Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Friday, June 21, 2002

Friday Evening and Musings about the Bike

Its Friday evening and my lovely wife and I have chosen to spend a quiet evening at home. Quiet, that is, except for Elvis and Moxie's talking to herself. Still though, even with the chatter, the evening has been peaceful. Its something we need I think. We've been going pretty hard the last week. We've had a lot of fun but after a while you begin to wear down a bit, at least I do. So we're spending some down time. We thought about going and seeing Spiderman but the more we thought about it the more we realized how much we were enjoying relaxing with no particular place to go.

Tomorrow I'll race against the clock. Me, the bike, the wind and the clock. No peloton, no fear of crashing because someone pulled his brakes at the wrong time. Just pure motion and exertion. I'm looking forward to it with that mix of excitement and apprehension that I always feel before a race. I'm excited to test myself but I always struggle with the fear of failure. Last time I rode a time trial I finished third out of seventy. I was really excited. How will I do this time? What if I don't do as well? What if....? This is when I understand Tyler Hamilton's words about riding Le Tour this year or Lance's comments before the Olympic Time Trial in 2000. "I'm going to go out and ride at my best level." That's my goal for tomorrow. A good old Boy Scout "Do my best." If I go out and ride at my LT heart rate and focus throughout the eight miles and finish first then great. If I do the same thing and finish 50th then I'll be just as happy. I'll know I have a lot more work to do to be competitive but I'll still be able to say that I gave it everything. If I go out and only ride at 80% of LT and I get all distracted by self-doubt then I'll be frustrated. But I'll also try to learn.

Its funny. As much as I love the feel of being in the aero bars I really don't feel like I'm riding a bike. In the aerobars I feel a bit like some sort of superhero or maybe like Lance in those great pictures Graham Watson takes of him riding in that areo tuck. I feel like some sort of super special athlete. But that's not what riding a bike feels like. I mean, sure, riding the bike has a lot of those qualities but there's something a little more whimsical and romantic about it. Even when you're racing or suffering up some terminally long hill. Your hands belong on the hoods where you can feel the road like its part of you. You're sitting up a little and you watch the world go by. You feel just like a kid with all that freedom. That's why I always take the aero bars off my bike after I'm done training. If I leave them on then I'll be tempted to use them (you do go a lot faster) and if I use them too much then I'm afraid I'll forget what its like to ride a bike and just become another athlete.

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