Copperas Cove, or Free Your Mind and Your Legs Will Follow

It's strange - the position the bicycle has occupied in my life over the last decade. And, it's equally strange how much my relationship with the bicycle has changed.
Ten years ago, I borrowed a mountain bike from a friend so I could go on a date with a girl. The bike date got replaced with some other kind of date, and my friend's bike just sat unused in my apartment. One sunny day, after staring at the bike for a couple of weeks, I decided to take it out for a spin. What I thought might be a brief pop around the neighborhood turned into a day-long jaunt all over town. That very afternoon, when I passed a bike shop that was miles from my apartment, I went in and put a bike on layaway, a entry-level Raleigh mountain bike.
That was my moment of reconnection. Most of us have an experience similar to that as adults. Your bike becomes tragically uncool about the time you turn 16-years-old, and it begins to collect dust in the corner of the garage until your parents finally sell it. Five, ten, or twenty years pass and you have an experience similar to mine. We rediscover the passion of our youth.
It seems like such a small thing, a bicycle. It's just a child's toy, right? Something to play games on or gain some mobility until the day we can get our driver's license. That's how the majority of us look at the bike, but I'm assuming if you're still reading, you know better.
That first bike I bought as an adult, inspired by those few hours of wind in my long, curly hair on that sunny Florida afternoon, opened up my life to a world of experiences that have made my life... my own. I brought that bike with me when I moved to Southern California, and riding with the friends I made there motivated me to get my first road bike. That's when I learned that I enjoyed more than just tooling around with friends; I also enjoyed pushing myself. A couple of years later, I began commuting to work - it sure beat looking for parking. Not long after that, I discovered social riding and fixed gear bikes. I moved to northern California, and I started learning how to repair my bike myself at a bike co-op. A year later, I discovered the meditative peace of long distance riding, and soon thereafter, I started this blog.

It really all started because I loved the wind in my face. That and the exhilaration of propelling my body forward. Whether I was bombing a hill, yelling over the wind with friends, or deep in thought miles from town, it's always been those two things keeping me on the bike.

When I started racing crits last year with my coworkers, I discovered another aspect of biking - strategy. I'd certainly pushed myself physically before. I had days of climbing higher than I climbed before or riding farther than I'd ridden before, but racing was different. It offered a mental challenge along with the physical. When to expend energy? When to conserve it? Choosing a line. Positioning in the group. It was a different kind of intensity.
Granted, I did enjoy the break from all that thinking when I started racing cyclocross after the road season ended, but my mind was still on next season. I waited for it anxiously.
Finally a couple of weeks ago, a friend mentioned an upcoming road race. It's the first race of the season in central Texas, and it's a long one - 50 miles. I was in the midst of switching workplaces to a new bike shop. It would be my first week of work, and I was uncertain about asking for a day off. Fortunately, bike shop owners like letting their employees off to go to do anything on a bike - especially if you are going to wear the shop kit while doing it. So, I registered for my first road race - the Megan Baab Memorial Race.

Megan Baab was a young, local woman who had been killed while riding. She had done the race before, and she had, apparently, a wonderfully bright personality - the kind of personality that makes lots of friends and gets races named after you. The race organizers made signs that they'd hung all over at the start/finish that read, "Smile. Megan would."

It was in the high thirties the morning of the race, and I hadn't dressed appropriately. I stood shivering waiting for the race to start. I was cold, I was nervous, and I couldn't stop peeing. I peed three times in the half an hour before the race. I drank a big glass of orange juice with breakfast, and maybe, I'd drank some water... I don't know. I was just peeing a lot.
Finally, the race started. The course had us going ten miles north of town before doing a thirty mile loop and returning down the same ten mile stretch to the finish. I had registered too late to enter the category 4/5 race, so I was racing the cat 5.
I hung back toward the rear initially, but soon, I learned that people were a little too grabby with their brakes, a nerve racking thing when riding a foot away from someone's rear wheel. As soon as I could get to the outside, I made a beeline for the front of the pack. Once there, I fell in and drafted off the couple of riders at the front.
"Wow," I thought to myself. "This isn't so bad - just chilling here in the front. There are some descents. There are some climbs. This is... uh, this is..."
"...boring. This is boring."
I shook my head, and sprinted around the guys in front. A couple of them stuck to my wheel and away we went. And strangely five minutes later, I was no longer bored. In fact, I was getting tired. I eased up, let the guy behind me take the lead, and I started glancing back for a spot to fall back into the draft-line. I think that it was not long after this that the urge to pee returned. I ignored it and kept riding.
Now that I was a few guys back again, drafting off others, the ride got much easier. Someone asked about my kit, and I chatted with him for a minute about my new shop. My finger tips got cold enough to start hurting, and the urge to pee intensified. We turned onto a really bumpy road, and my sit bones started to hurt.
I started considering peeing on myself. The more I thought about it, the more difficult the decision seemed. It's a cat 5 race. If I peed on myself, some people would say, "It's not a very important race. Why pee on yourself?" If I stop to pee, people would say, "Why didn't you just pee on yourself?" As I weighed the pros and cons, my bladder made it clear that I was taking too long making this decision. The urge turned into pain.
I made my way to the outside again, said goodbye to the front of the peloton, and dropped all the way to the back. I hung on to the last guy's wheel for a few minutes, then I hit the brakes, jumped off the bike, and ran over to a fence. I opened my jersey, pulled down the front of my bib, and peed. When I should've been feeling the deepest sense of relief, all I felt was terror that I wouldn't catch back up with the group. I zipped back up and ran back to my bike. The SAG truck had pause for a moment while I was peeing and then they gave up on me and drove on. My first goal: catch the SAG truck.
I took off. It was hard kicking it into gear after chilling back for so long with the group. I yelled out loud at myself a few times. I reminded myself of who my grandfather was (a man who didn't give up), who my father is (a man who pushes himself), and who I am (a combination of these and so many more stubborn, bullheaded southern men and women in my family). I hunkered down and pushed harder. The first thing I passed was a dropped rider. As I past him, I said, "come on, man." At that point the rest of the riders were together and didn't seem that far away. I thought he might catch my wheel and get back in the race. He didn't.
Soon, we hit the gravel section of the race. I really enjoy riding off road, and I thought the gravel was my opportunity to catch the group again. I really laid it on there. I kind of caught up with the SAG truck, but only for a moment. I started passing more dropped riders. Because of their placement in the race, I knew that they didn't expect a rider back - especially moving at the speed at which I was moving. I tried yelling ahead to them, "on your left," but what came out of my mouth sounded like a growl. My nose started running, so occasionally, I squeezed it out into my hand and flung it away from me. I slowed for a moment as I passed an ambulance attending to a cat 3/4 racer who'd wiped-out in the gravel. He had a shiner and blood all over his face. I tried to not let my mind linger with him, and once I was clear of them, I pushed on.
The gravel gave way to asphalt again, but I couldn't see the group anymore. As I passed more racers, occasionally, someone would hang on my wheel, but after a few minutes, they'd drop. At this point, I hoped to catch the group and draft off of them. I was tired, and I didn't know how much longer I could keep this up. A guy who had been on my wheel for a minute pulled past me, and I fell in behind him. I was relieved for minute until I noticed our pace dropping slightly. I glanced down at his chain. He was in his big chainring, but he was some where in the middle of his cassette. I sneered with disgust and sprinted past him, almost certain that I'd lose steam and he'd pass me again. We took a 90 degree turn. I took it hard and started pedaling again the moment I was slightly upright enough to do so. I didn't see him again after that.
I passed more dropped riders. "Where the hell is the group," I asked myself. I was afraid of running out of juice before I could catch up again. I passed a guy as we began a climb. He said, "That's it, Alp d'Huez. That's the monster." I glance up at, what seemed like, a small hill. Sure - it was probably the biggest climb on this course, but it wasn't that big of a climb. I made a dismissive sound by clearing my throat slightly, stood up, and sprinted. By the time I reached the top, my legs were screaming in agony. I told them to shut the hell up, as I shifted into a harder gear and scanned the road ahead for the peloton. It wasn't there.
"Damn it!"
I sprinted down the hill, passing the first lady dropped from women's race. I was angry that I wasn't catching the group. I passed a few more guys that I was still thinking were just dropped riders. Just ahead was the turn for the ten miles back to the finish. I stood up and sprinted through the turn. A minute later, I caught up with a small group, and that's when it hit me: there was no more big group.
As I started to pull pass them, I yelled, "Is this the front?"
"No, they're way up there. You won't catch them."
At the pace I'd been riding, I should've said, "like hell I won't," before shooting off like a firecracker, but I told myself I could use a break. I hadn't gone out there to win. I just gone out to have fun and see what it was like. I dropped back and fell into their pace-line.
There were five of us at first. We had a real dynamic pace-line going. Each person was only pulling for twenty seconds or so. Then, two of the guys fell off. The two remaining guys and I chatted quite a bit. We were all feeling beat to hell. With only a few miles left, we heard a car horn. We pulled to the right just in time for an officials' truck to pass. Immediately after it, Kristian House, a local pro, zipped past us as if we were sitting still. The Pro123 race started forty minutes before us, but they did two of the thirty mile loops. They were only just then coming in. One of the guys said that he'd been following Kristian House on Strava and that he'd done 115 miles per day for the last month (I'd later check it out for myself and see that it was more like 60-115 miles a day - still impressive).
We pushed on for the last few miles, hanging together the entire time. Our pace really increased as we approached the finish line, and when we had only a few hundred meters to go, they both got out of the saddle and sprinted. I sprinted, but stayed seated. Fighting with them over who would be first across the line didn't seem worth it; I just didn't care to push any harder.
I crossed the line three tenths of a second after the guy in front of me - getting sixth place. I found out that the guy who had come in third was only five seconds ahead of me. If I'd pushed on instead of hanging back with that small group, third would've been in the bag, but I knew the guy that came in third. I thought about it, and his wife and kids had come out to see him race. No one had come out to see me race. Instead of being sore about it, I decided that it was way cooler watching his son play with his medal than it would be to hang that medal up in my quite apartment where no one would see it. So in the end, I'm glad it played out like it did.
But next time, now that I know what I'm capable of, it's on.