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Bill  On The Road

 by: Bill Oetinger  6/1/2000

Why do we do it?

A few months ago in this column, I wrote a rambling account of my first double century...the 1993 Davis Double. I ended with a rhetorical question: why would any sane person choose to put themselves through such an ordeal? I didn’t answer the question then because I felt the account, like a double itself, had gone on long enough at that point.

Now it is June, and it seems like a good time to try and answer that question. June is a benchmark month in the world of California doubles. Usually it marks the traditional end of the double century season, where riders look back over their recent big rides and bask in the glow of accomplishment or vow to do better next year. Of particular local note, it is the month for the Santa Rosa Cycling Club’s Terrible Two, a double century so hilly and--sometimes--so hot, that it’s considered by many riders to be the hardest single-day cycling event in the United States. (This is of course a highly debatable point. As Director of the Terrible Two, I’m not claiming it’s the hardest, but the fact that it even gets consideration as such indicates it’s a fairly hefty challenge. For what it’s worth, a veteran of the Race Across America--often considered the toughest multi-day ride in the country--said a couple of years ago that no moment on RAAM was as hard or as painful as any number of moments on the Terrible Two.)

To do any double is a challenge, and to do one as tough as the Terrible Two pushes even elite-level riders to the limits of their abilities, stamina, and resolve. If you hang around the long-distance cycling scene long enough, you will hear horrific war stories of “death march” rides that will make your flesh creep and your hair curl: men and women struggling on, grimly, stubbornly refusing to give up, even when pushed to the point of physical collapse, mental stupification, and emotional bankruptcy. Riders retell their horror stories after the fact with an almost morbid glee...the more gruesome, the better. Why do we put up with such abuse?

A non-cycling friend of mine once asked me that question: why would I beat myself up on such grueling long-distance bike rides...what was the point? In a letter I wrote to him, this was my response:

You wonder why people choose to pursue such goals...why labor and strain and endure so much for something of no real concrete value? For me, the answer is complex almost beyond explanation. Many things enter into it. First and most basic is the joy of being fit...being able to carry my body (the temple of my soul) out into the mountains and the forests and the spirit-lifting places of nature. And I don’t just mean a dawdle around the local park. No, you have to really stretch your limits to feel the true exhilaration, when the body is purged and the mind is washed clean. Think of it as two-wheeled yoga.

There is the warm and supportive esprit de corps of the extended family of long-distance riders, most of whom know one another, and all of whom share an understanding about living on the edge that most “normal” people will never understand. It’s the same sort of bonding with a group that makes tough old professional athletes teary-eyed about retiring and leaving their teammates behind.

Then there’s the simple fun of bombing down a twisting mountain road at 40-mph, swishing through the turns, wind whipping by, bike nearly silent. It’s the freedom of flight, the thrill of speed, the little tickle of danger. Not to mention all that great scenery passing in review for all of those miles.

But all of these pleasures and thrills can be bought at a cheaper price than that exacted in a 200-mile marathon. The big payoff in riding so far, so long, is in rising to new heights in the realms of overcoming adversity: pain, exhaustion, and above all, mental and emotional weakness. Like all other endurance sports, long-distance cycling is finally and most importantly about dealing with one’s own inner turmoil...putting one’s own house in order and finding the calm center and the will to see a hard job through to a successful conclusion. Hey, if it were easy, everybody could do it, and it wouldn’t be that big a deal, right?

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how strong men stumbled, or where the doer of good deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the enthusiasms, the devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at best, knows in the end of triumph and high achievement and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.” --Theodore Roosevelt

“Nothing can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than successful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” --Calvin Coolidge

Those two quotes by former Presidents could serve as well for any upbeat business seminar or for a football half-time pep-talk, but the verities transcend the context. To have tried your hardest and to have failed (as most of us have done at least once, if not often) and to have come back again and again is to reach into your heart and soul and mind and to bend them--along with your sometimes uncooperative body--to your will. To accept your limitations and to acknowledge your frailties, but to carry on regardless and accomplish something few others can even comprehend, much less do. That is why we do it. Mind over matter. Spirit over mortality.

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Afterword: I wrote the words above a few days before participating in this year’s Davis Double Century. Now it is the day after the event, and I’m sitting here, licking my wounds and trying to recover from one of the most punishing and ultimately dismal days I’ve ever spent on a bike. No need to go into the ugly details. Suffice it to say I did not triumph over my own frailties, nor over the 200 miles or the 100° heat. I was beaten yesterday by a ride--supposedly the easiest of the doubles--that I once casually dismissed as a “gimme.” I now have remembered what I should never have forgotten: with doubles, there are never any gimmes. But as I said above, if they were easy; if everybody could do them, then finishing one wouldn’t be so special.

Bill can be reached at srccride@sonic.net



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