Climb and Punishment
Toward the end of last summer, a friend got in touch with what they thought would be a fun assignment. Some folks were putting together a Rapha Prestige ride to take place in Wassaic, NY. The sponsor, Rapha, regularly look toward that old form of cycling for inspiration. My friend thought my experience might help me come up with a good story for them. Plus, the ride would be unsupported and take place on a “testing” route. All the better.
Cycling’s two functions make it a slippery thing. Some people ride to convey themselves from point a to b: a quick, convenient alternative to walking or taking the subway. Research has shown bike riders (and walkers) are the happiest commuters after all, but their riding is still an act of practicality. Others ride for the act itself, in competition with others and in training for that eventual competition. Between the two, amateurs train for weekend triathlons and professionals take Sunday rides with their family. The mailman doesn’t toss a football full of letters to your doorstep; he doesn’t have much of a shot joining the NFL. But he might ride a bike to work every day.
Maybe it’s this fragility, this relative indistinction between amateur and professional—riding for joy or convenience and sport—that forces cyclists and those who run races to dabble in self-punishment. If someone signs up for a race, there can be little to distinguish that competitor from someone riding next to them enjoying a Sunday breeze. Both might (probably, even) wear moisture-wicking Lycra jerseys and ride on bikes that cost thousands of dollars: cycling’s aesthetics are as fungible as its cyclists’ drives. It’s only the grimace on one’s face that separates the two.
It’s always been the case. In earlier decades, professional cyclists worked off-season jobs. Bikes’ construction then was more consistent; companies only had so much technology to go around. Professionals and amateurs rode together in some events. A Tour de France fan could walk to a brasserie at the end of a stage and see who had trench foot but still talked about the next day’s ride. That was the professional. Or maybe he was only a particularly determined amateur? The fan would have to check his jersey to see whether any corporate branding rode on his back. Practices changed: the salaries and calendars, at least, and amateurs no longer compete against Tour de France professionals, but there’s still that desire—necessity—for distinction.
I think of this slipperiness, the ways in which it’s breached, as I watch one cyclist slowly pass the support van in the final miles of Rapha’s Mount Riga Prestige ride. His lips are the blue white of a frothy ocean, that color I associate with the moments immediately before or after vomiting. Brendan, one of two mechanics aiding the cyclists on the 110 miles through western Connecticut and eastern New York, has just gotten off the phone with the race administrators at the finish line when the cyclist stops next to us on the dirt road.
“Water?” Brendan asks. No.
“Hydration mix?” No.
“A snack?”
The rest of the piece is available on the Wassaic Commons’ website.