A Mostly Musical Journey

Inspired by my triathlete friend Daniel’s Blog where he recounts his big events I’ve decided to write down significant rides on my own though not always through an athletic looking glass. The germination of this particular post stems from a conversation we had the night before the Tour De Palm Springs between Daniel, our friend Sergio (who we recently viciously kidnapped into the world of cycling) and I. The question of what we actually do for multiple hours on a bicycle on these 100 mile rides came up. Obviously we pedal, yes, but our minds are left trapped on this one way train for hours on end. If you stick with a group or are of a friendly disposition then conversations are easy enough to have and those are great to pass the time but if you have a hard time keeping up with groups…let’s say…particularly on climbs or long but gradual inclines like me or if you just prefer riding alone then what do you do?

Daniel and Sergio both agreed that listening to audio books and podcasts is the way to go. I agreed, that’s definitely a great way to live out your masochist fantasies on a bike. Okay I’m being sarcastic, they enjoy this and maybe consider it even more of a “productive” endeavor, a synergy between mind and body where the body is working and the mind is learning. I understand the impulse, it’s the same feeling I get when I used to drive across LA for work, may as well knock out a book or learn some new shit while stuck in traffic, right? May as well learn the secret art of the law of attraction while pedaling for 6 hours straight too then yeah? Hell nah.

I listen to music, it’s a ride enhancer for me. It scoops me out of the lows and it makes the highs higher. My bicycle ride becomes art, a film in my head. Oftentimes the combination of my struggle, the vistas, and the music combine together to form some sort of alchemical concoction greater than the sum of its parts and later on that’s what I remember the most, not the suffering but the grandiose canvas of emotions I felt. I tried to jot down some quick notes to prompt my recounting of the ride so get ready for a deep dive into the intersection between music scores, soundtracks and cycling that you never asked for.

I woke up at the crack of dawn since Daniel wanted to meet with RCC and ride with them. I packed the night previous to make exiting the airbnb as easy as possible, including 4 salt pills which Daniel bequeathed to me, hinting that the day would be hot and I might need them. I put them inside a tube with the electrolyte tablets I used for my water, they looked ominous inside there like the magic beanstalk seeds given to Jack of fable. I never had a reason to use the pills before but this was the first ride in true heat that I had done since August and my body was not accustomed to these temperatures anymore, maybe they will come in handy….

I joined RCC with Daniel since it beats starting the ride with random people and they mentioned they would go at a more casual pace until the first rest stop. They were rolling deep at 50-60 members and purely from an anecdotal view I didn’t see any other group so massively represented at the tour. We were waiting at the start line with an insane amount of other cyclists and they slowly let us take off by forming a bottleneck next to the main stage. The first shot of adrenaline straight to the dome was a high school orchestra band that was playing for the cyclists as we left. I immediately recognized the music but it took me a couple seconds identify it. It was a medley of Ludwig Göransson’s score for Black Panther, the best of all the Marvel scores in my opinion. I was immediately overwhelmed with a sense of joy and wonderment as I recognized bits and pieces of Glory To Bast, and Killmonger vs T’Challa. The band obviously didn’t have the requisite Senegalese talking drums (Tama) and yet the fierce beating accompanying the epic duel for the throne of Wakanda was unmistakable, as was the overpowering brass of the battle at the Great Mound. I don’t consider myself superstitious and yet to me this was an incredible boost to morale and I exclaimed to Daniel what I knew, that this was the music to Black Panther…he nodded at me, unimpressed.

I rolled out, smiling, at this point I wasn’t listening to anything since we started off at a social pace but the music I had just heard was reverberating through my skull for the first 10 miles as I kept up the pace with RCC and the myriad of other cyclists we started off with. Eventually we came upon a breathtaking sight, the windmill farms outside of Palm Springs. Giant spinning beasts straight out of Don Quixote. A direct connection between man and the gods of the sky, harnessing the winds ripping through us poor cyclists on the way to glory. Their blades spun, synchronized in the distance, looming over us like guillotines ready to cut us down if we slowed. Not soon after this awesome sight we hit the first steep-ish incline of the ride. My pace was immediately destroyed as I struggled to stay abreast with the other cyclists up the hill. The column of RCC riders stretched out with me and my ilk in the back and the Daniels of the day riding into the distance. I decided this was it for me and started to take it more casually, I’ve been burned by going too hard at the beginning of a long ride in the past and this was going to be a long day anyways. Around mile 13 after another short and punchy hill I looked to my right and I saw another sight that inspired awe, I had to take a photo:

Norse mythology buffs know where I’m going. Odin the god of wisdom (among many other things), has two pet ravens, Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory. I posted a dour Instagram story about the two ravens representing my doom but in fact I felt this was a boon from the gods themselves. In the myths, the ravens are agents of Odin feeding him knowledge and storing it, after all we cannot gain wisdom without thought or memory, the ability to learn from mistakes of the past. Seeing these birds perched atop this craggy rock with the titanic windmills behind them made me feel seen, watched, protected and most importantly optimistic about the 90 odd miles that lay ahead. I always get nervous before big rides like this but after these sights I felt great, my legs were working well and my mind was at ease. A big difference from the what would be the second half of my ride…

Finally I came upon the first rest stop at mile 19 and the party was in full swing, there was a jazz band made up of high school musicians once again playing some uplifting tunes in the parking lot of what looked like a church. It was very crowded, full of cyclists that were tired from the only real “climbing” of the day. I saw Daniel and the rest of the faster RCC members in a group. The only exchange I was able to have with him was to ask how late I was and he told me they had been there for 10 minutes, then they rolled out and that’s the last time I saw him until the finish line. I mentioned I would get something at the stop and leave too but once I saw the line of cyclists waiting to ravage the table full of peanut butter sandwiches and orange slices I had flashbacks to getting stuck at the first rest stop at Tour De Big Bear and I decided to just eat one the package of Clif Bloks I had on me and get going. Secretly my goal was to see if I could scarf down the gummies and catch up to the RCC riders that had left, but from what I learned later they flew out of that rest stop like the Nazgûl tracking Frodo, I never had a chance. It was at this point that I popped a headphone in right ear and put on some music. I like to keep my left ear open so I can hear callouts and cars. I have maybe three playlists that I rotate through on rides: metal/classic rock, jazz, and orchestra/music score/soundtracks. I took the majestic Black Panther send off in the morning as a sign that today was a day for the latter playlist. As I got on my way I heard the fanfare of Nino Rota’s La Passerella Di Otto E Mezzo commence and I took stock of the very Felliniesque image of a band playing in the middle of a desert church parking lot to a bunch of hungry and tired cyclists and I laughed to myself, a circus indeed.

81/2’s jaunty score made me feel hopeful and energetic as I chased fast speeds in an immediate descent after the rest stop, it felt great flying down past cyclists at 30 mph. The next part of the ride after this was one long, gradual climb up to the second rest stop at mile 30. It was getting hot around this time and I was already feeling the energy sapping effects of the sun and of the dehydration I would be suffering from very soon. I have been used to riding in colder weather lately and I was definitely not drinking enough water, hindsight is 20/20 on this but on the ride I felt like I was sipping enough….amateur mistake. As I slowly climbed I started feeling tired, felt the familiar aches in my shoulders and saddle when I climb for extended durations already I was having intrusive thoughts about stopping and resting for a bit, and I had to tamp them down, I wasn’t even at mile 30 damn it.

I heard a familiar theme play in my headphone, familiar to me because it has been a staple of my recent listening. However, at the time of this writing the movie hasn’t even premiered yet and I’ve never seen it but Michael Giacchino’s theme song for The Batman starts with a statement of what I imagine will be the batman’s leitmotif, followed by a reverberating, strumming guitar a clear callout to the western movie scores of Ennio Morricone (more on him later). This guitar caught my attention as I was literally pedaling through the wide open desert highway, a “cowboy on a steel horse, I ride” like Bon Jovi said except my steed is actually mostly carbon fiber and I traded the badass, rugged look of a cowboy for spandex and a goofy helmet. But the real magic of this song starts at 4 minutes, after some pensive and heroic instrumentation the motif begins to loop softly at first accompanied by the sound of bells (maybe a Celesta?) and it just keeps looping slowly, gradually building up to a thunderous crescendo accompanied by a full brass ensemble. The track rises and rises like Bruce Wayne falling into a cave as a kid and clawing his way back up into The Batman himself unceasing, and unwilling to stop his ascent until the forces of darkness themselves come and drag him down to hell itself. This repetition, growing in strength was the exact tempo and encouragement I needed to finish this damn climb, I felt empowered and emboldened to finish strong. Obviously it would be too much of a coincidence to say I finished when the song ended but it left me with the motivation I needed long after. I began to wonder if I had created a playlist so vast and niche that it would play just the songs I needed at the time I needed them, a neural shuffle network if you will.

I felt great as I approached the second rest stop at a firehouse and “Turn It Off” from The Book Of Mormon was making me feel like jumping off my bike and tap dancing for joy having made it 30 miles into the ride. I knew the climbing portion would soon be over and I’d be able to go at faster speeds. This rest stop wasn’t as full as the first and I was able to enjoy some pretzels and dates from the local farms.

After I had my fill and used the restroom it was time to be on my way, I picked up my bicycle carried it through the dirt, put the pedal to the road and set off for the next stop at mile 52. I got about 50 feet from the rest stop, noticed some bumpiness looked down and my joy deflated just like my back tire apparently did. It was flat, I briefly considered getting on the side of the road and going through the process of changing it when I realized there was a SAG vehicle right there next to me ready to assist. I thought what the hell this is what I’m paying for and walked over to ask for assistance. It was a local store called JD’s Pedal Pushers and I’m very thankful for (what I assume) was JD himself not only fixing my flat fast but also taking the time to chide me about a dirty chain and cleaning it up for me.

Take two of me leaving rest stop number 2 got underway maybe 20 minutes after the first one and now I felt like I had to go a little faster due to the lost time. All the Rapha riders I had started with were gone at this point I saw no one I recognized but it’s not a big deal I was used to the lone wolf riding. This next part of the course consisted of lots of “rollers”, small consecutive hills that involved a little climbing and a little descending over and over although the average gradient was still in the positive until one big descent towards Fantasy Springs Casino and rest stop #3. I mentioned Morricone earlier and if there ever was a composer that encompassed the wide open desert it’s him. His music is at once contemplative, mystic, and surreal and is forever married to traversing across vast landscapes on horseback or dueling to the death with your adversaries. In this case my adversary was the desert that I was crawling across up and down on my bicycle. His music for the Sicilian Clan came up on my shuffle and the heat waves emanating from the desert around me gave way to mirages of the lunch that lay in my immediate future. Ironically he did not compose this song for a western but for a mafia movie and yet the electric guitar which is as much his signature as the vocal cries of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly drives the rhythm of the main theme and is accompanied by a bed of strings that had my mind expanding out to the western horizon. I enjoyed the up and down motion of the road here as I imagined moving through a travel montage of myself with Morricone’s music only stopping when I felt a tingling in my leg telling me it wanted to cramp. I thought that was weird but I popped a salt pill and pressed on. Maybe it was the effect of the encroaching dehydration I was suffering from or tranquility of the road but I found myself slipping into a psychedelic realm governed by images of flying pizzas and pies floating through the desert on turtle back, I had entered the realm of Jodorowsky…or I was just hungry.

The rolling hills gradually gave way the long descent and I finally felt like I was able to keep pace again, no longer being handicapped, and in fact boosted, by my mass. I started flying past all the skinnier cyclists on one great long journey to the casino.

At mile 53 I roll into the back parking lot of Fantasy Springs, the sights are strangely nostalgic as this was a popular place for my parents to visit when I was teenager. I bicycled past the Holiday Inn express we always stayed at and sent a video to my sister, marveling how my teenager self would never have guessed in a million years I’d bicycle past one day on a 100 mile journey through my subconscious. The rest stop was lively, jam packed full of cyclists, cheerleaders, and a drumline. It was the halfway point, and the rest stop with the most variety of foods for lunch. They had high schoolers standing in the sun to serve as human bike racks, I briefly exchanged words with one asking them how much it sucked but I was surprised by their chipper attitude as they told me it was cool and that they would gladly hold my bike. I kept the bike with me opting to lean it up against a truck instead, it cut a little too close to some weird form of indentured servitude to me.

I would regale you, dear reader, with the foods I consumed at this stop but the sheer quantity and voraciousness with which I devoured a large assortment of carbs and fats would leave you pale. So let me just say that the pizza I was promised and which served as the carrot on the stick for the previous 20 miles was gone at this point. Having been greedily consumed by the waves of cyclists before me, the empty pizza boxes stood in towers behind the volunteer workers, monuments to my inability to get to lunch on time. I silently clenched my fists, some people race fellow cyclists, others race their previous times, I race the pizza…and I lost. My vengeful gaze was turned upon the rest of the foods whose only crime was to not be slices of pepperoni and cheese and I let loose upon them.

After the deed was done I noticed how hot it was getting, I decided to down a water bottle right there on the spot. As I have alluded to I don’t think I was consuming nearly enough water, and drinking a water bottle after a meal basically is enough for digestion but I don’t think there was a net positive effect on my hydration levels. At this point in the ride (much too late) I made a conscious decision to drink more water. I grabbed an Uncrustable to stuff in my bibs pocket and set off.

The longer break did me well performance-wise, I felt great leaving the stop. I was with a pretty dense group that also just left and we kept yo-yo-ing each other at stop lights on the way to Indio. I made a good effort to distance myself from them and it worked for about two miles but as I began to lose steam a part of them caught up to me again. It was a Filipino cycling group called Adobo Velo, they were cool dudes and were pulling two other cyclists with them and I finally gave up on keeping ahead and jumped into the back of their paceline. The effect was immediate, thanks to the science of drafting it was much easier to follow from behind. I asked the two cyclists in front of me if it was okay to hang out back there and they told me that they did not know anyone in Adobo Velo but were also tagging along. The next 10 miles were a breeze except I noticed my legs beginning to cramp up once more. I managed to pop off a salt pill while in motion. 2 pills left. I also was going through my water bottles (that also have electrolytes in them) a lot faster. At some point my saddle area began to get sore and I was really starting to feel the pain and heat of constant riding. There was a road lined with palm trees that I decided to stop in so I could be in the shade which was rare on this part of the route. I checked the temperature, 85 degrees and climbing. I was at mile 68 and there was supposed to be a rest stop at mile 72 so I drank a large portion of my water fearing what I know now that I was dehydrated. This proved to be my first mistake as mile 72 came and went and I saw no stop.

An earlier part of the route had been modified from the course I had downloaded to my bike computer so I assumed the missing rest stop was a last minute addition and that it would be coming up soon. Eventually I hit mile 76 and doubt began to creep in that I had missed it. I had half a water bottle left and my legs were showing signs of cramping once more. I checked and the next rest stop was at mile 91. Did I dare press forward handicapped in hydration and electrolytes? I could have turned back yes, but that would add more miles and I had no way of knowing where I missed the stop. At this point I remembered some cyclists traveling in the opposite direction earlier and I realized they must have been turning back looking for the missing stop as well. Enter the Uncrustable I snagged from lunch, I used the side of the road as my rest station and with the help of the peanut and jelly explosion of calories I had enough energy to keep going, I took my second to last salt pill and decided to make it to the next stop however I could.

Notice a distinct lack of musical inspiration in the second half of this ride? My mind was increasingly occupied on a couple of things: 1. Managing the growing amount of things that were in pain, 2. Keeping up with some of the groups I was tagging along with, 3. focusing on getting to the end. This stretch from mile 76 to mile 91 was the most brutal part of the whole route. I was dehydrated and the temperatures had peaked at 88 degrees, my back and shoulders had begun to show signs of exhaustion as well. I saw a great many cyclists next to the course, laying down on a lawn, sleeping beneath a tree, or just staring down at the dirt in quiet defeat. Like fallen soldiers of a battle just fought, waiting for reinforcements but quietly suspecting that they would never make it off the battlefield alive.

The only memorable track I remember from this part is Chateau from The Matrix Reloaded score. Fans of the films might remember from the fight Neo has with the Merovingian’s henchmen in the chateau, he cleans their clocks even though they use an assortment of weapons strewn throughout the over-decorated mansion. I think at this point the song resonated with me because it is this strange beast of electronic music mixed with your traditional brass and strings orchestra but the music itself is simple, has a great momentum forward and is just damn cool. Maybe I felt like this battle with the sun and my own rapidly deteriorating body were the dumb ass henchmen attacking me with spears and shit knowing damn well that I’m a kung fu master: slowing me down sure but ultimately easily disposable. My favorite part is maybe 2 minutes and 10 seconds in when you get this echo effect on the brass that make it sound like Neo’s punches are creating waves through time. I was feeling like an echo of myself, perhaps several echoes removed from the version of me at the beginning of the ride, each successful reverberation diminishing in return.

Around mile 88 I had to stop and just completely re-examine my life on the side of the road. I was tired, and my legs were threatening to start full blown cramping once again. I popped the last of my salt pills praying that I did not somehow comically miss the next rest stop as well, for it might be the death of me. The last of my water was officially gone at this point as well. I’m betting it all on these last 4 miles. I struggled along, at this point knowing the people around me by sight very well. We all missed the last rest stop and were all having a terrible go of it. You may be asking why I didn’t just stop at a gas station or store or something to rehydrate or replenish food and the answer is simply….because I already paid for the damn rest stops. I was dug in…and despite the rational thoughts laid before me I did not want to give in to an unsanctioned stop.

I finally reached the Lowe’s parking lot that was stop #5. There was tiny little incline right before getting to it and I just remember sighing and crawling up it as slow as I could, a far cry from the go getter from 7 am that morning trying to keep up with RCC. But, reader, let me tell you there was a great surprise waiting for me in that parking lot:

The pizza boxes here were radiating with the heavenly glow of crust and cheese. A veritable pot of gold at the end of an existential rainbow. I won the race! The rest of the course was just a formality now, Fortuna had smiled upon me and granted me victory. I enjoyed the spoils of my conquest right there in front of the high school volunteer that had given it to me. He will take those images of me to his grave I suspect, trying to recount the atrocities witnessed to his friends but never quite finding the words. My next immediate task was to rehydrate. The volunteer at the water station looked harrowed and pressured. He was talking about how so many cyclists missed the last rest stop and they got here and slammed the water station so hard that they were running out of water in the coolers, able only to keep a steady supply of pre-packaged water bottles trickling in. Later I found out the rest stop at mile 72 was there but just ever so slightly around a corner that I did not look at and apparently many, many others also did not see. I drank as much Gatorade and water as I thought was safe for a body that was about to swish it around for another 10 miles. That’s all I had left, 10….measly….miles. I lingered perhaps a little too long at that last stop but I was mentally recovering from the exhausting trip there. After I felt like I had returned to some state of normalcy I set out for the victory lap.

10 glorious miles of streets with an increasing amount of shade. 10 glorious miles of gentle slopes upward and downward. 10 glorious miles with cyclists I had found myself rooting for, although we were not in a pace line we clumped together due to pain, and skill levels. I felt one thousand times better at this point, no longer did I have thoughts about quitting cycling forever. At mile 96 we were at a stop light and the driver next to me rolled down his window and asked how much we were doing, I told him “102 miles and this is mile 96”. A look of comprehension flashed across his face, and dare I say…pride? (probably not) and he gave me a thumbs up and said “Keep going.” So I pedaled my way through Cathedral City and at long last finally back to Palm Springs.

At mile 99 something amazing happened. I heard the telltale violins of a song play in my headphone. A constantly rising loop of violins followed by a triumphant fanfare, and the Timpani drums crashing down sending shivers down my spine. The sheer majesty of it, it felt pre-destined…a portend of great weight. I was immediately covered in goosebumps from head to toe, a peculiar feeling while exhausted from pedaling for the last 6 hours and yet I could not stop it. If you have seen E.T. perhaps this will hit home for you too. There is a scene near the end when the kids rescue the alien, and decide it’s up to them to take him to the spaceship. The bike chase cue begins right there, and the version I was listening to was Adventures On Earth from the Live in Vienna album, this version puts a special emphasis on the low register which added to the sheer divinity of it all.

I felt elated, as I saw the cyclists around me they could never know what I was hearing or imagining but I felt a connection between that movie and myself in that moment. We were the kids rushing to that spaceship, irreversibly pedaling to realize our fate, destined to finish by any means necessary. Impossibly I felt a surge of adrenaline my legs wanted to push faster than they had in the past 50 miles. The repeated statements of fanfare was enough to send a lightning bolt of power through my body into the bicycle itself but the flying theme is what really gets me, especially as heroically as it is stated in this track. There is a second connection I have to this song, I remember it playing as I rode up from PCH for the first time when I began cycling, at the time it was a great triumph. I was 75% of the way through my first 30 mile ride and I felt like I was flying up what I considered a steep hill at the time (it was no more than a 20 foot bump) accompanied by Adventures On Earth I felt a great sense of elation. Here the track was again playing for me at another great achievement. The film, the kids, my childhood, my growth as a cyclist, my love of music, all connected in this single point in time given thematic importance by the mysteriousness of my shuffled playlist. Was the algorithm determining what I needed? Was this Odin’s final gift to me? It didn’t matter, the effect was swift and immediate.

The track moves into The Departure section of the film, it gets quiet and introspective and eventually the fanfare, the flying theme, and the call themes all come together in one final truly epic mode to close off the film (and my ride). Alas I can’t say that it played me perfectly until the end but I don’t even remember what played after, the effect of the song was so powerful. Perhaps too much so, because less than a mile a way from the finish my body gave me one final blow, my legs began to cramp up for real this time and the salt pills were all gone. I didn’t want to stop so I would pedal and coast as much as I could before my legs tried to seize up on me. Here I was so close to the finish line and my body was trying to sabotage me, or perhaps my mind overzealously pushed it to its limits. This was a great reminder that life isn’t a movie and my sudden burst of effort was not without consequence. But you know what….it was totally worth it, I’ll never forget that feeling.

I anticlimactically rolled into the finish line coasting as much as possible so I didn’t throw myself off the bike in painful cramps. Daniel and Sergio having finished long ago both were waiting at the finish line. I rolled up to the volunteers giving out medals, they stopped putting them on you by this point in the day. They handed me one in a plastic wrapper looking like they had better places to be. I didn’t mind, I got what I came for long ago. We got some pizza with the Valley Kittens crew and mercifully drove back home.