Cycle

The beauty in variety

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Nicholas O’Donnell seems to have read my mind about why I like the pro-tour when he writes:

I love the fact that I can watch Cav, perfectly led out by Mark Renshaw, win on the Champs Elysses; that I can see Cancellara race and win a TT around Monaco; watch Voeckler cut loose in the Massif Central in the third week of a tour when the legs of the sprinters are tiring; and sit up late to see the fireworks as the GC favourites battle it out in the climbs of the Alps and the Pyrenees. Yes, that’s right, I don’t want to see the same type of rider win every stage of the Tour. I want to see all different kinds of racing with all the different kinds of tactics required given a chance to play out – and see the best riders in the world all get a chance to claim a Tour stage win, the most famous of victories.

Read the rest of his post about why we need variety in race routes (or a variety of races) here.

Moreover, if you follow road cycling as a sport and love beautiful images, you cannot not subscribe to his blog.

The beauty in variety

3Cs: Car v/s Cycle in the City

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Cycle chic?

Came across this interesting info on a road.cc article (do read the original here for more interesting facts):

Researchers found that the average journey covered 2.49km and took 14.7 mins, giving an average speed 10 km/h, in line with the average speed of a car in European cities. Average speed rose to 15 km/h, however, during rush hour, making Vélo’v a much quicker way of getting around, even before taking account of the difficulties of finding a place to park a car.

I wonder if the city administrators in India will ever accept these stats and re-orient their infra-focus to include, if not prioritize, cycles.
I wonder if our citizens will ever ask for a clean, cheap, healthy & ‘faster’ alternative over polluting, expensive, lazy fuel-driven and ‘slower’ vehicles.
I wonder if cycling in India will ever again become an accepted part of urban transport mix rather than either a health/endurance fix or a poor man’s vehicle.

How I’d love to see a thriving cycling culture in India. We had one for over half a century, why we can’t have it again?

3Cs: Car v/s Cycle in the City

Shit!

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Suddenly realised that I’m still at a fifth of my target cycling capability. Not feeling so smug anymore. His a fifth? Well, current capacity is about 5 days consecutive riding for 60 something kms each. Target is 10 consecutive days – that doubles it – and about 130kms a day – another double, so quadruple of current. Add another portion of current capacity for all the climbing that I’ll need to do some of those 10 days and we have the quintuple.

Not feeling good at all :(

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I posted the above paragraph yesterday while on tube heading to Bond Street for dinner. I had been thinking about the RAB for quite some time but had been scared of sharing the thought with anyone lest I jinx it. That’s exactly what I did.

I  mentioned the plan to a few people from twitter I met yesterday for the first time. Sometime during the meeting, the above thoughts struck me about how much more I needed to prepare before I was ready for the RAB. I was scared shit-less (thus the title).

Later, over dinner at the fabulous Le Renais D Venise, I shared my thoughts with Rags – in detail, including my broad training plan and how the realisation for earlier in the evening.

That should’ve been the end of it. But today morning I wake up to a (seemingly welcome) mail from an organiser at the RAB with whom I’d registered interest a couple of months back. The mail informed me of the opening of registration for the 2011 RAB and so off I went to the website. I learnt my folly – I was preparing for 130kms/day though the real distance was 50kms more at 110miles/day. This was bad news. But then came the real heartbreak.

The cheaper ‘Solo Rider – Bronze’ entry was already sold out. The ‘Solo Rider – Silver’ entry costs a whopping £1,795 per head. Add the £36-64 for British Cycling membership, ~£200 for train tickets, another £200 for misc expenses and I’m already touching £2300. I won’t even add the new road bike I was planning to buy for the ride. An unemployed guy with savings in INR to spend GBP 2,300 on a sportive is just insane. I had no option but to do the rational thing – I gave up.

It isn’t easy. I’d been preparing privately for this ride ever since I learnt about it in late August and it’s heartbreaking to learn I won’t be able to attempt it. Specially, now that I was really starting to get going – having gone from 70-80kms to 250-320kms a week in 2 months and feeling the energy in my legs to go much more.

Of course the initial thought was to give up on cycling all together, go find a regular job (most probably management consulting) and the old life. No, I’m not going down that road. Not yet, anyway. An easy 52km ride wiped all those negative thoughts from my mind.

I do intend to continue cycling, though it won’t anymore be ‘come rain, hail or snow’. That will also save me money I’d have spent on gear for the winter. Also, I shall now again be spending more time looking for jobs than cycling though I do plan to keep looking for those strat & marketing jobs, instead of the consulting calls that keep coming.

Shit!

Cycle Encounters

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Last weekend, I had still to open my account in cyclist encounters. 7 days later, I’m well on my way to being a veteran.

Incident 1: lady doesn’t see me coming So decides to drive her sedan across the road. Thankfully, she stopped just in time so my face just tasted asphalt, not the plastic of her front bumper. (More details posted earlier on twitter)

Incident 2: 3 tall lads casually stroll in from the park onto a cycle path, carved on a small road. They casually ignore the cyclists behind them. I, however, coming from opposite direction, move from bike path to road to avoid them. As I near them, one of them moves off bike path, into my way and politely says: ‘dude, that’s the bike path so ride there!’

Incident 3: I ride the bike across a shared biker-pedestrian traffic signal. At the other end, I cross the path of a middle aged, suited office goer. As I pedal ahead,forcing him to suspend a stride, out comes a volley towards my rear wheel: ‘fuck you asshole’.

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Cycle Encounters

What are you in it for..

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.. the Journey, the destination or the spirit of it all?

This is an attempt at trying to reconcile my thoughts about what happened today on the tour1. Alberto Contador, the defending champion, and Andy Schleck, last year’s runner-up, have been involved in a super tussle from the day the tour arrived at the Alps. In all the stages since then, Contador, known as the best climber in the peloton, has been unable to comprehensively beat Schleck and win back the leader’s yellow jersey.

Today, towards the end of yet another gruelling hot and fast day in the saddle, Andy attacked the peloton furiously and was already off to a super start with only Vinokourov, Contador’s team-mate, anywhere close to chasing him down. However, very early into the attack, he faced a mechanical issue as his chain came off and he had to stop to set it back again. It was then that Contador, sensing an opportunity, attacked furiously off the front of the group to maximise his advantage out of Andy’s misfortune.

Now, had this been almost any other sport, this would’ve been considered normal. But this is not. This is cycling. Above all, this is the Tour. So, even if stopping their small group to wait for Andy would be asking too much of Contador, how should his decision to attack Andy at that point be measured?

Yes, it would be completely acceptable if this was a Formula 1 race since that is as much about the reliability of cars as about the skill of drivers. The Tour, on the other hand is a race of cyclists’ skill, speed and stamina. Taking advantage of a mechanical malfunction in this race seemed just a bit too opportunist, and almost contrary to the spirit of the race.

Which brings me to the main thought. Various facets of our life are much like a race. And everyone races both against themselves as well as against others. In these races of life, what do you race for – the experience of the journey or the chequered flag at the destination? And do you care for the spirit embedded in those races or just define your own laws?

My answer has been the journey most of the time. And it’s done me no good. Another thing I’ve realised. People who go for the destinations/targets, usually end up better than the ones who go for enjoying the journey. This may also be because the metrics of being better/worse off are usually defined by the people who reached the destination first.

A follow-up question: Are your answers to the above questions about being a journey enjoy-er versus destination seeker the same when you race against yourself compared to when you race against others?

(1) If you don’t know what the tour is, this may not make much sense to you. The Tour, here, refers to Tour de France, the most important race on the cycling calendar. Check out more here and here.

What are you in it for..