Late last year I was introduced to a pasttime which may be the most significant change in my lifestyle to date. I began cycling.
It was an almost offhand, even accidental introduction to the sport. My romantic partner at the time mentioned that she was interested in getting into riding bikes as a means of exercise and recreation. It was early in our time together, so I was still high on new relationship energy. That feeling has an effect very similar to the mania that manifests in me on its own sometimes, leading me to more easily jump into new activities and excitements. And so I was swept up in it along with her.
At first she was riding an inexpensive bike that she'd bought from Walmart. I think it had been on sale, I'm not sure anymore. It was heavy, clunky, had big knobly tires, and twist-shift hand-grips. I had nothing at all at that point. I spent some time trying to best identify what bike would work for how we wanted to ride. After listing out the features that I thought mattered most, I settled on a Diamondback Division 1.
I remember the first test-rides around my cul-de-sac. I kept trying to counter-steer as if it were a motorcycle. It was a struggle, to be sure. I don't think I made it even a mile the first time. My legs were shaky, but I was soaring.
For the next few days I'd almost obsessively push the boundaries of my weak limits by riding further out and back again. Two miles. Five miles! It seemed like such an accomplishment; I was gasping and my legs barely worked.
We began to meet to ride together. We were in such terrible shape, but about evenly matched. She had stronger legs and cardio, but a terrible bike. I had weaker legs and heart, but significantly lower rolling resistance and weight to fight against. We'd do our five or eight miles as the sun was setting in autumn, then retire to our homes. It was a good time, I think for both of us.
I normally hate to exercise, but riding a bike feels great, and the incremental increases in stamina were just noticable enough that I could stay motivated. Our rides together were more like bar-room chats. We'd ride side-by-side and talk almost the entire time.
She bought a different bike, a Kona Dew. I lost my mechanical advantage instantly, and she'd fly up every hill ahead of me while I panted along behind. It was fine though, because I was learning to focus on breathing and keeping the pedals spinning. Just zoning out for a short while, and making my body do what it struggled to do. Then we'd top the hill and resume our conversation.
I am somewhat resilient to injuries of pride. I have a defensive mechanism that works well for me; I simply accept that I am not the best, and that I can continue to grow. So I'd laugh it off as she flew up the climbs time and time again. Sometimes I'd have to call out for her to wait for me as I struggled, panting, to crest the hill and catch up. Our rides moved to greenways and gravel trails, growing ever longer. Ten miles while she had a sinus infection. Twenty miles in the cold. We congratulated ourselves on how far we'd come. Sure we weren't fast, but twenty miles on gravel and sand!
I started to look at upgrading to a different bike, and test-rode a Kona Rove. I told myself it could be a birthday present six months out, but it wasn't even a single month later that I bought it. I vastly prefered the drop-bars over the flats, and the steel frame was certainly heavier but it soaked up a lot of vibration that the aluminium bike would happily transmit directly to my wrists.
I wanted to push our distance further and further. So I proposed a ride one day which was one of the worst mistakes I've made to date. It was a long path, fifty miles in total. We'd be pressed for time, as it was still winter and the days were short, but we were confident. At the start we flew down the gravel paths, giddy that this would be a triumph.
There's something important I need to note here. I still considered her then, just as I do now, to be the better cyclist. To be stronger than me. There's a certain liberation in being the weak one on a ride, because you just have to do your best to keep up. What never occured to me, until long after this ride was over, was that I had started to outpace her in some ways. I was unprepared for this.
We rode out, made it to the half-way point. But I was getting anxious, it had taken us longer than planned. We joked about making the worst plans. If we lingered too long, the park where we had left the car would close at sunest, locking us in. We needed to get back, and we needed to push ourselves. This is where things started to really fall apart.
I am no paragon of riding, but my focus had always been on just muddling through, in keeping a consistent pace, trying to go even when my body said there wasn't any gas left in the tank. Her focus, as best I can tell, was on how strong her legs were. On how hard she could push on a hill, so much more than I could. It was on the ride back that this difference in focus really made itself clear. The sky kept getting dimmer, the distance felt forever away, and we were constantly having to move. No time to pause for a break, just focus on your breathing and lets get through this thing.
She started to fall behind. At first it was minor and I'd slow down or joke with her about me winning on the downhills. She got quiet. I'll probably never know what was really going through her head at the time. It's hard to remember anything other than my anxiety, and focusing on just keeping the pedals moving. Long hill climbs, and I'd look up to discover all of a sudden that she was fifty feet behind me. She wouldn't call out for me to slow down. The first time I stopped for her. The second time I slowed to let her catch up. The third time I was starting to get very frustrated. We needed to get this done, what was she doing? Use the downhills to get the speed to conquer the next uphill, keep pedaling!
Looking back it all makes sense, she was probably just out of gas. But my expectation was that she was the stronger rider, why would she be behind me, this was ridiculous. We needed to keep moving!
A year later when our relationship ended, she mentioned that night. She said I kept leaving her behind. I don't think she realized that I had so deeply believed that she was just... better than me at this. The events of that ride sat on her spirit, coloring her view of everything for the next year.
I still don't understand why she didn't ever call out. Maybe she was proud? Maybe she thought it was obvious that she was falling behind and I was supposed to just accommodate without a word? But I was spending all my effort just huffing and puffing, left foot right foot left foot right foot. I trusted that she'd be more capable than I was. That's unfair though, it's not like I ever asked her if I should believe that. I just started to believe it and acted like it was real.
We eventually made it back to the car. Jokingly I called it a successful failure. I didn't realize how badly it had impacted her, emotionally.
We'd continue riding together for the next year, but not that route again. We'd do loops around the city, or out-and-back on long river trails. She started to say she hated certain trails, that they filled her with a dreadful boredom. That was fine, we started riding the ones she liked more. At some point she shifted through a few different bikes, settling eventually on one from State. I stuck with the Rove.
We both grew stronger, and the differences in our goals became more apparent. I'd warn her that a segment on strava was coming up, and I'd let out what I thought was an encouraging cheer and take off on some climb or another. I'd get through it panting and gasping, sometimes with a new (terrible) personal record, sometimes not... and she'd come pedaling up the hill at her own pace. She didn't want to compete, she said. That's fine, the segments aren't the whole ride. I could just push for the parts that interested me, and then we could connect again right after.
It was the long gravel rides where it started getting really bad. A miles long gradual uphill with dirt and sand, and I'd have my head down just in a trance trying to keep going at a reasonable pace. I'd think to look to my side, and she'd be nowhere around. I'd slow to a crawl and say "hey!" when she caught up.
Every now and then some fire would light in her and she'd haul ass up a hill. I'd always yell out "yeah!" as encouragement, and she'd kick the hill's ass. Those moments were infrequent.
I still never believed myself to be a stronger rider than her. I just felt like she didn't care anymore, or that she was intentionally falling behind whenever I'd zone out. She'd still never call out to let me know.
Sometimes we'd go very slow, and none of this was a problem. She'd tell me about work, or her family, or her history. It was like when we first started out all over again, and pedaling was just as good as a bar seat. Those times were more rare though.
I was nervous the first time I set off without her on a longer ride. We'd had a fight I think. It was an intensely hot day, but I did a long loop around the city, sweating bullets and feeling dizzy. I got through it with the same method as always, just breathe and focus on my feet moving. One two, left right. Everything ends, you just keep moving and you get there.
Time passed, and we picked up a habit of riding one of her favorite routes, and drinking at a bar mid-way. Those felt like good times, but I wonder now how she actually felt. She would smile and I'd feel happy just to be looking at her, but who knows what was behind that.
Eventually we split up. Not during a ride, or after a ride. It was just clear we didn't like one another anymore, and I said so. She didn't disagree.
It's been hard riding alone. I miss her being there. I miss the feeling that there was this powerplant of a woman ready to just charge up anything, even long past the point where she was doing that sort of thing. I've kept at it though. I've set my own goals. I've ridden the paths she didn't like. I've been pushing my legs and heart through distance and speed.
It's been less than one year since I bought the Rove. I only have 2500 miles on it, but on separate occasions I've managed to cross the 100km barrier and to sustain an average speed of 15mph over a 30 mile ride.
She says her interests are more in mountain bikes now, in trail riding and downhill. That kind of thing makes me nervous. Thinking of her being hurt bothers me a lot, and it is such a risk. She said she hates the long and boring rides. I like having the time to be inside of my head, dreaming. She hates that kind of thing, I think. I need to stop thinking about her.
I'm grateful to her, for introducing me to this way of spending my time. To giving me this method of meditating in motion, and forcing my body into a better form.
I intend to keep pushing myself. It's a slow process, and I'm a potato of a person. Well, slowly becoming less of a potato I suppose. I see her every now and then, but we just pass one another. I struggle to keep the memories of why we split up in mind, it's always easier to fall into missing the good things. The sound of her laugh, just there to my right. The way she'd point out unique birds only her sharp eyes could spot. The way she'd scream hysterically at squirrels as they dashed into our paths. The shared language that we developed. It's hard to have lost that, but that's how it goes.
I rode, alone, the route that defeated us as a couple. It was still pretty challenging, but I did it. It wasn't the victory that I had hoped it would be. Just another activity on strava.
Next year I'd like to get up the bravery to ride the GAP-C&O route, from Pittsburg to DC. I think my legs can handle it, around 50 miles each day, mostly downhill. Fifty miles isn't a big deal anymore. My struggle will be in having the guts to do it alone.
We'll just have to see.
