On Becoming An Elite Cycling Athlete Person

I roll up at Buffalo Wild Wings and Baby Mama and Jhonen are already settled in, Jhonen’s face stuck permanently in the gaming tablet, Baby Mama assaulting a tall glass of pino grigio. I order a beer and begin with purpose.

“I just drove the course for the race.” (We keep calling it a race even though it’s not a race, because “20 mile cycling fun run” is too much of a mouthful and not dramatic in the least.) “I took pictures of what is going to kill us.”

Baby Mama, like me, has not ridden a bike since we left New York five years ago. She doesn’t even *own* a bike yet. Her boyfriend, who moonlights in a local bike shop, is hooking her up with something.

We go over the details of the course. Our eyes widen, then deaden, then we sigh.

We go ahead and order the dessert nachos. We call it our Last Supper, both because it is our last time eating junk food for a month and because we’re twenty-something days away from our hearts exploding on the side of the road. Our son will be an orphan, and ten years from now when people ask what happened he will look down, take a long vape drag, and in the exhaled chocolate fog whisper, “They tried to do something moderately athletic one time.”

*****

As I said before, we’re New York cyclists and that makes us both No Slouches. New York is rough, man. That is some hard core cycling.

You know what’s cool about New York, though? IT’S FLAT. IT’S COMPLETELY FUCKING FLAT. You don’t really notice it while you’re walking around because you’re too busy racing to Phoebe’s gig at Central Perk and wondering why we haven’t seen Ross’s kid in a few years. But, yeah man: other than bridges, no incline whatsoever. And bridges are nothing to sniff at, but you have all the time in the world to prepare for them.

Outchea is something else. This is what I have to bike on just to START my bike ride – the only way out of our neighborhood.

For years we’ve been driving by cyclists huffing it up this godforsaken hill and we usually say the same thing: “Boy, look at that guy, just hatin’ life.” NOW IT IS WE WHO MUST BE THE ONES WHO HATE THE LIFE.

I’ve never really thought about it, but our whole town is just a never-ending series of rolling hills, peaks and valleys, inclines longer and steeper than any bridge in New York, with no real recovery before the next one is upon you. Distance biking is all about momentum, about building the kinetic energy and riding it as long as you can up the next hill, reducing your physical output. Saving something in the tank. Here there isn’t much time to refill your tank. Here you’ve got to push harder than we ever did in New York.

I used to have a rule – no getting off the bike. Ever. Even on the steepest bridges. I would force myself – even if I was pedaling incrementally, even if I was barely moving and whimpering, I had to tough it out on my two wheels. I would not be one of those people who got off their bike and walked it up the bridge when it got tough. This rule still applies.

I did a few short runs, just to get my legs back, and after about a week I went for it and logged about 10 miles (mostly sticking to our neighborhood, which is flat and silly.) Then, after completing the finishing touches on my gears, I went for it. I launched myself up that hill and onto the busy thoroughfare, cars whizzing by at 45 miles an hour.

I ended that last post by saying, of my dearly departed bike friend, Leigh:

And when I get to the top of the hill I look out, and I wonder if I should turn back or go out even further, and she says, “Go for it.” And I do.

Yeah. I forgot to mention what happened like 15 minutes later, midday sun beating down on me, on my third or fourth big hill, chest ready to explode, crying out, “Leigh! Why have you forsaken me!!” And Leigh was like, “Oh, I thought you were asking about buying beer. No, this is terrible. You shouldn’t be doing this.”

I turn back around early, helpless, nothing left in me. I’m out of energy but miles away from home. I build up as much speed as I can on an extended downhill slope and try to ride it out on the next hill but it’s too much, it’s too steep, I can’t even see where it ends.

And I do it. I get off my fucking bike.

I stand there on the side of the road, in the grass, wiping my face with a small towel and chugging water, panting, everything in me screaming. After a few minutes I pull myself together enough to walk to the apex of the hill, to the Sam’s Club parking lot, annoyed drivers waiting for me to cross in front of them but I’m going as fast as I can, man.

I check my fitness app. I have gone a grand total of 7 miles.

Fuck me.

*****

“Look at this shit,” I whisper in a panic to Baby Mama, like I’m sharing a dossier on our agents in Prague. “This is, like, two miles into the thing, and there’s another steeper one right after. There are three or four of these before getting to the stuff that’s just a long, steady incline. This is gonna suck, man.”

“Should I be nervous? You’re making me nervous.”
“I mean…I think we can do it, but we need to train our asses off. I wish we had another month to acclimate but we don’t, so here we are.”

She gulps her wine and signals for a refill.

*****

Thirty minutes earlier, map in hand, driving the course. Sometimes with mouth wide open.

I start to see it, but I’m in denial. I push it off until it’s 100% certain. But yep, here we are. Right around mile 4. The hill that defeated me, that threw me off my bike for the first time, is smack in the middle of this course. It’s how this race starts. Sorry – it’s how this “cycling fun run” starts, and then there are 16 more miles after that. Holy shit, we’re going to die out there.