I did my third NYC Century, which is a 100-mile loop around the four real boroughs of New York (sorry, Staten Island), beginning and ending at the top of Central Park. The first time I rode it two years ago, it was the most amazing experience of my life: I was on an aluminum frame hybrid that was in decent shape at the time, riding in sneakers, a wifebeater, and bike shorts. I hadn’t ridden more than 30 miles at a stretch before then, though I commuted 4.5 miles to work each way, every day. Adrenaline carried me 70 of those 100 miles, and the thought of crossing the finish line took care of the next 30. I’d never done anything quite like it before, and, suffice it to say, doing it the following year on the same bike (plus a year’s worth of wear and tear) was less exciting.
A friend who has gone skydiving hundreds of times in his life once told me about the first time he ever did it, and how afterwards he had an adrenaline headache for 4 days. These days when he goes up and jumps, he says he thinks about bills, what he’s doing later in the day. Obviously, it’s not the same, most basically because I wasn’t jumping out of a plane on my bike, but I began to understand what he meant. I rode my new bike this year, an all-carbon racing bike at whose wheels I’ve worshipped at other times on this blog. The speed and comfort increases were a vast improvement, but I was astounded at how my familiarity of the course — which changed very little over the three years I’ve ridden it — as well as the vast improvement in my physical endurance made the experience a little, well, boring. I got two flat tires right at the end of the course (in the same wheel, which was annoying and frustrating, and made me feel shitty for holding up my riding partners), and so I crossed the finish line in peak physical condition but with low morale. This was, I’ve decided, my final New York City century. Next year I’ll ride one in Connecticut (or wherever I happen to be living!) because I can happily, obnoxiously proclaim, “Oh, that 100-mile course around New York City? Meh.”
I’ve never been much of a team player. I didn’t participate in team sports as a kid, largely because I was busy doing other things, but also because though I was athletic (fast, lithe), I tended (okay, still tend) towards clumsy. Also, I had a pretty thin skin as a kid and would cry or get unduly frustrated every time a coach or fellow teammate called me out for doing something wrong. My team sports experiences ended in 8th grade, after I won Most Improved Player on my basketball team…for the second year in a row. I’ve always been sort of a loner / why-trust-anyone-else-to-do-it-when-I-know-I-can-do-it-better-myself-type person, at varying times to my success as well as my detriment. I like competing against myself; I do NOT like competing against other people.
Cycling has been something, then, that dovetails nicely with my affinity for self-challenge, as well as the undeniable thrill I, as a generally gregarious person, feel when doing something with a group of people. I imagine it’s different on an actual cycling team, but riding with a pack affords you the ability to push your own limits and commune with yourself, as well as existing as a part of a larger whole for small pockets of time. The kinetic energy of the pack is exciting and addictive, and part of the thrill of participating in such a large event is that there is the potential to cycle with several different groups over the course of the ride. You make jokes with your fellow riders, you engage in small talk. You can hear each other’s breathing. You create a symphony of shifting chains, pedal clips, “clear!” It’s wonderful, and I’m so glad I’ve discovered it.
