Collective Concern

A funny thing happened. I used to belong to the world of the self. I used to look out just for myself. I used to expect only my family to help me.

And, then, I joined this funny, sort of punkish, sort of tattooed, sort of gritty, sort of not me group called The Campus Cycling Collective.

And, then I rode bikes for about a year. And, I started noticing something.

First, it started with a guy fixing my bike for free on a ride, and a PBR and some hummus after, no cost. Then it was a free pair of shoes from a woman. Then, I gave these people some presents. I gave some brussel sprouts to the guy and some coffee, pencils and chocolate to the woman and her family.

Then, I rode and I rode and then. Then, I got hit by a car walking across the street and I started having nightmares of snakes in my room. I’d wake up yelling.

Then, my knee hurt because of the car. Then, I talked to a few friends and they mentioned a guy.

Then I went to that guy and I’m going to use his name even though I never use people’s names. I went to see Craig Labadie at Buffalo Alternative Therapies and I walked in and he started asking me questions and I told him about all my problems. My knee. My stomach. The stress.

Then he took me into this quiet room with people resting. Resting. My family has to remind me to rest. I was actually going into a room to rest. Then I took off my shoes and he put these ever so gentle pins into my knee, my ankles, my collarbone, and my forehead.

And I sat there. I stayed pretty still.

And then, he came back and he took them out and then when I went to pay I paid on a price scale. I paid what I could afford. I can’t afford getting acupuncture at a high price often, but at Craig’s price I could. So, I paid and it was an exchange of money for service and I said goodbye. I left feeling really positive.

And then about three months later, I wanted to get this movie to come to Buffalo called “Half the Road.” I needed eighty people to buy tickets to get it to happen. It was going well. People were buying tickets but it was getting closer and I wasn’t sure it would happen. I was preparing for it not to happen, until one day a friend sent me a text and said, check your Facebook and I did and I saw that Craig was offering to buy fifteen tickets and then give these tickets away as prizes at bike races.

I was floored.

So, I messaged Craig and it was a great way for me to have another acupuncture visit so I said I’ll talk to you when I come in.

And he said that he really wanted to make this happen. He and his wife, Neilie, were huge supporters of women’s cycling and they really wanted to help me with this.

So, I went in with an armful of sunflowers because I couldn’t quite express my happiness and sincere appreciation in any other way than flowers. And on my way out, he said, “I know you’re really close to getting the eighty, but if you still need help, let me know.” I couldn’t believe his concern. It made me feel like a just watered plant.

And, then people seemed inspired and my lovely friend bought two and then Campus Wheelworks popped up and bought five tickets and it got me to the goal.

So. I’ve been studying. I’ve been studying Sweden because I want to bike there next spring, but something I’ve been really interested in are individualistic societies and collective societies. In individualistic societies people look after themselves and their direct families. In collective societies, people belong to a social set that will take care of them in exchange for their loyalty to that society.

I have many aspects of my life: writing, reading, art, running, soccer, yoga, Zen, filmmaking, sailing, et cetera, et cetera. But cycling holds a special place in my life.   I like looking at all these cyclists when I’m out having a drink with them or reading their comments on Facebook or watching how they respond to each other and I like studying how they act.

Craig Labadie, a cyclist, has a business model of acupuncture on a scale. He is offering something incredibly unique. To me, it is progressive. It is therapeutic. It is a kind, careful product that you exchange money for but it is based on you and your lifestyle.

I live in Buffalo so I can do exactly what I’m doing right now. It’s 10:40am and I am drinking espresso and writing. I live here because it’s cheap. I live here and I’m not trying to make a million dollars. I’m trying to have time. I really appreciate it when someone helps me and doesn’t take too much from me or gives to me and allows me to give back to them in some way.

My next step of the morning: I’m just about to make an end of the year massage appointment with Neilie, Craig’s wife who has worked with professional cyclists (the women of Saturn Cycling Team included among others). I want this massage as a treat for a hard, but fun, racing season. My body hurts. I need to go back into Buffalo Alternative Therapies, into that space, and soothe myself.

I feel the cycling movement in Buffalo is many things, but one of it is collective concern. It is concern for each person as another human being in the world, wanting to help her, protect her, soothe her and allow her to have her own voice.

 

Check it out: http://buffaloalternativetherapies.com/

A-okay.

I’m taking a writing challenge this week. It’s to write a list, so I thought I’d make a bike list.

List of reasons why I am good at this sport

1. Even saying this feels wrong because I am not good at this sport.
2. I am trying to be good at this sport.  That counts for something, yes? Yes.
3. I went to two races.
4. My coach one time said I had good bike skills.
5. Man, I wish bike skills counted for more.
6. I am good at this sport in my heart because I am passionate about it. I may not be so good in the legs, but I’m good in the heart.
7. I can keep up really easily on the B sweaty Tuesday Night Rides. After I do those twenty miles, I feel like I could easily do ten more.
8. People sometimes say, “You’re doing great.”
9. I have drive.
10. I am motivated.
11. I’m not going to fucking quit.
12. I smile when I ride.
13. I have my bike clothes on right now for a ride that will happen at 4 and it’s only 2:18. I’m that excited to go today.
14. I am good at working hard in my writing, at my job, why can I not work a little harder while on the bike? I never feel like I work hard enough.      
15. I put so much pressure on myself sometimes I feel like I’m going to implode.
16. Do not implode. I finished both races.
17. I did cyclocross even though I really was terrible, terrible and I thought that was fun and hard.
18. There are some things people do that they are good at and naturals at and some things people do that require a lot of work. My friend told me I’m really good at reading (Thanks BP).
19. I have increased how fast I can go.
20. I have increased how far I can go.
21. I am good at this. I am just not really good at this. I am beginner good.
22. I am athletic, maybe not an elite athlete, but I’m doing alright.
23. An earlier self wouldn’t even try this because it’s intimidating. I am trying it.
24. I am doing okay.
25. I feel a lot better.
26. Thank you list.

 

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_writing_challenge/list-lesson/

DFL

Dead fucking last never felt so nice.

I can feel bad that I was so far behind. I can feel bad that each time I went up the hill, I slowed to 10 mph. I can feel embarrassed. I can feel self-pity. I can feel like I’m not actually cut out for this. I’m not actually a bike racer, not an elite or endurance or super competitive athlete. I’m not an extreme cyclist. I’m not this. Not them. Not me. I can feel all those things, but I choose not to.

I choose something different.

I choose the perfume of the budding trees coming up the hill. I choose the little boy who yelled, “Hi” to me. I choose the man who came up to me after the race, a smile as wide as a four-lane highway and said, “You did it!” I choose those guys from The Bike Shop who let me hang on their wheel for a bit. I choose the smile I felt from biking in the Niagara wine trail. I choose sunlight. Freedom. Good, strong breath. Joy. This is what I choose.

Today I raced 30.75 miles at Freedom Run Winery. I pulled my car up to a bunch of men and a few women and the guys from The Buffalo Bicycle Club waved at me in some sort of gentle welcoming—a slight movement that said, “Yes. Come. You are welcome here.”

I got on my bike and it was so loud. It clicked and clicked and I took a lot of grief from my fellow cyclists, and the clicking kind of drove me insane, but in another way, it was kind of okay because it was sort of funny.

I went for a short warm up ride with my teammate. Two women. Two bikes. Nickel City Cycles kits. I said, “My goal is to stay on the pack as long as I can, and then once I’m dropped, just ride it out and keep up my cadence.” My teammate said her goal was to work on her mental game. Then we talked about our lives and whispered secrets that only women know and we laughed and we turned around and stood in the line of category five racers.

“Alright. You do one lap together and then you get to that cone and then you launch.”

I looked over at my other teammate, “Launch!”

“Launch!” She said back to me through a laugh and a friendly smile and a great attitude and I didn’t know it then and neither did she (except in some hidden room of her self perhaps), but she would actually win the race.

Then, we were off and I fell back and the practice lap was hard and I took a Campus guy’s wheel because Campus men are nice and cool and are pretty much always going to help you. He got us back to the pack and I was fine after that.

When we got to the cone, everyone did “launch” but I just kind of “kept going the same.” I got dropped at the hill and I was a bit disappointed I didn’t stay on longer, but I didn’t and then it was about finishing the race.

And, I did. I bloody well did. And now I choose to be quite proud of that fact.

A Woman Riding Along

Through the forest and by the lake, it smelled of pine. It was up and up and up and then down, so glorious, down. Thirty-three miles per hour of pure freedom, of flying down the hill, of this is why I do this, of I am in love with the world.

I was a bit nervous to go to the Cyclofemme ride in East Aurora. I didn’t know anyone who was going. I had chatted over messages to the coordinator, but I had yet to meet her. It was important to me to go though. I like that this is an international event. I like that it is for a purpose: to celebrate women’s cycling. However, I was still nervous as I have been having some trouble with my food intake and I didn’t know how I’d do on twenty-five miles of hills. Twenty-miles of flats the other day at Grand Island was terribly hard because I didn’t have enough food in me.

This day though it was all sunshine and smooth East Aurora roads and I was doing way better than I thought. I was keeping up in the front no problem. Then, we went up the first hill and my spirit broke: how am I going to do this? The hill wasn’t what I’m used to on Tuesday night rides in Buffalo or out in Lancaster for training. This was an actual hill. It was up and around a bend and up and around a bend and up and around a bend and keep going and my breathing is heavy and people are passing me and I’m thinking, “How are you doing this so easily?” Then the coordinator comes up to the side and she is sunshine in human form. She is light and bright and easy going and gives me some tips and I understand more about gearing and I say, “Are we last?” And she says, “No! There are people behind you. Everyone’s going their own pace. You’re doing great!” So, my heart is lifted and I respond well to positive feedback and I feel motivated and I kick my legs into working order and I get my breathing back and this is when I do the scenery trick.

The scenery trick is as follows. Instead of thinking I’m a pro cyclist who is in the Tour de France and there is this insurmountable pressure on me, I think of myself as my grandmother riding her bike in wartime England. My grandmother tells me about this quite often. She tells me how she used to ride in high heels and a dress from Birmingham to Stratford on Avon and back again. She actually met my grandfather riding a bike. I love this idea. In my head, I become the woman in high heels just riding along, enjoying the scenery. I am not competition or frustration or self-doubt; I am simply a woman riding along.

So, I play the scenery trick and I see the peeling paint barns and the grey barking dog and smell the wood fireplaces and I see the smooth roads winding and winding upward and I just think: what will I see next? There is so much to see out here in this beautiful place of the arts and craft movement. There is so much to see in this world when one is traveling by bike.

I get through each hill and sometimes it is still hard and one time I take a drink of some water and drop my water bottle and have to circle back and I become almost the last one, but then I catch up and I’m back in the ride and I’m chatting with the other women and it’s fun. My legs are warm and my heart is full from being outdoors in the sun and the breeze.

And, I am simply a woman riding along.

 

 

Empty but Full.

And every day it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And every day it sucks. And every time I am the worst. And every day it’s too hot and I’m too thirsty and my legs are too tired and I want to turn around. And every Monday morning at training I want to quit. I want to throw up. I want to cry. I want to keel over. I want to leave this to cyclists who know what they are doing. I want to stop. Stop. Stop. Now.   I did this too early. I did this too soon. I only started cycling last year. And I am defeated in this training.

But, every time, with the sun and the grass and the wind and it’s so effing beautiful out there on a road on this exquisite bike and you are not intellect or a brain or thought, you are machine and you are moving and you are going faster than you thought you could and you are in a pace line and you are a cog and you are movement and you are moving, moving, moving.   You are. Going. Fast. Now.

This is being the least experienced, the least fit, the least knowledgeable, the least confident. This is being that red lantern that gets dropped five times on a ride. This is being in the middle of farm fields by yourself and telling your legs to keep going, telling yourself to keep going even though you want to stop because you are so embarrassed that you could be this terrible. This is your coach slowing down behind everyone else and letting you hop on his wheel and telling you strategy and telling you how it is and his words are pure and simple and they cool your nerves. This is you getting to the stop sign where your teammates are and them not making fun of you, but rather congratulating you. This is your teammate bringing you espresso goo because she is kind and good and smart. This is for the camaraderie that is only found on a team. This is for that admiration, adoration, acceleration that comes with being on Nickel City Cycles.

So, for all this rot I talk about myself you’d think I’d be this weak meak mite of a person, but you’re wrong. I’m strong. I’m so strong because of this weakness. I am so strong because I am doing something so hard for me. I find strength in learning to defeat my weakness. It’s the survivors that know the depths of their strength. It’s those who keep going and push themselves and their minds are empty of confusion. They are muscle and movement and moments colliding together to create now. Just now.

This is what it means to compete. I am in competition with the self that tells me I can’t. I am competing with the self that tells me I am weak. I am competing with the self that tells me to give this up. I am in this competition. And. I will win.

Sense Appeal

The streets are flooded with a thousand moments of cold.  It bites my cheeks, my thighs, my toes; it curls onto my neck and like a snake it stings my throat.  Toronto. Two weekends ago.  Fourteen Degrees.

And then, and then, and then, there it is: a café in the middle of the street—hidden in a disguise.  It pretends to be an ordinary shop, next to a Dollar Store, near a Tim Horton’s, but it is no such thing.  Stepping inside, we are in black and white Helvetica font.  We are in a café that nods to Italy with its big espresso maker and its roasting coffee smell and the man behind the counter with rings on his pinkie fingers.  It is called “Sense Appeal.”

Inside, a man sits with a coffee and a Canadian accent and a cycling hat, brim folded upward.  I overhear the conversation between he and the barista.

“Yeah.  Think I’ll get a Cannondale.”

I want to join in.  I want to say, “Perhaps consider a Felt,” even though I know nothing of bikes in any real way.  I only know that I am happy with my Felt.  I love riding it.  I love how light it is.  I love the deep royal blue that lines its white frame.  It is my bicycle and I adore it.

I point out this café, this conversation, to highlight the community that is out there that I am only now just stepping into.  Before, I saw my brother-in-law’s love of cycling, but I never was in the biking movement.  I was in my little black car, stick shifting away down the streets—missing out on the joy of not only riding, but that connection you feel with another human being when you like the same thing.  It is the same threads of joy that connect sailors or hikers or photographers: the lines of passion that stream between them, gently lacing strangers together.

This conversation occurs in another country, albeit, not one far from here, and there is something lovely about that.  There is something absolutely lovely about stepping into a café and feeling a connection with this man because he likes to ride his bike and so do I.

On the way out, I smile at him and in this way, it is a cross-cultural communication facilitated by the spirit of bikes.

I recently applied to the MA program at the University at Buffalo for Innovative Writing and for some reason, in the personal statement I mentioned I was on a bike team and attempting to be a cyclist.  I said, “I don’t know why I am telling you this but I think for some reason this connection between biking and writing will be important in my life.”  I never would have thought that a year ago, but now I do.  I ride to write.  I write to ride.  I am not the fastest on my team.  I am pretty much the worst, but in this way I am a close observer: I ride with my eyes, my mind, my heart open.  I am riding to get better.  I am writing to get better.  Both activities make me a part of this community that I never knew existed.

I want to see where this takes me.  If accepted into the program at UB, I declared that I would like to study French Feminism, but I am wondering now if I’d like to study cycling and Feminism.  Is this even possible?  If two men were having a conversation about bikes in Canada—what else is out there?  How is the bicycle used in India for women?  How is it used in Afghanistan as a symbol of freedom?  What else could the bicycle represent?

Questioning is the first step.  The answers, hidden now like tulip bulbs underground, will come.