Earning my Cervelo legs
By Alison Colavecchia
5.24.02 (www.slowtwitch.com)

When I started bike riding five years ago, I really thought my mission was to learn how to ride farther and farther. Over the years, though, doing that has presented a range of unexpected challenges—everything from dealing with farm dogs, trucks, hydration and nutrition, bike mechanics, riding alone, riding with company and bike handling. After getting my new bike last year (A Cervelo One- see My New Steed), I realized I wanted to become a better cyclist. I wanted to be able to cover the distances in my triathlons but I also wanted to be a more skilled and confident rider, and I wanted to have legs that matched my equipment. So I set my sights on earning my Cervelo legs.

To get there, I knew what I needed to do and it was the very thing I had avoided doing for the previous four years. I needed to join our local cycling club and commit to completing my first time trial. Riding solo would bring me this far and no further. So when Joel [Filliol, Alison's coach] asked me what my goals for the year were I put the time trial and completing the Rideau Lakes Ride, for I knew that to accomplish both I would have to join the club. In anticipation of doing so, I finally agreed to ride as much as possible with my roadie neighbor. Unbeknownst to him, I have dubbed him "Legs" for I have stared at and chased those legs, mile after mile for months, often with a heart rate hovering about the high 160s (his in the 130s).

In exchange for working at keeping up with "Legs", I have learned so much that even when I ride on my own, I hear his Scottish lilt coaxing me to among other things "pull in." Other tips over the miles have included "Alison, you’re taking up too much road," "Alison, relax, let the bike go" (over ice on skinny tires), "Alison, elbows touching," and " Alison, don’t use the brakes." Or one that I hope I will only ever hear once, "Alison, never, ever sit at the back of the pack for the first half of the ride and then start pulling in the second half at a hard pace, it’s a good way to make enemies." I have asked many questions and appreciated the opportunity to observe the answers, for it is one thing to be told the answer and another to be shown.

"Legs" is an avid and longstanding club member, consequently we have often bumped into other riders while out there, indeed his legs seem to just smell a pack and hammer in pursuit. His legs also do this whenever we are close to home. The first few times we happened upon other riders, I told myself to just shut up and pedal. I wasn’t concerned that they think me unsociable. I dared not fall behind. With this kind of riding in mind, I needed to learn to (borrowing Monty’s term) "evacuate" my nose on the go. I had no choice. If I was going to keep up and deal with all that winter goo it was the only way, they weren’t going to wait for me to use a Kleenex! Admittedly, I resisted this one for a long time believing it to be a disgusting testosterone-driven habit that had no place on a ride let alone a group ride! Now of course I am a devout practitioner.

The time trial will follow Lake Placid [IM USA] and so next up in the cycling department is the Rideau Lakes Ride. This is an annual ride the beginning of June between Ottawa and Kingston, Ontario. On Saturday you ride 180 km from Ottawa to Kingston, wake up Sunday and ride 180 km home to Ottawa. I will do so wearing a club jersey riding with three other men, all of whom have done this before. Indeed as a group they have a number of times taken cycling vacations to the Blue Ridge Mountains. One of them is even nicknamed "Perky" for the way he climbs. This worries me greatly, and so it is entirely possible that my first century ride will, less than 24 hours later, be followed by my second! To help me get more comfortable riding in a group we have joined the Saturday club rides.

The first time was a chance encounter. When we finally caught up to them I thought I was gonna fade fast. There was no way I could do a four hour ride at the speed and effort we were riding at. And then a funny thing happened. We hit the hills. As we moved through the hills, none of them particularly big, the pack dispersed and there we were up with the front of the pack. And this is the way things stayed for the rest of the ride. I discovered that indeed the hills separate the boys from the men, and the girls from the women. Months of training in the winter headwinds, over the hills chasing those perky "Legs," had paid off. I could last and I could climb.

What I was unaccustomed to though was not being able to see the road ahead or around me. When riding in a larger pack, this sensation was more than a little unsettling. You learn very quickly whom you feel safest riding around. Being in the pack, riding quickly was less physically difficult than I thought it would be. Indeed I was regaled with a few of the longstanding "triathletes who we have dropped" stories as well as some of the favourite club jokes. I started to write this article in my head feeling a little smug. Had I finished the article though, I would of course have written half the story. You see I had had beginner’s luck...

My second club ride was very different. After setting out from the parking lot, barely two kilometres away, I flatted out on my brand new training wheels. The front had a faulty valve and the tire took three people to get off and then back on. The whole peloton of thirty or so waited and waited. I felt very small. Then we began our ride. I had very tired legs from my run the day before, not the snappy ones of the first ride. We climbed our way up for over an hour. I struggled. I lost the front of the pack. Then I lost the middle of the pack and found myself hovering near the end. We finally arrived at our destination and I sucked back a coke, a donut and some Powerbar. We then began making our way back. I flatted a second time (yup, a pinch flat). This time a small but fast pack waited. I felt embarrassed.

The trip home was one hard interval after another. I chased, caught and slipped off pace for what felt like an eternity. If I so much as glanced at the scenery, sneezed or drank I lost them. I would watch them move away from me, so close yet so far—just a power burst of a minute or so, I would think to myself, and I’d be there, back in the fold. If I could just muster up a little leg power. I did this little routine over and over again until we were back. I was sooo glad to see the parking lot!

For now, I remain focused on getting all my miles in while working effectively, efficiently and cooperatively should I be out with there with others. I have come a long way toward improving my confidence across a range of situations, even the embarrassing ones. I have come to accept that some weeks it is your ride, some weeks it is not. I too will do my share of waiting on the days when it is not someone else’s day. I will do so willingly. Peloton riding truly is artistry in motion. What the Tour de France makes look so easy indeed takes an incredible blend of communication, manners and skill for a pack to ride well together.

Cycling brings to my triathlon experience that exquisite blend of fear and excitement, of familiarity and newness, of work and play. A single ride can at one moment bring exhilaration matched only by the thrill of a great roller coaster ride while at the next, it has you fearing for your life with the arrival of an untimely (or obnoxious) truck, dog or wind. Take a sip of water, eat, blow your nose or itch something and your pleasant but fast-paced group ride becomes a series of painful, seemingly never-ending intervals to catch up to the pack that got away. But what a cool thing to stop for coffee in the middle of nowhere only to find a gang of other cyclists already there, all exchanging thoughts about the wind, or about whom did or didn’t ride well in the time trial the week before. Discovering the camaraderie of this cycling community has been lovely—even if they do take coffee breaks and carry only one water bottle for a 5-hour ride.

Still Tri’n