I was riding back home from work on Friday when I saw something rather startling. Coming towards me was a woman riding a comfort bike, complete with riser handlebars and the large comfy seat. It was a clear sign of spring.
Except for the fact that it was -10 degrees outside! She was bundled up in a thick coat with a scarf that covered most of her face, and she was doing her best trying to remain upright on the bike as she rode over a thick covering of ice and snow with her narrow tires. To her credit, she was successful in her efforts, but the sheer concentration required was completely at odds with the relaxed nature of her bike.
It must be noted that spring had officially arrived a couple days before, and so you can imagine how disappointed the residents of Edmonton are now that we have returned to full winter conditions. I wondered if this woman was trying to change the weather through a sheer act of will. Bring out the summer bike, and the temperatures would rise accordingly. The very definition of wishful thinking.
This reminded me of what my wife did many years ago. She absolutely hated having white legs and arms, a natural result of being indoors and covered up during the cold months of the year, and at the earliest opportunity, she would bring the lawn chairs onto our back patio and suntan as often as possible in the spring, developing a nice (healthy?) tan base that would last her until the autumn.
But there were times when she was a bit too optimistic. She would see a bright blue sky outside, and the rays streaming into our house were warm and inviting, and then she would tell me and my youngest son to go out and get the deck furniture. We were not foolish enough to question this (since there was still snow on the ground!!), and so we did as she asked. Then, when she put on her tanning outfit, grabbed her phone and headphones, and went out onto the patio, she would immediately see that the weather was far colder outside than she thought and she would immediately retreat back into the house. To her consternation, she would then have to wait for weeks until the weather cooperated enough to allow her to go outside with skin exposed. Mother nature is immune to our entreaties and operates on her own schedule, and she is not to be moved.
Which, I will let you know, is just fine by me. I am now at the start of spring break, and while for most people, this conjures up images of scantily clad young people in Fort Lauderdale and vacations to Maui, Edmonton is covered in snow and entrenched in temperatures that are falling to -15 degrees. Now I enjoy warm weather as much as any other person, and possibly even more than they do, but this extended winter has me smiling.
Why?
We did not get much of a winter this year. Snow did not accumulate until well into December, and during Christmas holidays, it remained dry and cold. It was awful and I had to spend quite a few of those days riding indoors on the stationary bike. In fact, I did not get in as many fat bike rides this winter as I would like.
This late winter blast is giving me a second chance, an opportunity to right this terrible wrong, and to get more fat bike riding in. And let me tell you, the conditions are amazing out there right now. About 10 cm of snow have accumulated on the ground, which means that it is a beautiful white paradise straight out of a Hallmark card and there is plenty of traction, so the riding is really fun.
Spring is about youth and rebirth, and I think I am actually experiencing it. I am riding virgin powder and the process is making me feel young again. Strangely, that works.
Recently I suffered a back injury, and it took a full week for me to start showing signs of recovery. Today, I was given a clean bill of health (from my wife) and I was given the okay to ride the stationary bike. This has been such an exciting reunion for me that I wanted you to share it with me. So, if you have a few hours to spare, put on your Lycra shorts, strap on your cycling shoes, and join me.
After doing schoolwork until 10 a.m., I promptly turn off the computer and race upstairs (well, more an enthusiastic jog, since my back is in a tender stage of healing) to get my stuff. I then return to my downstairs office and approach the stationary bike that I have neglected for such a long time (well, about a week, but who’s counting). It is a Lemond stationary bike, and I purchased it because it used a simple leather pad for resistance (as opposed to magnets) and it had no computer, which I figured would make it easier for me to do maintenance on it in the future. My reasoning proved sound, since I have owned this thing for many years now, and all I have had to replace is the bottom bracket (under warranty).
What is particularly awesome about my office – apart from the fact that I store many of my bikes in it, which makes for beautiful and functional art – is that it has a chest high ledge that runs around two walls of the room. The stationary bike is placed at the for corner of my office, where both ledges converge, and so there are many locations for me to place the key things I need for a long ride. I place my water bottle, two small towels (for sweat), a banana and a peanut butter and honey sandwich on the ledge to my right, and then I turn on the lamp and the small fan that are nestled right in the corner.
My cycling shoes are located in a different corner of my office, right in front of my main bookshelf. I got these shoes when I did some work on a guy’s bike – a really huge guy, by the way, who looked like he could arm curl me and his bike at the same time – and he told me that he happened to have some ancient (think, 1990’s) top-of-the-line Specialized mountain bike shoes. He wasn’t using them anymore and he wondered if I would be interested in having them. The odds were against us having the same size of feet, but miraculously, we did. So, I bought them off of him for what amounted to $20, and given that they were as good as new, it was an amazing deal!
Putting these shoes on takes a bit of effort. They have Velcro straps on the outside, which are easy enough, but the interior of the shoe is covered in a socklike membrane. I have to grip the protruding edge of this sleeve with both hands, and then slide my foot into its gullet until the foot is fully encapsulated. The sleeve has its own laces, which when pulled (using a unique drawstring) cause the membrane to snug right up to the ankle for a secure fit. Then, and only then, are the Velcro straps affixed and the shoes ready to go. Honestly, the shoes are kind of overkill for a stationary bike ride, since they would be more at home on the gravel or on singletrack, but they are so aggressive and are coloured a sexy black with red highlights, so they put me in the right mood for a sufferfest.
I then return to the bike and do some preride lubing. The leather resistance pad in the stationary bike cannot be allowed to dry out, and so at the beginning of each ride, I add a few drops of 3-in-1 oil to the heavy metal flywheel. It feels like I am giving a libation to the cycling gods, praying for a smooth ride. And so far, it has been successful, since the bike has remained in good shape and served me well.
Finally, with all my rituals completed, I finally mount the bike and place my iPad on the two narrow central bars, which form a nice base of support for the device (which was another reason that I bought it). The bars are actually supposed to be used so a rider can assume the aerodynamic position one would use when riding a triathlon bike or doing a time trial, but at my age and with my stiff joints, I do not have the flexibility to assume that position comfortably. So, instead, I use it as a platform for my iPad, and it provides an ideal height and angle for me to see the screen clearly while I am pedalling.
Even though my rides are usually between 2.5 and 3 hours long, I like to set the iPad timer in 1 hour installments. In this way, whenever the beeper sounds, it means it is time for me to eat some food. The banana is eaten after the first hour, and the sandwich is eaten after the second hour. This actually replicates what I do when I go for a road ride, and I know from experience that you do not want to mess with the eating routine. Once you find one that works well with the body, providing sufficient energy and not causing any kind of gastrointestinal distress, then you should stick with it and never deviate from it.
I start pedaling lightly, and while doing so, I select my music for the ride. In the past, I would usually choose some kind of EDM music, since it is rhythmical and upbeat and it encouraged me to keep pushing those pedals when my legs start to feel it. But lately, I have been listening religiously to the same few albums during my stationary rides. I start with “Dinosaur” from Theory of a Deadman, and then it is “So Much (for) Stardust” by Fall Out Boy, and finally, “It is the End of the World But It’s a Beautiful Day” by Thirty Seconds to Mars. I usually love to have variety when I am riding, but for some reason, I keep listening to these three albums first, and always in this particular order. It has come to the point that whenever I hear any songs from these albums elsewhere, I keep feeling like I should be riding my stationary bike. It is amazing how connected music is to our memories – much like the smell of baking from a person’s childhood, I guess.
With my headphones plugged in and the music pumping, it is time to keep my brain active during the ride. I know that many people who ride the stationary bike need to watch videos, whether it might be YouTube videos of other people riding or the Zwift cycling simulations, where you can watch a virtual bike respond to what you are doing on your bike as you navigate a virtual road course. But for me, I need to read magazines. It turns out that when I read articles, not only am I getting educated and having my mind opened up to new ideas, I also get fully into the zone and lose track of the pain that I am going through during the ride. I get into a kind of educated flow state, where my mind is completely absorbed by the text and pictures that the iPad brilliantly illustrates for me.
I always read a science magazine first. The articles are more scholarly, which one might argue does not capture the imagination as much and allow for a perfect mental flow state, but since it is early on in the ride, I am not as much in need of being distracted. No pain has developed yet, and so it feels like I am simply reading in my Ikea chair – just in a more upright position and with my legs constantly moving. New Scientist is my favourite science magazine, since they include many articles that are related to physics, which is my passion area and it is what I teach in school. (Funnily enough, my mind has come to associate New Scientist with the album Dinosaur, since it is always playing while I read this magazine. And it gets especially ironic when I am reading an article about dinosaurs.)
When the first hour of riding is up, I am just finishing up the New Scientist magazine, reading the comic that is always located on its last page, when the beeper goes off. I ease off the tension by twisting the knob between my legs (yes, it writes as awkward as it sounds). I then sit upward, taking my hands off the bars, and I eat the banana. Bananas are high in potassium and if modern research still bears this out, it helps prevent cramping – not as much of an issue on the stationary bike, but super valuable when I am going on a long road ride in the middle of the summer. It is also a soft food, which means it digests very quickly.
I have always found it strange that cyclists can get away with eating while they are in the middle of a long bike ride. I was taught right from when I was a little brat that I was not to run around while I ate my lunch, but instead, I had to sit at the table. Otherwise, I would have a stomach ache, and considering that my young body was particularly prone to sharp stomach pains (I even had to go the hospital a couple of times to have it treated), this was a warning that I took seriously. But for some reason, when I am on a bike, I can be a complete rebel and I can shove food in my mouth even when my legs are screaming and I am panting from the exertion. And somehow, miraculously, no stomach ache appears and I can continue to torture my body for many additional hours. Yay?
With the banana finished, I return to my iPad, start up my next hour on the timer, and open up a new magazine. My body is starting to feel the exertion now, and it will only get worse as the minutes pass by. So, I need a magazine that can both inspire me and that can take my mind away from the developing agony in my legs. That means it is time for the cycling magazine.
If I am lucky, the Canadian Cycling Magazine will be available. This magazine is packed full of cycling porn, showing the sexiest of bikes and the best of Canadian riders, which gets my heart racing and has me wanting to ride as hard as possible. But it also is filled with sage training advice, excellent humour-based articles, technical critiques of bikes and associated equipment, and fascinating stories of wondrous bike trips around Canada, and sometimes the world. Every page is one to savour, and I read every word and analyze every picture like it is some holy text, showing me the way to cycling paradise.
But if this publication is not available, since it comes only every two months, then there is Cycling Weekly that hails from Britain, and Bicycling from the U.S. And if I am desperate, I will seek out a mountain bike magazine, but those tend to be far more product and glitz and less story. I am so thankful for the Libby app, which gives me quick access to magazines from the public library and satisfies my desperate need for literature to while away the hours on the stationary bike.
Before I know it, the beeper sounds again to signal that I have completed 2 hours of my ride and it is time for my next meal. From a small plastic bag, I extract my favourite food of all: the simple but magical peanut butter and honey sandwich. It is packed with natural sugars, to give me a quick hit of energy and propel me through the last stage of the ride. But it also has plenty of protein, which is needed by my exercise-damaged leg muscles and which will sustain me for my prolonged exertion. And it tastes so good!!! I am transported to a gustatory nirvana and as I savour its inimitable flavour, I cherish each deep breath I am taking and I am thankful for just being alive. Yes, that is how much I enjoy eating my sandwich? Isn’t it the same for you when you eat your favourite food?
Then it is time for the final phase of my stationary journey (a strange oxymoron). I set the clock for 30 minutes, or if I am feeling energetic and motivated, I will do another hour. Things now get a bit more serious, since I will be taxing my body to its limits. I read any magazine that is available now, and I do my best to become fully invested in its passages, but the painful sensations are beginning to encroach and make themselves known.
My seat bones begin to get sore, and when the burning begins to take away from my performance, I stand up on the pedals and do a couple of minutes of high intensity interval work. It is good for my legs to shake them up a bit, and it is certainly a different way to tax my cardiovascular system (not to mention training me for the steep hills I will be seeing in the spring and summer when I go for my mountain bike rides), but most importantly, it is a blessed relief for my buttocks. My legs might start burning in this new position, and my breathing rate might elevate until I am gasping, but it still feels like a bit of a break, since my seat bones have stopped screaming at me. When I return to the seat, I feel refreshed and ready for the upcoming challenges.
As time goes by, I stand up on the pedals at a greater and greater frequency. And while I am bouncing back and forth, mashing those pedals and keeping my simulated momentum alive, I tend to look at the painting that is in front of me and on my left. It is a picture of cyclists racing in a pack, and the word “PERSEVERANCE” is written on it in big letters. Underneath this word is the phrase “It is to the one who endures that that the final victory comes.” It is the perfect image and motivational speech all wrapped up in one painting, and it keeps me straining and striving for the remaining interminable minutes.
And then it is done. The blessed beeping sounds and I smile in the knowledge that I have finished my training for the day. I turn down the tension and I lightly spin the pedals, anticipating the lunch that is soon to come and the wonderful rest that will follow. The meal and the relaxation will be all the more sweet since they have been earned from my few hours of masochistic training.
Well, thank you dear reader for joining me. I am usually a solitary rider, more comfortable setting my own pace and choosing my own path, but it has been nice to have someone with me this time. Who knows? Maybe I will see you out on the road or on the trail sometime this year and we can do this again. Until then, keep on biking!!
My school has a great photography / media program, and this year, one of their projects is to interview teachers and administrators and to take videos of our answers. Then, on the Friday of each week, we present the video to our classrooms, in an effort to help the students get to know the staff. Clever idea, and I was fortunate enough to be the first one interviewed.
This past week, one of our counselors in student services was interviewed. He was once in charge of our school’s leadership program, and as such, he is well spoken, dynamic, and very popular with the student population. When I saw that he was being interviewed, I really looked forward to his answers to the questions, and I was not disappointed.
I could bring up many of the things he said, since it was such a good speech, but what really struck me was his answer to the question: If you could have a superpower, what would it be? My answer, which turns out to be a common one, was to be able to fly. He said that he would not be comfortable with flying, since he was afraid of heights (I think I can relate to this answer, actually). Instead, he would like to be able to transport instantaneously from one location to another, and he even made reference to Star Trek, saying it would be like being beamed using a teleporter.
The reason he wanted this particular power was so that he could travel instantly to the most beautiful natural locations that the world has to offer. He happens to be quite the outdoorsman, and as such, he is really into camping, canoeing, and hiking … not to mention mountain biking, which is why I respect him so much.
His idea had me thinking while I was biking back home from school that day. And it soon became clear that I had to agree with him. I would rather have the ability to teleport, much more than the ability to fly. (This happens to me all the time. I come up with an answer with great confidence, and then someone else offers an alternative answer and I realize that their answer is so much better than mine. This is why I am a teacher, by the way. I have very few good ideas of my own, but instead, I am happy to share the great ideas and contributions of others.)
But the reason I want to able to beam to other places at will is a bit different than this school counselor’s reason. My motivation is less about being beamed to a remote natural location (as appealing as that is), but it is more about being beamed away from a situation.
One of my biggest fears when I go mountain biking in the mountains is the possibility of meeting up with a bear. I know that the chances are quite small, and the most likely result of such a meeting is that the bear will be scared and run away from me. But a small chance is still a chance, and when I am in the bush, my mind is consumed by this possibility. And I am terrified by it.
So, how cool would it be if, upon encountering a bear on a singletrack with nowhere to hide, I could simply will myself to beam back home, bike and all, and arrive completely unscathed and healthy. That would be amazing! I would be way more relaxed while I ride, and I would enjoy the experience so much more. And I would be willing to go on excursions into really distant and remote trails, all by myself, and delight in the natural surroundings in all their glory. Wow, that would be such a dream come true.
But even apart from this, I would love this superpower even for the local rides I do around Edmonton. One of the big dangers of riding for hours away from the house is experiencing a mechanical problem with the bike or having a big crash, rendering me unable to ride. I do not ride with a phone, and so when my bike is inoperable or my body is in great pain, I still have to find a way to get home on my own. So, inevitably, I have to walk my bike home, which I have done many times, or I have to ride my bike in an injured state (one time, I had to ride 2 hours to get home, after seriously cracking my ribs in a terrible crash). But to be able to instantly transport home? What a dream come true!!
So yes, when my trek becomes far too dangerous or I am seeing stars after a crash, beam me home, Scotty.
Reunions are a bittersweet blend of amnesia and wishful thinking.
For the past three months, I have been dreaming about winter fat biking. Trails blanketed in snow, tricky narrow paths, and challenging uphill climbs, fat biking seemed to me the epitome of all bike riding and I could not wait to experience it again.
But the winter was so very long in coming, and as I rode the cold, bare trails with casual competence, the anticipation of winter’s true challenge grew and grew. I would be bombarded by many memories of past rides. I could clearly see the sweet solitary singletrack in a backdrop of snow-laden spruce trees, where I felt like I was the only person in the world and that the forest was my own personal playground. I remembered the paths that were the width of a fat bike tire, which I call winter skinnies, that tested my balance and mental endurance as I strived to keep my tire firmly planted on the track and never deviating into the surrounding snow walls. And I reminisced about the punchy climbs that were just within my reach, and when my ability was matched with sheer resolve and a little luck, I would emerge at the top in pure triumph, basking in my olympian feat. They were a near-endless succession of positive reflections and they left me squirming, praying for the white stuff to fall from the sky like frozen manna from heaven.
Until now. We have received a healthy dose of snow here in Edmonton, and after a delay of about a week due to extreme cold, the temperatures have finally warmed up enough to allow me back on my trails. I was so excited on Saturday morning as I donned my winter gear, turned on my glove liners, and pressed play on one of my favourite mp3 playlists. My dreams were about to come true!
The wind was a bit chilly when I rode towards the trailhead, but I did not mind because I knew that once I plunged into the forest, the wind would no longer be an issue. It would just be me, my bike, the snow and gravity.
The snow was the purest of white as I entered the first trail, and since there were practically no tire marks or footsteps to be seen, I rode in my lowest gear and exulted in inscribing my marks into the snow, writing my own personal hieroglyphics of joy on a wintry tabula rasa. It was everything that I dreamed about, and it confirmed all of my expectations. This was what I was born to do!
But then reality began to set in. This snow was very dry powder, which meant that there was almost no traction, even for my highly aggressive 5 inch Maxxis fat tires. If there was any tight turn, any off camber section, or any hill with a bit of steepness, my tire washed out and I was walking my bike. This did not happen too often at the start of my ride, since the path as a bit easier, but after the first hour, the going got tough and I was spending more time walking than riding.
It was failure after failure after failure, and I could feel the frustration rising inside of me. I had forgotten how infuriating this process could be, and even though it had happened to me every winter since I had started doing fat biking, it surprised me and left me a bit bitter about the whole thing. This reunion that was supposed to be pure pleasure and delight had soured on me, and it had me wondering how I had ever thought that this was a worthwhile thing to do.
And the sheer core work required was much more than I had anticipated. It was not just the hauling of the bike up the steep slopes and the sudden slipping of my boots on uncertain surfaces, but it was also the incessant demands on my body to keep that bike upright and on path, which proved almost impossible with the many unseen bumps and dips lurking under the snowy surface and trying hard to bring me down. My hips were constantly moving side to side, in vicious jerks, while my handlebars were turned abruptly over and over again to provide crucial counterrotations when my bike began to spin, and all the while, my inner abdominal and lower back muscles needed to contract powerfully to keep my body firm while my legs powerfully thrust at the pedals. And this was on the flattest of terrains! The demands were even higher when the path made vicious turns and the steep hills came out of nowhere, with me having little or no momentum to compensate.
It took twice as long to navigate my trails, even when I had avoided a few of the most extreme parts that were exclusive to summer riding, and when I emerged from the ordeal, I was fed up with blazing new trails. So, I then moved to the other side of 34th street and did trails that were more packed down due to increased foot and bike traffic. I needed that so much, just to remember what it is like to ride the bike for longer than 50 metres without getting off the bike. It was such a relief and it helped me remember that I did indeed know how to ride a bike.
Now, based on the above descriptions, it would be tempting to think that winter fat biking on singletrack is sheer torture and should be avoided if one is to maintain sanity. And sure enough, during this reunion with deeper powder, I was at times lamenting the lost days of summer, when the trails were fast and techy, offering an amazing workout and allowing me to ride for the entire time.
But here is the strange thing. When my ride was over and I was doing wheelies on the bike path on my way home, I had a big grin on my face. There were moments of undeniable agony and mind-numbing drudgery, but the moments in between, when I was actually riding the bike and successfully navigating the trails, were absolutely glorious. And the pristine white snow that surrounded me was picture perfect, straight out of a Hallmark card. That combination of near-impossible physical challenges and exquisite pastoral glory is pure cocaine for me, heightening my love for life and keeping me craving for more.
So, believe it or not, it was a great reunion between me and true winter fat biking. The pleasure far outweighed the pain, which is saying a lot since I hurt my back during the process! And I am sure that when following winter comes, I will completely forget the painful grind and hold on to the many positives of this inimitable experience. Amnesia and wishful thinking, two integral components of this annual cycle of reunion.
Phil Goldthorpe: Views from the Passenger Seat 