As the Wheel Turns

Cycling has its own cycles, even in semi-non-seasonal NorCal. My cycle was disrupted for me, being it was dirt season. Now it's my road season, and it is a good season.

I miss my dirt buddies. I miss my road buddies, too. My favorites are all married away, moved away, stopped riding, or got too fast for me. That's always part of the cycle, too.

This last week or so I've been spinning for a couple of hours, messing around with going as slow as possible and keeping a solid balanced spin. Just me and the old bike. No expectations, no other people's speeds, routes, or training plans to worry about. Just the bike. Just me. Feeling it out. Feeling what hurts the chest, what doesn't. Good news is it's no longer bad pain, just irritating when I jump out of the saddle for a standing climb. I've been looking at the world around the ride, and I live in a damn beautiful place.

Being forced to slow down was good for me. That's part of my cycle, too. No matter what I do to try to control my ride time, I eventually over-do it, ignore that I'm tired, then fall down stairs or something else, like impaling myself on a section I usually would have been fine on.

Performance-orientation can be so dangerous: it's weird, the same time I was knocked down a peg on my bike, my grades stopped being A's on my assignments, and went to A-. I'd been powering through the work, absorbing everything. I was powering through my workouts, forcing myself past exhaustion, ignoring minor crashes as signs of fatigue. Then, boom. Out for the count, and my brain doesn't want to learn anymore.

It's the time-out part of the cycle. I'm not getting paid for any of this. And the payout seems to be pain.

I'm not a natural, and that's okay. Everyone I ride with is faster than me, and that's okay, too. However, the A- grades need to be brought back up. I can't suck at everything I do, after all.