Author: Tom Saccone

The bicycle racer may never be on the creative end of the arc of a perfectly shot basketball, transfixed by the swish of ball and net.  Or, feel the elusive crack of a well hit baseball, waist high and down the middle when bat and ball connect. The perfect coordination of thought and gesture may be just out of our reach.  The finesse of subtle movement, guiding racket to ball, somehow unobtainable.  Ours, rather, is the realm of a quiet and determined, mostly misunderstood dance with a  silent tempo to the rhythmic tapping of our cadence; the clash of pedal and shoe, industrial chain and sprocket. Bearings and grease, rubber and tarmac.  The ever-present wind whistling in our ears, thoughts racing through our minds.  Heads barely held aloft, like a swimmer taking a breath. 

The cyclist is simultaneously at profound peace on the bike and at the center of a powerful force, the whirring windmill-a perfectly balanced metronome, creating energy as it moves through space.  Like a sailboat, powered by an unseen force, hull slicing through the water on the edge of control.  We are all of this.

The consciousness of this sport is a deep mystery to me. Yet I am drawn to it because of this and in many ways, in spite of it.  Now well past my prime, yet still competing I am becoming more reluctant to ask scientific questions of the sport as I once did when a student of the game.  I am no longer interested so much in horsepower or watts or heart rate.  Not that it doesn’t matter to me.  It does, but in a primitive sense.  The way it may matter to a gazelle being chased by a leopard.   Yes, I still keep track of my miles ridden, but in a detached way, more like one writes a note on a calendar. My analysis during each race has become instinctual, unencumbered, predatory, primeval.  And this has set me free.  

It’s a strange relationship we have with the bike.  I wash mine before I race like a samurai anoints his sword with sake.   Often I find myself humming some forgotten tune.  I recently swept out my garage, jettisoned  my car to the elements and have placed my bicycle on a small workstand in the center of the floor, a showpiece, if only for me.  I spin the wheels holding hub between thumb and forefinger, feeling the bearings.  I work the chain through its cog combinations, micro adjusting the play.  My bicycle is not a museum piece, though.  It is a tool in the most complete sense.

Ritualistic behavior is well documented in man’s search for meaning.  For me, my rite of discipline and compassion is for the vehicle that shares in my transcendental voyages taken on sunny afternoons in May and beyond.  

68 riders showed up for an Indianapolis-based Wednesday Spring training ride with several elite present. Nervously talking about their fitness and miles to date, searching in the eyes and legs of their rivals for a weak link.  5 teams were represented with 3 or more riders.  It was in the high 50s but cool and the wind was blowing steady at 15mph out of the southwest. I did a 10 mile warm up in anticipation of a fast start and I wasn’t disappointed!  We left the parking lot, made a right turn on Ditch road in Carmel and were in the tailwind at 27 mph. On these straight, long roads through the cornfields of Indiana, you go a long way before you have to turn.  We were chatty at the beginning but soon were all jockeying for position in the front, anticipating the left turn into the wind.  The initial sorting out had begun.  At the turn echelons immediately formed.  I was lucky to force my way into the first one, literally riding in the gutter, a wheel’s width to the right of the rider ahead.  We were across the road in formation like geese coming home in the Spring.  The group split immediately with riders begging for a wheel.  Gaps of four feet seemed like miles. After one of my pulls at the front, I got caught briefly in no man’s land, exposed to the wind after my pull with no one coming around me.  At 25 mph I was victimized, drifting back on the windward side of the line trying to get some shelter.  Finally, I was able to duck in and recover, still in the first echelon of about 24 riders.  I stopped counting, unable to do the simplest math in my head.  After several attacks and recovery periods for the next 20 miles, with the young guns testing their mettle, we turned toward the finish.  A long (2 miles) stretch of road on a tailwind bent. We were going 28 mph and no one was going off the front except for a couple of TT specialists well known to the group. With 500m to go there was a lull.  I found myself at the front of the group, a remnant of an earlier surge.  Could I stay away?  With thoughts of Cancellara (!) in my head I jumped hard, I held 31+ mph for what seemed an eternity.  My world was getting dark and my lungs were like a coal fired bellows, begging for air.  I could feel the fibers in my legs screaming for mercy.  Where’s the line?  WHERE’S THE BLOODY LINE? A blurry yellow sign still 100m ahead vibrated in the wind.  I watched in slow motion as a group of 14 gathered steam and passed me by in twos and threes. Young men I had never seen before.   For one, brief moment I was heroic and then, more quickly forgotten.  I took a deep breath as I hung on to barely finish with the group.  Alas, pride cometh before the fall.  26 miles. 1 hour, 6 minutes. Another log entry. Another lesson learned.  Another to hopefully learn again! 

My pre-race preparation is probably a lot like yours.  It begins well before the event.  Now, I’m not talking about checking equipment and gear-although that’s important too.  I am referring to the mental and physical countdown to the line. I suppose that you can make the argument that the preparation for all future races are the events and training going back to the very start of your cycling days.  In my youth I remember riding my brother’s Schwinn Varsity to high school in Bridgeport, Connecticut as fast-as-I-could, heart pounding, sides aching, through the less known parts of town and the delight that I took passing cars on the busy streets.  I felt that same feeling of the hair raising on the back of my neck last night, 35 years later and a thousand miles away, during a central Indiana training ride past fallow corn and barren fields of soy.     

The racing season always comes quickly to me.  I recall sitting on my trainer during the snow days here watching the clock go backwards as I pedaled to a favorite movie or to an ancient professional race long forgotten and less remembered like the 1988 Het-Volk or Milan-San Remo.  This week I did two tempo group rides with some above-threshold periods to re-connect with that dark place we go to, fear so much and need much more. I don’t use a monitor so I unscientifically determined that I am above threshold when I no longer hear someone on my wheel breathing behind me, my eyes well-up with tears and I can taste that metallic tinge in my mouth.  Or, I am dangling dangerously off the back in a crosswind and have missed the last echelon and the lights in my eyes are getting low.

Our racing season begins in earnest this weekend with several heading south to Louisville to check out the Long Run Park circuit, the first race in the McDonald’s Kentukiana Spring Classic Series.  I did some research and found that the course is a 1.7 mile loop.  I Googled the circuit, looked at the profile and topography and imagined the various parts of the course.  Where should I be in the final uphill sprint?  Where is it most likely to split? What’s the best line through the chicane?  Inside or outside?  I looked at the teams of those pre-registered;  Team Louisville, Masters, Callistoga, McDonalds, Nuvo.   Which is likely to send someone off for the win?  Which team should I work with to get to the break, which team will have enough to be blocking effectively?  Who should I get away with?   Who will likely chase me down?  All of this thinking can drive you crazy with anticipation.  For me, though, it’s meditative.  Cyclists sometimes talk of the luck involved with getting away or getting in the break, making the final selection.  But I am convinced that it has more to do with preparation and being ready.  Every bit of your planning, training and effort has led up to that exact moment where a decision needs to be made to bridge or not, attack, sit-in, back-off, to initiate or accept.  That moment will be here soon.  For my $30, I prefer being the fox to the hounds.  Ready or not.  Here I come.