A bike ride is, of course, a means to travel from A to B, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. But there’s more to riding than these things. Never mind the direction and speed, just feel the flow. Here, cyclist, writer and editor Bill Strickland delves into what it means to find flow on the ride—any ride, any pace, any age.
They ridicule and respect me in roughly equal measure, the people who regularly ride with me, for my devotion to flow. The flow of a route, the flow of a two-up paceline, of a single paceline, of a good smooth pull and its swing-off and reintegration, the flow of a pack spread whichever way its intentions spread it, and the flow of a chase, a breakaway, even the flow of a coffee ride – a good social. I wouldn’t say that cycling is flow, but it would not be what it is without flow. And I don’t know if I have a better feel for flow than most, or simply care more for and about it, or if those are the same thing, but I can say with confidence that of all the many cyclists I have turned pedals with in all the many countries I’ve done so, I am one of the most passionate proponents of flow.
That, basically, is a mellifluous way to say that if you ride with me, I won’t shut my mouth about flow. When it’s good, I sing praises to it; when it’s bad, I mutter and bark instructions on summoning it. And if there’s none at all, I sulk.
Even so, it is only recently that I accepted that even a cyclist’s life has flow. I’ve known this for years, of course. But it’s only in the past two or three, out of my forty-plus as a committed cyclist, that I’ve done with my life what I have exhorted, cajoled, demanded, and pressed others to do on rides: Embrace this particular flow.
I was rarely and generally never the best rider in any of the scenes I was a part of, any groups I threw in with, any rides I signed up for, any races I did (and, yes, any inGamba tours I took part in). But I was one of the best, and almost always. Never naturally so. My proficiency came not from genetics but a combination of various levels of fitness, incessantly growing levels of savvy and ride craft, an inborn tenacity that’s been a blessing and a curse throughout my life, and an embarrassing amount of pure, simple enchantment: I’m just crazy about cycling, for whatever reason and for all the many reasons many of us are — nothing special to how special cycling is to me. For however much cycling matters at all to the world, it matters all the world to me. I was probably mostly good enough to be tolerated by the very good, to harmlessly amuse the great (I wasn’t going to knock them down or otherwise get in their way or expect them not to drop me), to be very average among the good, and great among the average. And more and more so: As I learned more, tried more, cared more, I got better. And better. And on and on my cycling life went like that. For years. Decades. What a wonderful flow it was to find oneself in.
But.
I am here to tell you that the longstanding local lunch ride now kicks my ass. First to the crest? Never. Sprint victory at the town sign? Only when no one else cares. The one everyone looks to for the pull when the wind is bad and time is short and steadiness is needed as much as strength? Someone else. A few years ago, some of the newer riders around here got to where they wanted to give racing a try, so I took them on over to our area’s most established criterium, a 30-lap points race on a mile loop (scored 5-3-2-1 every third go-round). I decided I’d jump in, too. Took a dig and got a gap and held it and just like old times scored a sweet five in front of impressionable crew and new girlfriend. Then two laps later, got dropped coughing and hacking, and when I finally abandoned I pulled to the side and clicked out and stood shaking beside my bike and, while Laura patted my back, threw up. I still know how to race, but I’m not a racer any more, any more than I am the lunch-ride legend, or any other kind.
That’s okay. Now. It wasn’t then, and it wasn’t when I was still thinking I could dominate the lunch rides again if only…
If only nothing. Friends, the flow of my cycling life was still as smooth and wonderful as any of the cycling flows I’ve ever been part of. I was just fighting against it. Had been. For years. Thinking of myself, even when I no longer raced, as the racer I was. Beating myself up for not beating up everyone on the lunch ride. Wondering when all my old familiar hills had gotten higher, their slopes steeper, the run-ins on the river-road home longer, the winds blowier and the air moved within them thicker. I kept thinking I needed to get back to the way I was. I hadn’t realized what I was trying to do was go back.
That’s not how flow works. You gotta go with it, not against it.
These days I am. I go out and there are moments when I still try like hell, because I can’t not, but the fires of that hell don’t burn the way they used to. When some kid gets cocky and I sense the right opening, I can still put someone in a hole. But the holes are never so deep as once they were, and people don’t stay down in them as long as they used to. If the group forgets about me, I can lay off and hide until the crux comes then spend every damn bit of energy and gumption I got, and I’ll for sure be there when it all happens, be one of the protagonists, be there when it matters. But I’m not one of the riders who makes it happen, or who makes it matter.
And that’s more than okay. It’s somehow as great as it ever was. Riding. Being out there. Being out there with my friends, being out there alone, in the morning sun, when the evening is coming on hard and I’m riding harder for home, in the rain, in snow that flurries in front of me but does not stick, in a deliciously chewy crosswind, in a downhill corner driving my outside pedal and the inside handlebar drop groundward as if my life depends on it because it probably does, sitting at my girlfriend’s coffee shop after doing only 30 miles instead of 70, two counties away running into someone I used to ride with and having a chat as we roll then part ways…
I can’t explain why not being as sharp as I used to is so good, and I can’t even really justify it – especially if I were trying to do so to a younger me, who would’ve seen anything I say as an excuse – except to say one thing: I’m riding with the flow.
This story was first printed in inGamba’s THE MAGAZINE. To get a copy, join us on a trip or get in touch.
