Metal Regression

Act without doing;
work without effort.
Think of the small as large
and the few as many.
Confront the difficult
while it is still easy;
accomplish the great task
by a series of small acts.

The Master never reaches for the great;
thus she achieves greatness.
When she runs into a difficulty,
she stops and gives herself to it.
She doesn’t cling to her own comfort;
thus problems are no problem for her.
– Tao Te Ching

I still don’t really consider myself an athlete, which became a harder position to defend after riding from San Francisco to Los Angeles. This passage of the Tao Te Ching is necessary to explain, or rather to illuminate, how someone like me, in this case a representative of what I would consider the “accidental” caste of athletes, can undertake massive efforts like the one I did last June. I’ve never expressly done the things I do for athletic gain, it’s been a side effect of other motivations: adventure, weight-loss, spiritual and bodily harmony, forming and upholding community. I can’t say what motivates a true athlete, but I have been around people that push themselves to extremes and in them exists a willpower that drives them to suffer and surpass that suffering ad nauseam (literally, sometimes). I tried structured training for a while and it made me hate the sport for which I trained. The key for me is reaching that state of Wu Wei: acting without doing, working without effort. The contradiction is that to get to a place where riding from San Francisco to Los Angeles could feel effortless required a great deal of effort. But I favor quantity over quality when it comes to miles on my bicycle. No longer am I pushing myself on every ride, I merely ride. This mentality is what I bring to every exercise now, difficult or easy, keep going for as long as I can. The last puzzle piece of course is that no matter how hard or long a ride is when confronted against the life affirming trip to Anza Borrego, it could never be that bad.

I trained for this ride not in any overly serious way, but I used a step ladder approach. Most of the toll on my body happens within the auxiliary limbs and muscles. My legs don’t be get too sore but my shoulders, sitting bones, hands, feet, and sometimes my back can feel strained. Not in a dangerous way but in the way that your body might feel sore from sitting in the same position for over 8 hours. So instead of throwing myself into the deep end I wade in from the shallow side. It’s not a good system for anyone starting out, but since I ride so damn much anyways this works for me as I’m never really trying to develop stronger or faster muscles as much as getting used to progressively longer and tougher hours on the bike.

My training began with my journey to the Bay Area in March where I did a century around the bay, then it was time to add climbing to my activities as I avoid long climbs, mountains, hills etc perhaps subconsciously….sometimes very consciously. I did Palos Verdes repeats. This dovetailed into a ride I had not done in over three years since I considered myself retired from scaling mountains ever since my defeat at Tour de Big Bear years ago. The ride up to Mount Baldy was the most elevation gain I’ve gotten in a single day, and the last part up the dreaded ski lift switchbacks was absolute torture on a scale I don’t normally subject myself to. After a century to San Diego, The capstone to this series of training was a back-to-back century. We took the Amtrak to Morro Bay then rode 120 miles to Santa Barbara where we stayed at a hotel, woke up the next morning and rode another 100 miles to downtown LA. To be clear there are no back-to-back centuries on the Lifecycle ride but this was an opportunity to make certain I could survive big consecutive efforts.

I flew to San Francisco earlier than the rest of my team, if only to actually enjoy what the bay had to offer before rising south. The ride itself is misnomered as it actually begins in Daly City, which is just south of San Francisco. It’s a forgivable offense given the astronomic prices of setting up a space for thousands of cyclists to register and gather for the opening ceremony. So to actually enjoy San Francisco and feel like I was starting my journey there required earlier exploration. I got there Wednesday morning and was working remotely until Friday. So in between meetings I was checking out the brand new Nintendo store, and walking over to Union Square to enjoy the free concerts, or hitting up my bay friends for coffee recommendations. It was an enjoyable three days and reminded me of why I loved working autonomously in the first place.

Friday came around and it was time to move into the Airbnb with my teammates. We met up and after sharing our anxieties and fears (or lack thereof) we went to sleep. In the morning we drove to the Cow Palace early which was the staging ground for the opening ceremony. On this day we would be registering, getting our bib numbers and seeing our bikes for the first time since they got shipped over a week ago. We waited in a brutal line for hours before we got to the staff, a preview of the coming days. We even had to make a coffee run lest we fell asleep standing. Once inside there was a hype presentation on behalf of the leaders and an expo area complete with merch, sponsor booths, and displays. We perused a bit but very soon we left with the intention of going to Sports Basement to attend the free bbq they have for the riders and to shop for any last minute supplies (but mostly the bbq).

My allergies were acting up once we got to the store, but I figured it was because we were standing outside in that line all day. We had some free burgers and hot dogs and I did end up buying some shampoo and snacks which I had forgotten. With our remaining time we decided to walk to Mission Dolores Park to really soak in the SF vibes before departing in the morning. We sat down on the grass with some paper bag wrapped beers and just took it all in. Lots of people were there, as I’m told is usually the case, there was singing, dancing, conversing, picnics, photo shoots. It was a lively third space of the kind I would like to see more of in the States. It reminded me of the energetic crowds of people hanging out along the River Seine in Paris at 2 am. I let my thoughts drift on purpose, yet still I didn’t want to think of the ride looming before the next day. My energy was better spent relaxing as much as possible. It was a good choice because even though I didn’t realize it at the time, my body was at this point actively fighting an invasive species, my allergies were not allergies!

We had dinner at fisherman’s wharf because at the end of the day we were tourists too. It wasn’t particularly good but it just felt right. Now my “allergies” were really spiraling out of control, my nose was turning into a runny faucet, and I had to consider that there may be something wrong with me.

On the uber ride home I felt worse and by the time we got to the Airbnb again I had to admit that I was sick. No sooner had I done that then I began to feel a fever dimly poke through the edges of my perception.

This was HORRIBLE timing. I was going to ride out in no less than 12 hours, the first day being 80 miles in length and I was in the throes of a fever. Instead of laying down to rest I began frantically packing my bags because our wake up time was 430 am and whatever happened next I didn’t want to risk packing later.

One of my teammates was gracious enough to go buy Sudafed for me and by the time they came back I was laying down dealing with the illness. Under almost any other circumstance this is where my ride would end, I would just stay home and recover. This was on the eve of my greatest undertaking, my bike was still at the Cow Palace, I had no return flight, and checkout was the next day.

I fell asleep early, determined to rest as hard as possible, an oxymoron but I was hoping and praying that I would wake up and feel better to start my journey to Los Angeles.