the tao of cycling: absorbing and assimilating

Sunday, September 20, 2009

absorbing and assimilating

certain experiences take a while to sink in.
and sometimes the messages we receive from the universe, strangers, friends, loved ones, and our own hearts, bodies and minds settle slowly into us, drifting and connecting and refiguring themselves until eventually, everything clicks and realization dawns.

I am in that phase where bits of awareness and facts and feelings are floating around within me, and I feel certain that, eventually, clicking will occur and I will experience some kind of epiphany that draws all together and provides some profound understanding.

of what, I don't really know.

but today as I look back at the past week, at last weekend, at all the effort and work and miles of pavement that were part of the preparation for last weekend, I realize that an enormous undertaking occurred. myriad scraps of life and asphalt piled together to create a journey that has not yet ended, but that had a grand leg performed 8 days ago.

it's mind boggling, actually, to look back at the past 3 years of my life, and track the journey.
where am I headed?
I don't really know.
but where I've been during these past 3 years is easily tracked, through my journals and calendars and training notes and bib numbers, through the scars left on my skin, through the bike shop receipts for tubes and tires and GUs and lights and gear, and through the spiderweb of friends and acquaintances and connections that have entered and decorated my existence.
given all this information, a wise person might be able to draw a trajectory and forecast the next sojourn of my life's path.
but as much as I think I'd like to possess that information, it seems that most of us are best off traveling forward without detailed road maps.
and perhaps paradoxically, we tend to be better off when we have a firm understanding of our history.

thus I'll move forward, as I always do, after having let the adventures of my recent past assimilate into my being. a little absorption, some reflection, and generous portions of space and time are on my agenda.

good thing all of that can be done while seated on a slowly but definitely forward-moving bicycle.

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the Male Ego

The other day I was coming down a canyon in my drop bars (two years ago I would have said, 'what's a drop bar?'), working hard, when I came up on two guys who were also heading downhill but at a more leisurely pace. I passed them, said hello as I did so, and pulled back into the bike lane. a few minutes later they went flying past me, faces looking dead ahead, not a single bit of acknowledgment that I even existed on this planet let alone was involved in and enjoying the same sport they were.
I have to attribute this to the male ego. what else can it be? now I know we all have egos, myself included. and mine even shows its ridiculous little head once in a while, or perhaps more often. but the difference between mine and say, those of certain men on bicycles, is that I KNOW mine exists and I can LAUGH at mine. I know my ego was quite excited to pass those guys, and I could also smile because I knew if the men had really been working like I was, they would have kicked my butt down the hill.
I think I pissed them off.
and I'm sure I will be sharing with you much more of my thoughts about the male ego . . .

a little history

I was married, and I had a mountain bike which I rarely rode. we separated, I moved out, and four months later someone stole my bike. the next spring, 2005, I bought myself a new mountain bike. I rode occasionally, and in april 2006 I rode in my first century, the Cactus Hugger in St. George, Utah. I made it 54 miles on that mountain bike, and it took me about 6 hours. I think that included the rest stops where I prayed that someone would steal my bike again . . .
in june 2006 I started riding my mountain bike five mornings a week, a 45-55 minute loop that was intended to be all about exercise. and what I found was that I loved the quiet, peaceful morning full of bird chatter and barely breaking sunrises. by that fall I was hooked, and began considering the purchase of a road bike. I rode up emigration canyon for the first time that Labor Day of 2006, panting and plowing along on my trusty (heavy) bike, and a month later I was the proud owner of my own road bike: I had become a two-bike girl!
a 17-week-long "power camp" over the winter and a handful of new friends kept bicycling front and center in my life, and when spring of 2007 rolled around I was ready to hit the pavement. I rode my first century the end of april, when I again went to St. George and completed that Cactus Hugger. it took me about 7 hours, but this time I rode the entire 100 miles with about 9300 feet of vertical gain. woo hoo!
I started riding canyons around our area, emigration and millcreek, city creek, big cottonwood, little mountain and big mountain, and once--yes, only once--little cottonwood.
then in september of 2007, I rode from Logan, Utah, to Jackson, Wyoming, in the slightly infamous LOTOJA race. I rode, I did not race. and I completed the thing, crediting my good training buddies, the incredibly perfect weather, my support team, and an amazing convergence of all things positive in the universe.
I put in about 3500 miles last season, and as of today, july 19, 2008, I have about 1700 in, adding to it every day.
I have again signed on to ride the LOTOJA race, and my goal is to have just somewhere near as great a ride as I did last year. oh, and to have someone fun to talk with along the way as I got incredibly bored last year . . . star valley is still a nightmare scene in my biking memories . . .
and here is a picture of the machine that has helped me reclaim my life.