisfactory conclusion that way. I had to give it a try myself. I signed up for a local mountain bike race with the lowest stakes imaginable. Nothing was on the line, and I had nothing to prove!
Understanding the System
I successfully pedaled my bike around a singletrack loop for about 45 minutes. In doing so, I derived a lot of conclusions about why you’d ever go through the hassle and expense of doing this. Absent the prospect of a sponsorship or a paycheck, there are a lot of reasons to race.
Amid the locals I lined up with, there were some that turned out to be incredibly fast. Their ability was tangible to me in a way that the ability of the pros engaged in the Tour de France simply isn’t. I was on the same course and pitted directly against them. When they flew past me, I understood what they were dealing with.
I also saw what was possible. They don’t derive their income from cycling, as far as I know. They’ve got day jobs, other pursuits, families. Yet they were able to floor it and pass me like I was sitting still. Most of them looked to be my age or older. Instead of being demoralized, as I would have been in earlier years, I was thrilled. I was witnessing what was possible for someone like me, firsthand.
In this race, as far as I was concerned, the locals were the fastest people on Earth and I was able to catch a glimpse of a future where I was able to join them.
Not everyone was that fast. There were a few that were in the ballpark of my capabilities. I passed one of them, midway through the climb on my second lap. I knew that he was going to try to return the favor.
At that point, I was dimly aware of a different race happening in front me. I presumed that there was one behind me, as well. These did not matter. When I passed that guy, he became my greatest living foe and it would have been a dereliction of duty of the highest order had I not maintained my lead. This was the race that mattered. This, alone, was well worth the price of entry.
My mindset was entirely different, as well. I know that I can pack the bike up and head over to the trail at any time and run that course again and again. Without the added pressure of other riders, without the festival-like atmosphere, without the knowledge that I had paid money to put my abilities to the test, I simply would not be able to try as hard. I was riding singletrack but the context of the situation gave rise to a wildly different experience.
Lastly, I reasoned that there was a single, pragmatic, driving force behind attending a local race. Bike shops, trail crews, and cities pay attention to this stuff. I imagine that it’s easier to drum up volunteers for events when those events are well-attended. I also imagine it’s easier to get support for expanded trail access and other amenities when the municipality sees that there are a bunch of interested people. It’s probably also easier to get bikes and parts stocked if the shops think it’d be a good investment to do so. I reasoned that if I showed up, it would be another incremental piece of evidence that went toward support and investment for the things I want to see the most.
None of this would have occurred to me had I not just given it a try. The only thing that changed between this race and the last one that I did was my mindset.
The Point
The local race matters. The regional series of events, too. Every event, presumably, helps. I don’t have any great insights into fitness and training, but I do now have a compelling argument for why you should try this for yourself.
The justification matters. Cycling can take up a ton of space in your life, both figuratively and literally. Understanding why you do a thing makes it easier to know that the space it takes up was well worth it.
I’m definitely signing up for more.
Gradually Faster 