suf·fer v. suf·fered, suf·fer·ing, suf·fers v.intr. 1. To feel pain or distress; sustain loss, injury, harm, or punishment. 2. To tolerate or endure evil, injury, pain, or death.
Catch a cold, and you’ll catch some hell on the bike. Trust me. After nursing — for a week — a low-grade something-I-can’t-describe-except-as-what-sounds-like-a-smoker’s-hack, I rolled out today into the crosswinds. No snow, rain or mountains. Just the crosswinds and few rollers between home and the ocean. Sub-60F temps provided reason enough to break out the embrocation, turn the music up loud and go solo. Funny how quickly you can be humbled by an invisible foe after lounging on your duff for consecutive days. Today the wind kicked arse. I suffered like a mutt. You know, one of those ugly junkyard dogs roaming an alley for shelter.
Roadies enjoy tales of suffering, of epic rides that take them into painful — and often wild episodes — along the razor’s edge of their physical limits. After settling in and finding my legs [they sprang to life after 2 hours], I nailed down a rhythm in time to say hello to a glorious sunset. The art of suffering is mysterious, almost akin to black magic. Voodoo. Lightning in a bottle. You can’t really master it. But you can accept it. And once you do, that wind in your face is calmer, your thoughts become simpler and you surrender. Which makes you free. Ask any cyclist. Suffering on a bike transcends the mental and the physical. At some point, you go to a different place. You feel peace.
Related posts:
- Peaking If you dig climbs (who doesn’t have a favorite?), this is the time of year when you should start to actually enjoy the suffering. Skeptics may claim that “suffering” can’t be enjoyable, but cyclists (and other endurance-driven athletes) understand truth and paradox. Suffering happens when it’s early season and your...
- The art of suffering suf•fer \ˈsə-fər\ Verb suf•fered suf•fer•ing 1 a: to submit to or be forced to endure <suffer martyrdom> b : to feel keenly : labor under <suffer thirst> Suffer. No other word in the English language is more closely linked with professional cycling and amateur bike racing. Its sound alone evokes...
- Style, grace and form Easy spin today with a buddy who races UCI cyclocross. Serious enough to travel to Belgium and race Worlds (masters category). Watching him ride is instructive. I take mental notes: How his toes point down. How his knees track. How his head, neck and torso stay aligned and unconcerned by the...
- The Broom Wagon The Broom Wagon is grotesque. A sick four-wheeled infirmary. Inside: demoralized riders, shattered and hollow. Tired souls. Broken skin and bones. Vacant eyes. Tears of pain. You don’t want to get in the broom wagon. EVER. Don’t do it. Unless you’ve busted your collarbone into six pieces, deposited a quarter...
- Victory is what you make After yesterday’s solo suffering on Palomar Mountain, today was perfect for one thing: victory. Not in a race sense, but victory as in riding to enjoy the ride, drinking in views of the ocean and sharing more holiday company with others who embrace the cycling lifestyle. I pedaled with Brad...
