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| Pictured: Therapy |
It started the way that all raining rides start, checking
my phone to see if he was going to cancel. He did not. I did not have the
courage to cancel on him. My wife asked if I knew it was raining outside. I sighed.
I knew. But knowing the weather doesn’t change it.
The last two weeks were hard. I don’t suppose I need to
repeat the reasons why. Regardless, I don’t want to. So I rolled my bike out of
the garage and into the rain hoping for… I don’t know. Actually, I do know: Fun.
I was hoping for fun. Not peace. Not healing, not exactly. But fun.
It started out with a rainbow. The kind of perfect arc
that travels horizon to horizon, each color bright and distinct, the whole
thing glowing in the morning sky. I ran back inside so my wife could show the
kids. This was a good start.
It didn’t last long. I reached my friend’s house with
shoes full of rainwater and the knowledge that I left my food and water bottle
at home. So much for good starts.
“I was checking my phone to see if you were going to
cancel and let me sleep in,” he said. I laughed and didn’t add that I was
waiting for him to do the same.
I borrowed a water bottle, and we rode out. The rain stopped,
and the morning sun cut sideways through the sky, scattering on the water droplets
that coated the world. We were awash in tiny rainbows. We caught glimpses of Dyes
Inlet through the trees, the red-orange clouds reflecting on the glass-like
surface.
We met the others at Silverdale Cyclery. This was their
ride. Their Saturday morning ritual. Each Saturday, David and his spandex-clad
crew roll south along Chico, around Kitsap Lake, down Austin Drive, around
Erlands Point, and back up Chico. There is no roster. No invitations. No lists.
People roll in, then the group leaves around 8:00. Six or seven of us rolled out
along the prescribed path this morning.
There is a hill at the end of Kitsap Lake. A sharp right
bend hides it, but we knew it was coming. The sound of chains clacking over
gears surrounded me as everyone shifted into their preferred climbing gear
before the hill. I was waiting for this, the one hill on the ride worth calling
a hill.
There is something therapeutic about suffering up a hill.
In need of therapy, I left my bike in a harder gear than I thought I could
handle, leaned into the hill, and spun my legs as fast as I could. I swung
around the people in front of me. I didn’t care. I wasn’t racing them. I was in
search of pain.
I found it. The pain starts low, at the base of the
lungs. Just a slight shortness of breath at first. Then tightness. Then
burning. Then the threat of weakness, muscles feigning exhaustion. I ignored
them. They are liars. Lazy liars.
I pressed on. The hill began to taper off. I shifted into
a harder gear, and pressed on. My lungs burned. My legs ached. I spun as hard
and as fast as I could, and the pain followed.
The ride has prescribed stops, regrouping points. The top
of that hill is one. I pulled to the side and waited the few seconds it took
for the others to join me. We chatted about weather and gear and cold. Little
things that people who only have two wheels in common talk about.
We rolled on.
One of the others asked my friend about the trailer mount
on his bike. I swore at him in my head, the stranger that didn’t know better. I’m
not sure if I was angry at him for reminding my friend or for reminding me.
Because somewhere in there I forgot that we were riding for therapy. It felt
like, just for a moment, we were just riding for the fun of motion, for the fun
of companionship, for the fun of existing.
I did not swear at the well-meaning stranger. I am proud
of that. More so than I should be.
During the last stretch going north on Chico Way, the
group stretched into a paceline. I’m not sure if it was planned, or if that
many men riding bikes in close proximity to each other just forced it to
happen. But it did.
A professional paceline is a thing of beauty. A group of
riders becomes a train, with the lead rider rotating off the front and into the
back. The transition is so smooth that it looks choreographed. Our paceline was
not professional.
My friend and I surged and lagged, made a hash of things.
The paceline grouped, broke, regrouped again. I haven’t had so much fun being
bad at something in a long time.
In that mess, in that reinforcement of my
still-to-be-developed paceline skills, I found that thing that I wanted. I
found fun. Found it in the rattle of tires over pavement. Found it in the rush
of the wind. Found it in trying to slot smoothly back into the draft, missing,
and surging to catch back on. Found it in being the engine of the train,
leading a group of cyclists onward to imagined victory.
I came home drenched, covered in road grime, exhausted,
and happy. It was a good day after all.
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