This wheel's on fire

Okay, well, not quite, but it was a start.

On a 62-degree Presidents' Day, I hauled out my "hybrid" bike and hit the road in Prospect Park. To complete the Montauk Century this May, this sort of thing will have to happen a lot. But much angst attached itself to this ride, more than just "first ride of spring" rustiness. For one thing, I'd never actually ridden alone in the park before; it's always been me and Child. For another, I now had a goal in mind beyond stopping for ice cream or a verdant rest stop, and both the bike and I were going to have to "measure up" to something big in a relatively short time.

The ride turned out both daunting and exhilarating. I got around the park drive twice; the most I've ever ridden before was a single circuit (about 3.5 miles). And I got up the East Drive hill without stopping. Okay, I went so sloooowwwwly (maxed out with the effort) that the bike was nearly stationary, but I did not stop. And the second circuit felt better than the first; and when I got really tired and cranky on the hill, I looked up into the bare tree branches for sleeping owls. (None found, but I never stop hoping.) The few spin classes I've taken with Team in Training have brought me from zero fitness to maybe a 1.5 on a scale of 10, and that means change is possible.

(Talk about change: Here's the Bandshell in winter, empty but for one young baseball lover and his parents. By next summer, it will be a sea of music-lovers on sultry nights.)

Now the bad news: equipment and speed. Equipment first: There's a reason that our gear coach on TNT pulled out my exact model of bike as a demo of what not to ride on a Century. Doing 100 miles on something heavy, with fat tires and a squishy suspension, requires you to be "that much stronger," he said. (Oh, yeah, that's me, sure.) And now I notice a lot of other stuff: the lack of power when I don't have toe clips or cages (like in spin class), the way the gears slip and catch instead of changing smoothly, the pummeling of wind on my chest when I sit upright. Damn, I probably do need a road bike.

And as for speed: I roughly estimated mine at about 7 miles an hour. One hundred miles at 7 mph = oh, shaddup. If I'm going to make it to Montauk in under a fortnight, we'll have to up the pace a bit.

Still, today felt like my initiation into the very bottom rung of a fraternity: the Park Bikers. As drafting packs of elite jersey-clad racers zipped past me (and as little old ladies zipped past me), I mentally "connected to the cause" (a TNT-speak). There is a world hidden away from us in plain sight, in which IV bags, monitors, radiation machines and test results weave a thicket around some of our neighbors, kids included, who are in a fight for their lives against blood cancer. If you see me looking like a dork in my purple-and-white Leukemia and Lymphoma Society jersey, panting up that hill for a third circuit, then good; for a moment, they won't be invisible.

Did I mention that I have a TNT fundraising website and that you can donate online with a click? If witch hazel can bloom in winter, anything's possible!

This wheel's on fire,

Rolling down the road,

Best notify my next of kin,

This wheel shall explode!

--Bob Dylan

 

Comments

[Coach Matt]

Way to go!!! Good for you for taking advantage of the weather.

Getting out on the road is more than half the battle. Getting out on the road alone - an even bigger challenge.

I assure you, that you are never really alone in this effort.

Keep up the effort and you will have a very very good ride to Montauk.