July 12, 2004
LE PELOTON EST REGROUPE, CAMAREDES ET AMITIE
When I got to Mikal's on Saturday night, all I could talk about was getting high.
Earlier in the day I'd ridden across Indiana on my bicycle, about 160 miles in just over 10 hours. I've been a serious cyclist for about three years, but biking for me is about politics, convenience and miserliness more than it is about athleticism and recreation. This ride, then, was my first time over 80 miles and my first time to ride in a large group, known as a peloton pace line (I'm so new to this, I didn't even know the correct term for it).
I'd known about the benefits of drafting, but I'd never experienced them firsthand. It was thrilling, a natural high. Riding alone, I usually top off around 19 mph, and that's really pushing it. Riding in a group of about 20, I raced effortlessly at 21 mph. At times it felt I didn't even have to pedal: The riders in front broke the wind to cut air resistance, and the riders behind me pushed an invisible balloon of force that propelled me forward. The telekinetic pull of the draft drew me forward as surely as the Death Star drew the Millennium Falcon.
I felt an unexpected bond to other riders in my line, only two of whom I had known beforehand. Riding just inches from one another, we were entrusting in strangers our lives and, more important, our bicycles. It further warmed my heart to watch individual riders selflessly take the lead and then peel off after they'd contributed their share to the greater good. The unspoken camaraderie between us grew the more I depended on them; they in turn depended on me when it was my turn to lead.
And that was another rush in itself. Pulling our pack up a hill and looking over my shoulder to see a long train or riders close in my wake, I felt like one of those guys in the strong-man competitions who pull trains with their teeth.
With this new experience, watching Stage 8 of the Tour de France with Mikal Sunday morning was a visceral event. Sitting on his couch, I could almost feel the handlebars still in my grasp, and I wanted to rise out of my saddle at every French hill. More than ever I felt love for the peloton, the enormous group of riders that moves down the road as a single organism, elegant in its motion, unanimous in its thought.
And we were treated to a display of the peloton's might. A group of three riders had quickly broken off from the main pack and forged a five-minute lead. The peloton barely reacted, knowing that with the advantages of drafting, it would have no problem catching up. Sure enough, within miles of the finish line the renegade riders were swallowed into the peloton's maw like a T-bone into a school of piranhas. The three riders had worked so hard for so many hours, but ended with nothing to show for their labors.
I'm not one to extract metaphors for life willy-nilly, but I'm tempted to see the peloton as a lesson in the power of teamwork, how a group of people working together can accomplish more than individuals working apart, blah blah blah. All I know is that I could never have ridden 160 miles without the help of the other riders, and I get satisfaction from thinking that they could not have done it without me.
Posted by Guest Beli-Blogger Luke at July 12, 2004 1:00 AM
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> how'd you get back home, or are you crashing on Mikal's sofa for a while???
A friend's girlfriend graciously served as our support vehicle, tracking our journey along the way and then picking us up at the finish line. We all crashed in Indy and then went the rest of the way to Chicago on Sunday.
We knew of some people who did the entire route in reverse on Friday (Richmond to Terre Haute), then did it forward with the ride on Saturday. 320 miles, only to finish just where they'd started.
