Two Centuries of Cycling

After a long day on my bicycle, I feel refreshed, cleansed, purified. I feel that I have established contact with my environment and that I am at peace. …Even if I did not enjoy riding, I would still do it for my peace of mind.
Paul de Vivie
early 20th century cyclist and writer

A Century Last Weekend
I did my last long training ride – a century - on the weekend. Everything felt great, although I am still fiddling with the positioning of my saddle to achieve something resembling comfort – of which there is not a lot after 162 kilometres on a bike. Somehow in the last year either the saddle has changed shape or I have. Otherwise it was a beautiful ride up and down the hills in Algonquin. A sort of Lite version of riding up and down the mountains of the Okanagan.

I have managed to complete my Ironman training this year without tumbling from my bike, a gift for which I am grateful. If the gentle motorists of this city will allow me to pass safely among them on my way to work for one or two more days, I might actually make it to the starting line in Penticton this year.

I had a few Whitman-like moments through the day, celebrating the strength and power in my legs as my muscles responded to my wishes and drove the bike forward. Not for the first time, I was reminded how much I enjoy training for a challenging athletic event; the rewarding process of growing stronger while gaining optimism and confidence. It is really during the training phase, not the race itself, that I feel the most in synch with my abilities and goals. To borrow from Robert Pirsig, it is the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.

The bike portion of a triathlon is the only segment that requires a mechanical device. The swim is immersion in an alien element. The run calls for a serious meeting of foot and pavement. It is during the bike that we get to explore our relationship with technology.

As I pedal, I notice the motion of my feet and legs. Clipped into the pedals, my feet are made to describe perfect circles approximately 340 millimetres in diameter. I can change the position of my leg muscles by standing up for a while, but the feet keep turning those same circles on their pedals, limited by the length of the crankset. In this way our legs become pistons and we become a part of the machine, governed by its specifications.

However it is an incomplete machine; a bicycle requires not only a power source but also a commanding will, or else it is just a piece of finely-crafted but useless hardware. The bicycle will carry us great distances at speeds and efficiencies we could never achieve on our own, but it requires active collaboration from us.

We are the engine and the will; the bike is the means. Neither operates without the other and each makes the other greater. Thus the act of cycling becomes a synergy of technology and pure human ability.


A Century Ago
The term century, which we use to describe a 100-mile bike ride, made me think of the beginning of the last century and the early days of bicycling.

Much like today’s urban cyclists, the riders of a hundred years ago seemed to regard cycling as the cure for many ills. “…already it’s in our midst,’ read an ad for Massey Harris bikes in 1902. “No fad now - just a sensible mode of exercise easy to take”.

Cycling in the early 20th century had its share of purists. There was resistance to the addition of variable gears because some thought they made it too easy to pedal up hills and thus detracted from the wholesomeness of the sport. One fellow of the time expressed the opinion that such mechanical fripperies such as “the artifice of the derailleur” should only be used by “people over 45”. As I am pedalling up to Richter Pass next weekend I will be thankful that his attitude didn’t prevail. Also that I am over 45.

I think that one of the attractions of cycling when it began was simply the notion of being able to travel swiftly under one’s own power. Think of it: there were horses, trains, trams and trolleys - plus the nascent automobile - but until the bicycle appeared the only method of self-locomotion was by foot. How liberating it must have been to hop on a bike and pedal through the streets of the city or out into the countryside solely by means of individual strength and skill; to travel in a machine that was not powered by an engine.

To me, the fulfillment from basic self-propulsion is the appeal of the bike portion in any triathlon. We can move great distances at great speeds along the road and our success rests on our collaboration with the machine, by the strength of our desire and by the mechanics of our legs powering the pedals through those 340 millimetre circles.