The bits they editted out of The Cordillera

I have spent a good portion of my life’s allotment of Thursday evenings listening to Max Crawdaddy on 3RRR radio and it means that I do have a reasonable collection of 80s blues axe-gods on vinyl in the shed. One of my favourites was a guy called Roy Buchanan and he had a song called 25 miles. He sings of walking back home to his lady as he counts down the miles.

♫It's twenty five miles from home
Girl, my feet are hurting mighty bad♫

One of the few places on the divide that has regular milepost markers is the run into Antelope Wells and they are very welcome signs to see and you do count them down.

♫Come on feet don't fail me now
I got ten more miles to go♫

I did run a very conservative and cautious race strategy all the way down the Divide. I had to look after body, bike and brain and not always in that order. I may well have been too conservative at times but I suspect that is a rookie thing, all part of never really having been in any kind of bike race in my life, you just don’t know how hard and how far you can push yourself.

Bizarrely I thought it was my amazing bicycle falling apart in the last few miles. I could hear and feel all kinds of crunching from the left peddle and I had these visions of having to walk the final 10 miles to the border, which at this stage didn’t really worry me, it was super pleasant just being out there and you knew you were going to make it. It turns out the peddle crunching was all in my mind and we rolled on sweetly to the finish.

♫9, 8, 7, 6, 5 more miles to go….♫

I was desperately keen to catch back up with Michelle after having been apart for so long and having been acutely aware of how much she was worrying about me out there and having stopped early in Cliff the night before.

♫4, 3, 2, 1 more mile to go now… ♫

Then you finish, is that all there is? I have read many people talking about the fact there is nothing at Antelope Wells and it is all a bit anti-climactic. For me it is the perfect way to finish and other than maybe having someone very special there to meet me, I cannot think of a more appropriate way to complete the adventure. In many ways, the entire race is the ultimate in selfish endeavors. The finish should really be about self as well.

During the race, all of the living your life for and with others goes out the window, momentarily it is all about you. You don't have to worry about how anybody else is feeling, don't have to worry if the boss is happy or your staff are sick. You don't have to worry if there is enough milk in the fridge, or does the dog need to go for a walk. Don't need to worry about when the car insurance is due or needing to paint the mantle out the front because it is looking a bit weather beaten. You don't need to worry about whether it is the Sunday night that you ring and speak to mum or should I ring my sister because she rang last time. Is it bin night? Have I bought tickets to the football for next weekend yet? Does dad have enough wood in the shed for the rest of winter? Why haven't I seen Jaime for so long?  

None of that probably pretty important stuff matters for 3 weeks whilst you move slowly down the map. You are brought back to an elegant simplicity of eating, sleeping and cycling. Imagine being able to forget about all of that stuff for a bit because you are out there doing. In effect, all of the rewards need to come from within as well. 

There is a Buddhist parable sent to me by one of my best friends when I had written 15 paragraphs attempting to convey the why about my cycling endeavors.

Man: What is it about Zen that is special? All you do is sit and walk and eat.

Master: Yes. But when we sit, we know we are sitting. And when we walk, we know we are walking. And when we eat, we know we are eating.

When you race the Tour Divide, you know you are cycling, you know that you are eating and experiencing. The physicality of it. There is a connectedness with where you are and what you are doing.

I did have it suggested to me that I write about this as my one and only competitive cycling race, however, I am just not a competitive person and out on the course I wasn't competing against others. Particularly in the first half of the race I did push myself as hard as I could with the pitiful course and race knowledge that I had. I didn't check blue-spots at any stage or worry about where anyone else was. It was incredibly easy just to think that if I cycled as much as I could then anyone who finished in front of me has ridden really well and I probably would have been cheering them on.

I hope you understand how desperately proud I am of what I achieved out there and just getting to the starting line was a big part of that. If anything I have proven to myself that it is okay to start something big.

Junk kilometres rock.

I’d like to put in a big shout-out for junk-kilometres on the bicycle, where you don't count how far you are going, don't go fast and have no aim. It was “that guy’s” biography where it was mostly about the bicycle, that he alleged he wouldn’t jump on the bike unless it was for a ride over a certain amount of miles and part of his specific training plan. I’m guessing heart rate monitors, threshold effort and interval sprints, blah, blah, blah.  Shoot me now.

Yesterday was really getting me down with missing someone very much and somewhere between little and no interest in being at work. I didn’t have a plan, didn’t want to go home and thought I’d drop in to see the guys at Commuter Cycles who always help me out.

Turned off the Footscray Road path and headed up the Moonee Ponds Creek trail stuck behind someone who had ridden through the red light to get in front and then ride slow. You have to negotiate a few tight and blind corners in the first few kilometres so I was happy just to sit behind this joker and his unpredictable cycling.

There are the days when you feel good and strong on the bicycle and the mind is a bit sharp and focussed. Those are the days you engage in Commuter Racing, you see the pumped up rooster on the carbon fibre Fibonacci frame with matching kit and just know you are stronger than him. It was the opposite of that, just letting things happen, no effort as I pushed up past where I would have turned off to Brunswick . It wasn’t a conscious choice to keep riding, more of an awakening when I realised that I had missed the path to Commuter Cycles and the weather was nice and nothing at home for me.

Lots of options on how to get home from where I was but too much mental effort would have been involved in considering any of them so I just kept on cycling. No point cycling any faster at this stage even though I had long ago lost contact with any other cyclists out there. Bigger worry is running into any of the puppy dogs that are not on a lead and I was quite admiring how happy all of the dogs were yesterday enjoying their time out in the parks after being home alone all day.

Made it out to the Western Ring Road and again there are a few ways I could have cycled but there was one path there that I had never taken, leading further out of town. Yeah, why not take the one I have never been on? It ended up not doing much other than looping around for a few kilometres and before I knew it the sun had gone down and I was on the banks of the mighty Maribyrnong River on the wrong side of Brimbank Park stopping to try and take photos of what turned out to be the most amazing bright moon I can recall seeing for quite some time.

The cycle home from there was grand, the weather was cool without being brisk enough to warrant stopping and putting the thermals on. I did wonder if it would be more pleasant to just turn all my lights off and cycle along to the light of the moon but you only need one idiot and you end up being on the front page of the Herald Sun as Australia ’s most irresponsible cyclist.

I do not know where in the process and for me it is a process, I evolve from that feeling of empty, soulless and bereft of inspiration to feeling a bit like I can be a part of society for a while. I do know that it is usually when the mind starts composing again. It doesn’t really matter what it is, sometimes stories, sometimes poems or songs, sometimes lyrics of popular tunes playing in your mind to my own arrangement, because I don’t know all the words so why not just join up the various good words from multiple songs. Then there is the contemplation, the wondering, the solving of the worlds problems. 

Maybe something, somewhere, somehow the linkage between the physical, the importance of creativity and the soul. Then I am reminded that is only me. I need the physical to be creative. I have written good words in the past, words I have liked and could read again and consider myself clever for having written. Did I really write that? Was I ever that clever? That must have been an accident. I must have been that monkey within the infinite universe of monkeys that randomly hit the right keys to compose Shakespeare's Hamlet. Then I remember the day I quoted Hamlet back at someone only because I could and they thought I was clever but really just bad stuff from school, nearly the anti-clever. Compounded by my memories of the other times when I have not had the words, when thing didn't connect.

Why I cycle

I have done a lot of bicycle touring with all manner of people both locally and in far off places including three separate trips in the Americas up and over the Andes. They all threw up unique challenges and experiences that get told and retold amongst those I cycle with, although there are some stories that will forever remain untold and they are probably the best ones.

I can remember the first proper bike I ever owned. It was an old 24 inch, kids road bike that dad got from the tip in Bendigo. We sprayed it fire-truck red together and the marks stayed on the floor at home for years where we didn’t put the newspaper down correctly. It had the three speed Sturmey Archer gears and one of the vintage kilometre counters with the pin that pushed a cog with every wheel rotation. I rode it furiously in the way only a 12 year old could in a desperate chase for kilometres.

I’d get shipped off to dad’s every second weekend in the standard 70s solution to family breakdown and I would ride. Riding in from the backblocks of Epsom into the White Hills Gardens to see the monkey cages and return can’t have been more than a 6k return trip but I would repeat it time and time again.

Like anywhere just north of Bendigo, there were no hills and from memory only a couple of corners to negotiate. I can remember being bitterly disappointed for days the first time I had gotten close to but failed to reach the magical century for the weekend. I am probably less good at remembering the achievement of reaching the century a fortnight later but suspect that I had very tired little legs on the Monday morning.

Dad was inspired enough to pack our lives up onto the back of our bikes one school holidays and we did some long hot days up to Pyramid across to Boort and Donald then over to Halls Gap and back through Stawell. This was probably the trip where I discovered it didn’t matter which direction the road was going, you were always going to be riding into the wind. I think Dad’s knees packed it in shortly after cresting Mount Moliagul on the way home and my drunk Uncle Bob drove out to pick us up in his old Valiant.

I still periodically get that feeling of absolute pure joy from the freedom and escape from life when I am out cycling. Most recently I had an amazing quick weekend escape from Yarraville out to Yea and back home. My everyday commuter maybe a cheap second hand steel frame of Chinese origin but it is fully pimped with 32mm cyclocross tyres rackless panniers and I love her dearly. I did chase kilometres on that first day and tapped out a little over 260km on as much gravel as I could find. Once you get about 10km north of Craigieburn there is little need to ride on any bitumen.

I slept very soundly in my stealth camp just the other side of Tallarook and was bound for home just before sunup on the best dirt roads and the wind hinting at being my friend. I may have been sporting a pretty impressive saddle rash from the previous days effort but the legs felt primed and it was just magic cycling along watching the sun come up in the still morning air, chasing the kangaroos and looking forward to the bakery in Kilmore for some breakfast. It had been a long time since I had felt that free and just lucky to be alive and able to do what I do.

I did get to do the Ride to Conquer Cancer last year for Dad and it was much more than just raising the measly amount of money that I did scrape together with the awesome help and generosity of others. It was Dad that got me onto the bicycle in the first place and created that sense of adventure that the bicycle provides and inspires. When he had very little money, he still bought me books on Sir Earnest Shackleton and Sir Edmund Hillary and he loved those stories and grand achievements through perseverance and endurance.

When I talk about going off and doing a long ride to somewhere a bit different, I find it is either something people get immediately or something they will never understand. Sir Edmund Hilary, one of the most inspirational men of my lifetime was always being asked why he climbed mountains, I am guessing by people who didn't understand. I suspect that he just enjoyed being out there. I never feel more connected, vulnerable and yet engaged than when I am on my bicycle and above all I just enjoy being out there.

Hard core commuter

When you extend the commute into a long ride, you still think "commuter" things. Then if you go for a long ride on a Saturday you think "training" things. Don't know how that happens, I think I need to spend less time at work.

Then of course once your mind stops thinking about all of the things that give you hypertension, you start singing. Maybe you start singing and then stop worrying? Hmmm. Anyway, today was Paul Simon (with a shout out to Sarianna and of course Michelle and Leanne who are going to Graceland.)

This is something about how my mind was working on today's long ride.

Losing love is like a window in your heart. Decided to stop pining for the no longer with us red commuter. She was pretty as a prayerbook, sweet as an apple on Christmas Day. The Graphite Grouch may not have diamonds on the soles of her shoes but she has much higher end componentry and turns corners like a dream, like ready to duck back down the alley with some roly-poly little bat faced girl. I'll probably be less competitive doing the Footscray Road Bikepath Racerboy Challenge of an evening on the 26er against the pimped up roosters on their Italian frames but I'll still give it a go. And of course you can freak them out by jumping gutters and ripping a few mad skids. I'll take it easy, after all, I am following the river, down the highway. Leanne and Michelle are going to Graceland. Hopefully I'm going to New Mexico, no wonder they thinks I'm crazy.

my attempt at spirituality

Bizarre ride in this morning.

I am only on the Federation Trail for maybe 5km on the way out of town to get to the Ring Road Path. The Trail itself is not fun particularly before the sun emerges. It cuts the heart of Melbourne's industrial inner west. No street lighting and questionable surface. In the short time I was on it this morning I managed to drop the chain, get a puncture and nearly get taken out by a semi trailer for whom stopping at red lights is apparently optional.

After fixing the flat tyre I had had enough and turned around to head home instead of completing my planned long training ride. Fortunately I realised the folly of this before reaching home and did tap out a very slow but still acceptable 60km before work. Once I reached the Ring Road and did my big right hand turn I realised that I was going to be pushing into a really strong Northeasterly for the next 30km and was again ready to give up. In a desperate attempt to cheer the hell up I went searching inside my mind for some more Paul Simon but couldn't find any. Instead a bizarre combination of Lou Reed, The Lion King (left over from Saturday night) and The Dixie Chicks who have a couple of songs that are perfect for cycling. Stopped to take some photos of my nearly full moon behind some clouds and the emergence of the sun from the remnants of last night's storm.

No singing once I started cycling again. Pondered inventory consumption and some stock-turn calculations. Marvelled at the beauty of mathematics and then began to think about what my good mate Jimbob talked of yesterday as the great paradox. Still not reconciling a desperate need to take action, seek justice and general social agitation with a peace and tranquility that supposedly comes with an acceptance of where things are at. Maybe Buddhist principles should not be interpreted through a prism of black and white Western dogma or even cheap 80s pop culture.

Another big right hand turn to come down the storm swollen Moonee Ponds Creek path. Now I have the wind at my back but still have no energy or enthusiasm for a faster ride into work. Start mentally drawing up a list of potential coffee stops between where I am and work but put a line through that when thinking about the lack of good cherry-danish. Then start craving runny egg and bacon roll. Final bit of the commute is my least favourite with too many other cyclists and self focussed unpredictable pedestrians. Finally reconcile my Jimbob paradox with a grudging realisation that through necessity every single persons process of transformation is individual and I cannot own it anymore than anyone else even if I am far more worthy. Not only do I decide that bicycles are definately the answer but can see that how you choose to ride your bicycle is far more important than which bicycle you are on.