Bike racing is bad for you.
After you use modern training techniques long enough, you get so
strong that even without drugs you can start to feel like a Monty
Python sketch is about to start…the one where the arms pop off
and blood spurts…or maybe I should say Saturday Nite Live sketch,
since they’re the most recent to use that idea (and be threaded here).
Drugs aren’t the only thing that can unnaturally boost performance.
What’s the definition of artificial after all? What about unnaturally
strong motivation? Where you’d ride until you died? People can quite
easily be trained to access very ABNORMAL energy sources in themselves.
Sometimes it’s called obsession. But there’s all kinds of tricks. Healthy?
At any rate, using the best training skills for a few years tends to
get one pretty darn strong. I used to recall feeling so strong that
I thought the bike would break. The feeling wasn’t that far removed
from feeling like you could bust your own body apart.
When you’re riding that fast and hard, I recall being able to step
back and think: dang, this is HARDER THAN HARD. Eyes bulging…
countless attacks…no problem…just go harder….
At what point does the interest of high performance CONFLICT
with the interest of normal health? It’s also a truism that at
the limit of fitness you’re well into higher risk (inevitabilities) for many kinds
of sickness and injury. Is that health? Is that smart? Considerate of
family and duty? Typically, people obsessed with a sport say *it’s worth it*.
Is that clear thinking? By what standard? That of health? Well-being?
Or is it almost like the sport is calling the shots…just as in drug use?
What kind of riding has a good future in it? And what kind is very limited?
Does the level of riding that you can only do for a few years
before likely limiting injury (persistant saddle sores, whatever)
sound like ‘riding for life’?
According to development theory, the ego is developed in our
youth for protection. But if we cater to it, it goes nuts. It needs a limiter,
doesn’t know what’s best. It happily rides its legs off if it has a carrot
to chase. That’s why we don’t let our ego rule. It’s blind.
Short-sighted goals are fine by it. It easily falls for gimmicks.
It’s a sucker.
Where does modern high performance sport fit in if the standard
of ‘what’s good for our overall life’ is used?
Maybe more of it is too extreme than just the drugs side of it.
We get caught up in results and forget the real reason behind sport
(honor, overall development…).
Sports are specialized activities, but humans are supposed to
be generalists. There’s a struggle there, but that’s the test of sport.
Not results as an end in themselves.
This is partly why I like the notion of mixed events: road races
with lots of trail and rough dirt so that ultra-exotic bikes will break.
It’s why I like the notion of ‘race the bike you ride every day to
work’. And: one bike per event. No free lap, no wheel change!
It’s why I like the Geboff Points Series (points for wrong clothes,
duct-tape repairs, beau geste…) Make all top racing club members
be club officers. Require a year off from racing to be club gopher
each year’s #1 rider. Include 8hrs stop per day for RAAM.
Require a cafe break each noon in the TdF…. 🙂
Whatever it takes to strengthen perspective….
