by Rob Cummins
Then I learn about something new. It's called ‘half wheeling’. Cycling has lots of unspoken rules and unusual etiquette and half wheeling is frowned upon in group riding. When you’re on the front you’re supposed to sit with your front wheel in line with the guy beside you. Not six inches ahead, because if you do that it can cause issues. The rider beside me thinks he's going too slow and speeds up. I see him coming up alongside and speed up causing him to accelerate again and all of a sudden the pace is too high. I start to drift back and something has happened to that incredibly strong, slightly invincible ‘I could pull up here all day’ feeling I had only ninety seconds ago.
That wonderful feeling is gone, only to be replaced by a horrible burning build-up of lactic acid in my legs and despite the brain screaming at the legs to push they have decided they are taking no further part in this game. I now suffer the humiliation of getting dropped off the front. I look over my left shoulder hoping the second rider will let me pull in. He nods and opens a gap. I move in and give one last effort to hold the wheel in front of me trying desperately not to get dropped completely. I'm absolutely on my limit just to stay here. Slowly, very slowly, I recover and after a while I'm able to grunt replies again to the other rider’s conversations as the group continues to rotate. It’s amazing how quickly you learn a lesson from a good kicking. It's just as amazing how quickly you forget that lesson and go back for more. But not today, because today I'm glad just to survive in the group and return home with them.
That winter I learned what it meant to ride in all conditions, including rain, hail, sleet and snow. And for the most part I enjoyed it, even the very hard ones. Something I read about back then has stuck with me ever since: ‘Even a hard, cold, wet day on the bike is better than a good day in work.’ I still sometimes have to repeat that over and over to myself now on the really miserable, freezing days to stop myself from turning back early.
The first time I ever rode in the snow I was out with the racing group and by now was becoming more familiar with a lot of the group riding etiquette and had learned not to half wheel and to call the holes in the road so the rider behind would know what was coming as all he could see was my backside. About ninety minutes into the ride it started to snow. At that point we were about as far from home as we were going to get, as the ride was planned to be about three hours. Already my hands and feet were numb and sore with the cold but it was out of the question to complain. We like to think we're hard men, despite our skinny or maybe even scrawny, Lycra clad appearance. There’s a whole lot of ego and testosterone floating around a club training ride. Despite or maybe because of the suffering, there was a building sense not quite of pleasure, but of satisfaction. We were doing something that most other people would consider nuts, riding for hours in the middle of winter in a snowstorm. This was really hard and I was doing it alongside these guys that I looked up to and admired. I aspired to become what they were.
I became aware of every sensation, like my hot breath being snatched by the wind but warming my chin before it passed. I could feel the heat of my body from the effort and the sweat building slowly to dampen my clothing, while at the same time I could hardly move my fingers to change gears or brake. My legs were feeling that sweet buzz of the effort of the work but at a level that I could sustain for a long time. The cold spreading momentarily through my insides as I take a slug of my freezing cold drink. Then the rise of effort and the feeling of strength as I took a turn on the front pulling into the wind and driving snow. By now I knew how to ride level and hold the group at the same pace. My body adjusted to the extra work and settled into the new rhythm, one that I could sustain but maybe just not for as long. There was no conversation, or very little. We were all inside our own heads, some feeling good and taking some sort of perverse pleasure in the suffering, while for others there was no pleasure in it, perverse or not, but only the suffering. Often I switched from one to the other and back again several times during the ride. One minute I was struggling, wishing I was anywhere except on this damn bike, the next I was back in the zone. All systems were cruising.
Then the rider beside me signalled for me to roll through. He'd had enough on the front and wanted a break. We rotated through and I was still feeling good. At some stage during the ride I realised that for the first time since I'd been on these group rides I was taking full turns at the front and I didn’t always feel like I was at my limit. That gave me a real buzz inside. I felt like I was becoming a cyclist.
I got home after the ride and I could hardly stand to walk on feet that were so cold and sore and numb. But the first thing I did before going inside to get warm, clean, dry and fed was to go out the back of the house and hose down my bike. Like I said, there are rules and etiquette. You never leave your bike dirty after a ride. When I had done that it took me ages to strip off my sodden filthy kit at the back door because my fingers wouldn’t work. I got into the shower and the heat was heavenly. Heavenly that was until the horrible, painful pins and needles of returning circulation in my hands and feet started. I didn’t even wash. I just stood there eyes closed, head under the spray, hot water running off me in dirty little salty rivulets for ages before I start to scrub off. I dressed and ate and then headed into work feeling a little bit epic. I'd done something special today. Something hard that I've never done before and I've started to learn just a little about how to suffer.
By then I had joined a road cycling club and trained almost all the time in my club kit. It gave me a really strong sense of identity. In my head I had at the same time the conflicting feelings of both fitting in and standing out. For the first time in my life I was a member of a club, and not just any club, a cycle racing club. Cycling is very much a minority sport and road racing is an even smaller minority of cyclists. I felt different and somehow special as a result. I hadn't even pinned a number on my back at that stage and my first race was still months away, but I was taking steps and changing myself from who I had been into someone else and I was loving the transformation.
Days turned into weeks, winter into spring and before I knew it my first road race was upon me. I was terrified, because I had no idea what to expect when I showed up. I parked, took out the bike and checked it over. Then I got into my kit and just did what everyone else seemed to be doing. I got on and pedalled up and down warming up and waiting for the start. I recognised a couple of guys from the shop but was too nervous to get into conversation so I nodded a greeting and kept on spinning the legs. I had no idea if I'd done enough training to be here but there was nothing to be done about that now. We lined up at the start, filling the full width of the road and listened to what was to become the familiar warnings about racing on open roads, obeying the laws and not crossing the white line.
It was a handicapped race meaning that the third category riders, veterans (vets) and juniors started first. The second cats a couple of minutes later and the really impressive and very intimidating looking first cats last. The idea was that if the handicap system was done right all the groups would come together somewhere close to the finish.
We were started and the shock to the system was instant. There was no gentle build into a pace. The juniors, who didn't seem to need any time to warm up, were on the front driving hard. There was jostling for place as the group tried to sort itself out. I hadn't ridden in such a big group and never this hard from the gun. I'll never keep this up I thought, panicking. I didn't dare go near the front. I knew what my limit was and was hanging on for dear life and not getting dropped. Then I settled, the body gradually accepting that this was what was going on and it decided to cooperate. I'm not saying I was comfortable or ready to take a turn on the front. I just wasn't feeling like I was going to vomit. I breathed a sigh of relief and thought ‘Ok Robbo, make yourself small, hide from the wind and stay in the draft in the middle of the bunch. No heroics and nothing stupid and you might survive this.’ I couldn't believe that there were conversations going on around me. Where the hell were they getting th
e extra oxygen to do that?
It was just about that time that the bunch changed shape. A road race is fluid and always moving, morphing and you've got to be constantly watching what’s happening so you don’t get caught out – that is if you have any idea what you're looking for, and I certainly didn't.
All I noticed was that the older looking riders, the super lean ones, all popping veins, muscles, rippling calves and bulging quads, looking like they'd been carved from stone, were now moving up to the front. It seems that most of the older guys take a little bit longer to get warmed up but when they get their engines up to speed it's like they've all had turbo chargers added.
The pace went up a notch and things got louder. The vets, who like to shout loudest, wanted to get as many as possible sharing the workload and keeping away for as long as possible from the chasing cat 1 and cat 2 riders who were hunting us down. They were also fairly vocal about letting you know what they thought about ‘wheel suckers’, someone who wouldn't contribute to the speed but was happy to benefit from everyone else's work. I was constantly hearing shouts of ‘ride through, hold the wheel and take a turn’, usually accompanied by some choice expletives. I was new and inexperienced and I didn't know if it was aimed at me or just the way all races went, being random shouts of abuse the whole time but I felt like a shirker and a waster and didn't want to look lazy.
I then pulled out into the right-hand line that was rolling through to take a turn in the wind. We were riding fast and I hit the front panicking a bit at the speed but the turns were short and almost immediately the next rider rolled over and in front of me. I recovered as I drifted back into the bunch. Buoyed by the fact that I'd survived my turn on the front I pulled out into the right-hand line again and again I rolled through and back into the group my effort higher this time, but I was too busy being all proud of myself to notice. The third time I rolled through my legs started to fill with lactate and all of a sudden I was on my limit. In fact I was over it and struggling to hold the wheel in front as I drifted back into the bunch. My breathing was coming in hard ragged gasps. My legs were full and burning and I just couldn't turn the pedals fast enough and when riders stopped coming past me I glanced back to realise I was the last man and was losing the bunch. The gap was about two bike lengths. I rose out of the saddle and sprinted to get back on pushing myself way back into the red again. I got back to the last wheel, legs and lungs burning and my heart feeling like it would burst through my chest and just hung on for dear life. I knew if I was dropped it would be a long slow ride home. The pace eased suddenly and I almost ran into the rider in front. Moving out and around him I managed to work my way back into the middle of the group and hide from the wind and recover.
Happy now to ignore the shouts to take a turn, I hid, making myself as small as possible, while trying to avoid every last bit of the wind. Gradually I recovered and after a while I thought that I would make it to the finish as long as I didn’t do anything else stupid.
Then the chasing group of cat 1 and 2 riders arrived and they rode straight up the outside like a freight train. Roars of ‘Up,Up,Up’ from the vets warned that they were coming through. I looked over in awe at the power and speed of the riders driving it but the penny still hadn't dropped. I still hadn't realised what was coming. Maybe the lactic acid had seeped into my brain and affected it or something. Then they get to the front and our group reacted, accelerated and attached itself onto the train and very quickly I'm on my limit again. I start to drift back through the bunch thinking I'll be riding in alone and I'll suffer the indignity and humiliation of being dropped. Then just as suddenly as it ramped up, the gas was off and they all sat up.
I nearly ran into the wheel in front again before I react. I still had no clue as to what was going on. Then I heard conversations start. It was over. That was the finish line and I was so focused on the wheel in front and not getting shelled out the back that I didn't even see it. I'd made it around without getting dropped. On the cool down I chatted to some of the guys I recognised and we swapped our stories of the race before packing up and heading home, sore but very satisfied.
I was out riding later in the week with one of the vets I'd got to know fairly well and we had become good friends. He had almost thirty years riding in his legs, most of that time spent racing. He had raced as a cat 1 at a national level and did well, winning a handful of races along the way but never took the step to race in Europe and never seriously considered turning professional.
We were talking about the race and our very different perspectives of it. The only similarities in our experience was that we both got a huge buzz from it. I recounted how much harder it was than I'd expected it to be and that I couldn't imagine it ever getting easier. I told him I couldn't believe that there were guys strong and fit enough to be able to chat in the bunch while racing at that speed, while I couldn't even let go of the bars long enough to wipe the spit, snot and streaming tears from my face. He assured me it would get easier and even told me that within a couple of races I'd be doing the same, sitting in and chatting. I had come to trust his advice but I was far from convinced. However, it eventually turned out that he was right.
That season was spent doing mostly inter-club racing after work, with the occasional open race at the weekend as the shop allowed. The open races tended to be bigger fields that were longer and faster, whereas the club racing I did was restricted to five local clubs. The club races involved smaller numbers and ran once a week in the evenings after work. The speed might have been a little slower than the open races but there were less places to hide which meant you worked almost as hard.
The club league had a number of benefits for me. I raced every week so I learned how to race effectively very quickly. I suppose I had to learn how to race smart, because I didn't have the big engine to just ride off the front in a breakaway or the massive acceleration needed to be up there in a sprint. I learned who to watch and what to look out for as a race progressed. My bike handling became better and my fitness, speed and strength all saw a big improvement that year.
During my first season I had a couple of top ten finishes but was nowhere close to a win. The gradual improvement through the season kept me motivated and I went hard at winter training again in the off season.
My second season was really just a gradual build on the first, until we did a club race on a circuit that I hadn't ridden before. It was a one-lap race on a very hilly course. It started off exactly the same as every other race – fast from the gun, knowing the second and third group were chasing hard. The first third of the circuit was on roads I knew well and rode regularly. It was mostly flat or gently rolling and dragging but there were no real climbs. So far all of the races I'd done were on similar terrain. I had learned to stay right up at the front of the bunch as much as possible. Although you had less shelter and more time in the wind it was safer there.
At this stage I wasn't under too much pressure, taking turns on the front so I was happy with the trade off. It's also the best place to be in order to react to an attack (not that I had either the legs or knowledge to spot or react to one at that stage). If you're sitting down the back of the group and someone with a good chance of staying away attacks you're too far away from the action to react.
We turned off the main road and we hit the first short hill and almost immediately I moved up from about the third row to the front without either trying or intending to do so. More than a little surprised at myself, I eased off. I didn't want to go shooting off the front only to be caught two minutes later, getting spat out the back. I wasn't familiar with this part of the circuit so I didn't know how long the climb was. All the way up the short climb I was trying to figure out why everyone was going so easy. We crested and I moved back into the group on the descent. The road rolled for a while before dropping sharply into a small valley with a steep climb out of it. Again as soon as the road tipped up I had to back right off so as not to go off the front. I couldn't figure out what was going on, why
the race was so slow. Just at that moment came the familiar shouts signifying the arrival of the first and second cat riders. Their group was small, whittled down to five riders and they just rode straight through and off the front.
But still nothing happened. Nobody reacted and the gap was opening. I didn't wait any longer and jumped without really thinking it through. Within a couple of seconds I was up with them. I wasn't cruising now. I was working hard but was still fairly comfortable. I also wasn't hanging on the last wheel but comfortably moving up the outside and slotted in behind the lead rider. He glanced over and did a quick double take, wondering who the hell this toolbox was. He gave a tiny nod and then he looked away. I felt like I was going to explode with excitement. I was climbing with the fast guys and they weren't dropping me. In fact a quick glance over my shoulder made me realise that I was the only one who had bridged over. I checked again, there were five others. I was in the points even if I finished last and would win my category for the first time. Something about counting chickens before hatching should probably have come to mind. But I felt incredible and I was dancing on the pedals. I'd never had a day like this on the bike before. It felt so easy I thought, as I was practically giddy with the excitement. We crested and started a fast, twisty descent and I suddenly realised that there was more to staying with a bunch of first and second cats than just having good climbing legs.