Conflicto De Ciclismo

by  Ian Pierce

“Dude, you need to try this out!” said my friend Alex, half yelling at me so I could hear him over the wind rushing in my ears as we cruised down a slight declivity in the road, with a tailwind pushing us at over thirty miles an hour. What could have been a completely normal conversation turned out to just be Alex prodding my mind in attempts to recruit me to join the mountain biking club at Berkeley High.

“I don’t know, it sounds like a pretty large commitment. Give me some more time.” To tell you the truth, I was a bit skeptical and really wasn’t taking him seriously. He was clad in lycra, wearing colorful arm-warmers and some really lame looking spandex shorts. He was sporting a fruity looking yellow jersey with the Berkeley High YellowJacket grinning back at me. I failed to realize the importance of his awkward seeming kit at the time. I was just wearing some basketball shorts and a white tee, my ass was getting numb and hurting intolerably from riding and lack of a chamois.

Alex, one of my best friends, had been trying to get me to start mountain biking since we were freshmen. I had never even planned on picking up cycling as a sport, let alone ever joining a club at Berkeley High. It was extremely coincidental when I reflect on it. It was the end of September in 2008 and I had gotten hit by a car, which damaged my only bicycle. The woman who knocked me to the ground refused to assist subsidizing a new bike for me, let alone repairing my old one, so I resolved to sell it and buy myself a new road bike. Later I would realize how vicious of a cycle I had thrown myself into.

Once I had my first real bike it felt great to just adventure around the Berkeley Hills, exploring new places I had never been before. I never had many friends and cycling is just a unique sport where you can spend countless hours in the saddle, suffering by oneself and use it to escape from reality. What most people would simply find a hazard for your health and probably ridiculous, I managed to find a passion for. Biking gave me a chance to test my own limits and to experience levels of pain I had never felt before. Later I would learn how brutal bike racing is, pushing my limits and figuring out who can suffer the most, every acceleration like an attack to try and break my opponents, like a knives sticking in their sides.

One day I had climbed to the top of Grizzly with a couple friends. To get back home, I would have to descend quite a ways. All of my friends had clipless bike shoes that attach to the pedals, securely clipping their feet onto their pedals. Of course, I was way too cool for that! One mean kid, Joe, who didn’t like me and was only there because he wanted to ride with Alex said,

“You won’t have fun because you don’t have a kit(cycling clothes) or the right equipment.”

Joe was disrespecting me, trying to discourage me from riding, so I calmly responded, “I’m just going to ride anyway and nothing you can say will phase me.”

I realized later that my decisions were quite rash in this scenario and my stubbornness could have cost me my life. Everyone I was riding with was wearing their strange, form fitting biker gear, but I was just dressed in some levis and a white tee, as usual. My baggy white tee was like a sail, fluttering in the wind. My chosen style of clothing was as useless as it was cumbersome. It provided me negative aerodynamics and threw me further off balance as well.

This was my first real bike ride and we chose to descend Southpark which is one of the steepest, quickest hills in Berkeley. Of course, being new to biking, I had never ridden on this street before. I immediately noticed, as I tackled the descent, what a ridiculously small amount of control I had over my own fate and that I lacked some of the most basic skills it took to handle a bike. I was going nearly fifty miles an hour, getting speed wobbles from the front end of my bike. I hit a hairpin turn at around forty, at that speed, any kind of turn should be taken with caution, but to make matters worse, there was a large pickup truck blocking a good part of my lane, turning irresponsibly as drivers of those great death machines will often do. I narrowly dodged its side view mirror by tilting my hear to the right, with its plastic appendage nearly clipping my shoulder. A little further down the descent, to my dismay, my right shoe got untied and its laces became entangled with my bike. Initially, I thought I was about to hit the deck, but miraculously I didn’t even fall. My friend who was riding behind me, observing my performance or perhaps just lack of proficiency, later told me that I was the worst descender he had ever seen and that watching my performance that day sparked concern for my health. Later on, Joe would gloat, “I told you so, you nearly ate shit because you were riding wearing shoes with laces!”

That bike ride was a great experience which showed me how much fun I could have riding, but even more important was the lesson I learned about how much it matters to ride within your own skill level for the sake of your own safety. That near disaster riding in Converse even inspired me to go buy some of those funny looking biker shoes with velcro to go with some free lycra I received from the BHS mountain bike team. I went to the store, looked at the price, and was shocked because I had never bought such an expensive pair of shoes in my life, but nonetheless I dropped the $110 plus $20 more for the cleats just because I really wanted them. Ever since I bought those shoes, my ability to ride has transformed. I had so much fun that the thought of joining the mountain bike team did not convey a depressing, “Do I really have to do this?” kind of a feeling-like some type of nuisance I didn’t want to be a part of. On the contrary, I was genuinely looking forward to the start of the mountain biking season.

The Berkeley High mountain bike club starts training around January, and of course since I was so juiced about my new shoes, I had put in hundreds of base miles by that point. All of the coaches had some really low expectations set for the first year riders. I wanted to prove them wrong and make myself look as good as possible in front of the guys that would be coaching me for a whole year. The first day of practice, my legs burned with pain from riding 86 miles the day before. Something more painful than physical suffering here was the feeling of envy I experienced as all of my friends rode away, to go mountain biking for real. I would be left to toil and waste my time down at the Berkeley Marina, riding in circles, working on unimportant skills that I already had. I knew that this would be a long, hard season from that day onwards.

~

Our first race was on March 1^st, 09 in Monterey, at Fort Ord. Although I would race in the last race of the day, I needed to get there an hour before the first race in order to pre-ride the trails. It was an easy, flat course with virtually no climbing, but it favored almost every school over ours because we mainly focus on climbing at practice over any other aspect of riding.

The weather was nice and relaxing at around 9:00am when I pre-rode the course. The sun was shining and there was a refreshing breeze. Later around one o’clock, as if on cue, some thick clouds rolled overhead just before the varsity race started. They set off and I stood by the start line enthusiastically yelling at one of only two varsity riders, “Go, go, go Alex! You can do it.”

I lined up to the start of the JV race, when the rain started to pour down on us. I was shivering and had some serious butterflies fluttering in my stomach as I was about to begin my first bike race ever. 3-2-1- Go!

A lot of guys fell on the hard, cold asphalt on the initial segment of the race within the first 15 seconds as they attempted to capitalize on the low rolling resistance to sprint up to attain higher positions. I took a quick look down around me and noted that none of our riders had fallen. I bunny hopped part of one guy’s bike, and escaped the carnage unscathed. When we hit the trails, there was an overwhelming amount of mud on everything. It made my water salty and my food unfit for human consumption, but as the cliché goes, I would have to adopt the mind set: “What doesn’t kill me can only make me stronger!” When I got off my bike and looked in a mirror at myself, I was caked in mud everywhere except my eyes, vague lines of cleanliness where my glasses had protected me during the race.

I finished 19^th out of 58 riders, which was at least higher than I thought I would place. Another factor which bolstered my self esteem, was that I beat Joe by a couple minutes. However, considering it was my first race, that was one of the only positive, reassuring thoughts I was able to reflect on. I was relatively unhappy because there were so many kids who were faster than me. After the race, I killed myself mentally, repeatedly going over the thought in my head that I was the 18^th loser.

~

Fast forward a couple months to late May. I had just gotten to Boggs Mountain up in northern California. The car’s thermometer read about 94 degrees the whole way up to the race. When I stepped out of the car into the BHS Mountain Bike Team’s campground, it was around five o’clock, and the temperature was still in the upper 80's.

The whole point of getting to the racecourse Saturday was to be able to pre-ride the course the day before and still manage to get a good night’s rest. This would be the state championships and even riders from Southern California mountain Bike racing league would come up to the race. I first pitched my tent, and then I did the pre-ride. It was a hot, dry and extremely dusty course.

I felt the pre-ride hit my stomach, so I went back to the campground in search for some dinner. I saw some of my friends sitting around a fire, munching on shrimp and steak tacos, and said, “Hey what’s up?”

I obviously didn’t see Joe sitting there, and instantly was greeted with a wave of unnatural animosity. Joe glared at me, an menacing glance out the corner of his eye and shouted, “Shut up dude, go away.”

A little taken aback, but prepared and expecting the usual, I retorted, “Dude, what the fuck!? Why are you acting like such a sore asshole? I haven’t done anything to warrant this degree of hatred. ”

My choice of words possibly incurred Joe’s wrath as he responded, his words laced with hostility,“I don’t pay any attention to what you do. Nothing is up dude, and I don’t want to look at your face!”

I could ignore Joe’s jives and inconclusive answers because I didn’t possess any desire to be the acquainted with a person with such a hostile personality. I sat across the circle from him, regained my composure, and just ate my dinner, chatting with a couple kids on the team. We roasted some marshmallows and I sat at the fire, feeling its warmth, until the rubber on the soles of my shoes had grown hot and began to melt. It was a beautiful warm night. The forest seemed especially serene because Joe wasn’t around to harass me. I was feeling fatigued from a combination of the lengthy car ride and the pre-ride I had done earlier in the day, so I retired early and curled up in my sleeping bag. I had dreams and thoughts about my bike team, the race the next day, but I wasn’t thinking of anything past it. The looming event was like a wall, serving as a blockade to my imagination.

It was a long night, and the two camping pads I brought failed to compensate for the densely packed forest floor. I woke with my back aching in pain. I never stretch enough and I always suffer the next day. I ate a light breakfast. I wanted to consume as many calories as I could, but the five shrimp and steak tacos I had subconsciously wolfed down the night before felt like a rock in my stomach, so I decided to limit my food intake for the time being. Obviously that was really redundant, as I was trying to undertake some hardcore carbo loading, but I would eat more as the day progressed, so my worries should have been few. I scraped ancient mud from my bike, as I had not in many weeks, perhaps dropping a quarter pound or so, but I managed to make it shift and perform adequately which was my initial goal.

I slammed multiple servings of cookies, brownies and cliff bars down my throat and I drank four full bottles of water. We did some hill repeats to warm up for the race. Despite the massive quantities of water, Gatorade and Cytomax I had ingested, I only had to go pee once. I was worried, dehydrated, and there was only an hour before the lineup for my race. I kept downing copious amounts of water as the hour of eleven o’clock was creeping nearer and the temperature was picking up. It was probably about ninety degrees and I heard an announcement that I should line up to start the race.

I felt ready, but only time would rip open the grab bag of possible expectations, nullifying all options other than reality. The announcer called up every single rider in order of what our overall placing was as a result of the previous four races. I was 21^st overall which meant I would start roughly in the middle of the pack, 21^st out of 54 entrants, which would make it tough for me to get anywhere.

The race began and as the first riders went, a massive dust cloud stirred up, encasing everyone in a thick smog, save the first rider ahead of everyone. No one fell and groups of riders got sorted out quite efficiently along the broad, gently climbing fire road. The first sensation I observed was how much my lungs burned. I had inhaled hot, dusty air through my mouth- big mistake. My throat was coated in dust that had gotten caught in my phlegm, creating an awful, viscous concoction in my mouth that made breathing difficult and painful. I drank a bunch of water to compensate for this, but later I would regret my blatant misuse of my limited water. I ran out halfway through the lap, making myself fight to make it back to the feed zone. These were the most dehydrating conditions I had ever ridden in, living in Berkeley my whole life hadn’t helped acclimate me to anything like the temperature or humidity I felt at Boggs mountain. I had to endure three more torturous laps, as I completed the second lap I contemplated giving up because there was no way I could ride back into the top ten. After the second lap I had been riding by myself for a while and I was wondering where everyone else was. I threw my old bottle aside, grabbed a fresh one full of water, and kept riding. I took a glance over my shoulder and noticed that Joe was right behind me. I decided to hope for the best and wheezed, “Hey what’s up man?”

While riding was the only time Joe would ever converse with me, although still not in much detail. “Not too much,” he said, “I’m just riding to finish at this point.”

“Me too,” I added quickly, knowing neither of us would even break the top twenty places. I kept my mouth shut both to avoid inhaling any more dust and conversing further to Joe. We rode side by side for a while, and when we reached the end of the fire road, Joe allowed me to take the single track first. I led for most of the lap, contemplating the possible generosity of Joe’s action, but once we were a couple miles in, I realized it was just a tactical ploy as I hit a rock at an awkward angle. Suddenly the whole world turned upside down and I was on the floor. I glanced up toward the trees, catching a glimpse of Joe passing me quickly and disappearing from sight. I got up, had no time to dust myself off, mounted my bike, and rode on. I kept catching glances of the tail end of Joe’s bike as we cleared each enclosure. He was steadily gaining time on me, and as we reached the last fire trail descent, he was nowhere to be seen. I got to the final winding single track that would lead me to the finish line. I could not wait for the race to be over. I clipped a bush pretty hard, but stayed on my bike and as I reached the final switchback, I caught Joe at the bottom. I was closer to him as we went into the last switchback, roughly ten meters from the finish line. I carried much more speed than he through the final corner, which is exactly what led to my downfall. Nearly washing out on the slippery, deceiving pine needles, my wheels lost all their traction as I tried to take the corner too quickly. I unclipped my right foot from its pedal to get balanced out on my bike and avoid a high speed crash, but couldn’t recover the amount of speed I had cost myself. Joe had obviously anticipated this, and he sprinted for the finish, crushing his pedals, beating me by a single place. We didn’t exchange comments afterwards because we each knew that we had done our personal best but still failed to place well in the race. Later I would look at the results and they said that Joe had bested me by a mere four seconds. I was fine with this; he was obviously a better mountain biker than me. I had tried my hardest, and I didn’t do well by any standard, but the fact that I tried was all that mattered to me. My result was 24^th out of 54 kids, not something to be happy about at all. I should have been content, but nonetheless my over all experience in racing mountain bikes for Berkeley High has been one shadowed in doubt and misfortune.

For a while, I would have blamed my failure in the race on my low quality, incompatible, breaking components that were on my school rental bike. The more I contemplated the relationship between my teammates and myself, I realized what was lacking there. I hadn’t been able to work together positively with many of my teammates. As if the venom from Joe’s fangs had sunk into many of my fellow riders, I found it hard to consider myself a member of a team that could make me feel so disassociated and ostracized. In cycling, an ally may help you, but an enemy can do you more harm than the assistance that any teammate can bestow upon you. I would have to try harder next time.