Take lots of water, gear down, and practice humility, these are Arizona s lessons for aging cyclists

Transcription

1 Keith Watkins Recycled by Arizona Take lots of water, gear down, and practice humility, these are Arizona s lessons for aging cyclists When I began my brief career as a bicyclist in Arizona s Valley of the Sun, Bell Road west of the Agua Fria River was still a gentle suburban arterial bounded by cotton fields on the south and modest housing developments on the north. Attractively landscaped and carrying a light traffic load, this multi-lane roadway provided a reasonable route for bicyclists on their way into the desert. Keith Watkins writes on history, theology, and bicycling. He lives in Vancouver, Washington, just north of the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. hkwatkins@mac.com Copyright 2010 Keith Watkins 1

2 2 Recycled by Arizona The western edge of the populated territory was Happy Trails RV Park. At that point, Bell Road changed its name to Sun Valley Parkway and plunged into the desert becoming a splendid highway going nowhere. Someone told me that the parkway had been constructed on the basis of grandiose dreams concerning the ever-westward expansion of metropolitan Phoenix. Then came the savings and loan scandals, and the dreams, supported by little more than speculative fevers, blew away like dust in a desert windstorm. Ordinary investors, I was told, lost everything, and some took their lives. Left behind when the dreams had gone away was as perfect a bicycle trail as one could ever hope to see. Cyclists from all over would drive to the parking lot of the River Boat Emporium, unload their road bikes, and head west over the McMillan flood control dam, past the sign announcing next services 35 miles, past the northern flank of the White Tank Mountains, west and then south to the intersection with Interstate 10 in the wilderness west of metropolitan Phoenix. With only coyotes for company, the Sun Valley Parkway was hassle-free. The density of traffic, whether automotive or two-wheeled, was so light that riders seemed to be there alone, which was the reason why one fellow s cycling garb was so nearly au naturale that even his rump and genitals were in risk of sunburn. Because the Parkway was so close to Del Webb s retirement community of Sun City West, the most frequent cyclists on this splendid road were the old ones from this protected enclave of seniors. Early in the morning, before the sun came into its strength, the old men gathered in the parking lot of Del Webb hospital for their daily 35-mile out and back on the Parkway. When I first rode with them, the city of Surprise had not yet exploded into life, and Grand Avenue was still the Outlaw Highway that had been described by National Geographic. We rode through Kingswood Parke to Bell Road and past Happy Trails and River Boat. Crossing the Central Arizona Project Canal, where Bell Road became the Sun Valley Parkway, we powered over Macmillan Dam and cycled into a domain with no residences or buildings, little traffic, no shade. And no water.

3 Recycled by Arizona 3 It was on these rides that I, Midwestern cyclist that I had always been, was recycled by Arizona. Early in my reeducation, I noted that on the Sun Valley Parkway all of the other cyclists wore Camelbaks full of water on their daily rides into the desert. At first, I kept to my Midwestern ways, taking a few ounces of water in a plastic bottle on the down tube, but Arizona soon taught me new lessons. Midday in January, with a temperature in the mid 60s and humidity in the 20s, we could ride forever, so it seemed, oblivious to the need for food and water, but somewhere out in the desert, far from help, the experts counsel would sink in: Eat and drink before you feel the need, or you re liable to bonk. In the dead of winter, most cyclists could creep back home, but at daybreak in August, with humidity in the forties and temperature near 90 degrees and heading for 120, the desert threatens life. One day, a cyclist on the Parkway, riding by himself, as I did most of the time, told me that on the Fourth of July just past he had found a cadaver on the side of the road, an illegal trying to find freedom, he supposed. Recycled by Arizona, I learned to carry water on my back, food in my pockets, and inner tubes in my saddle bag. Gearing down was a second lesson that Arizona taught me. In the early 1970s, when I had begun serious cycling, ten-speed bikes were state of the art: two chain rings in the front and a five sprocket freewheel in back. You could design your own set-up, and I developed one that gave me two high gears for times when the wind was at my back, two for steep climbs, and three for most cycling conditions. John Forrester, a strongly opinionated guru of road cycling, used to declare that ten-speed gearing with carefully chosen sprockets was the best pattern for gearing (and, I half believe him, even now). Over the years, however, gearing has become much more complex. Five-speed sprockets changed to six; then the distance between the rear dropouts was spread and hubs were redesigned for seven, then eight, nine, and now ten sprockets. Bluecycle, my handmade English touring bike, was of the classic design, and with its ten gears later expanded to twelve I climbed every mountain grade I came upon. After twenty-five years of mainly Midwestern cycling, with sorties through the Rockies in the West and the Appalachians in the East, I moved to Arizona. Maybe the

4 4 Recycled by Arizona mountain grades here were steeper than anywhere else I had cycled. More likely, my aging body could no longer produce the horsepower to keep the wheels turning on long climbs. My cousin at Mt. Tabor Bicycles in Portland persuaded me that it was time to gear down. He spread Bluecycle s dropouts, installed an eight sprocket cassette in back and a triple crankset in front (Campagnolo Record with ergo shifters in the brake levers), and I was ready for any mountain pass that Arizona would put in my road. While gearing down made me slower, it kept me going even on long, ten-percent grades. Most important, in Arizona I began to learn humility. As younger, stronger riders passed me, especially on the climbs, I found myself accepting the fact that older inevitably means slower. I already had acknowledged that my ability to climb had diminished and that on fast training rides the younger men could drop me off the back whenever they liked. Yet I could still cycle 100 miles as fast as ever, and my last TOSRV a two-day, 200- mile cycling event in Ohio had been faster than any of the other twenty times I had done that tour. In the Arizona Challenge, however, three or four years after I moved to Arizona, the men twenty years my junior, including some who trained less vigorously than I, soon left me behind, and I realized that I could no longer run with the fast crowd. A couple of years later, on a difficult century ride in the mountains east of Phoenix, I started with the first twenty-five cyclists, but within ten minutes they were out of sight. While I fought for breath, often in my lowest gear, a band of young nurses, chattering among themselves, swung past me and after calling out their pleasant greetings, easily pulled away as the steepness increased. Ninety miles later, after numerous climbs, two rated at ten percent, I returned to the starting point, one of the last of 125 starters to finish the course. On that day, I decided that I would no longer register for several-day events that were advertised as fast-paced, like the annual charge up the Mogollon Rim, from Scottsdale and then through Payson, Jerome, Wickenburg, and back to Scottsdale: 330 miles in three days with 30,000 feet of elevation gain. While confident that I could still cover the distance in a reasonable length of time, I decided that there was no need to fight to keep

5 Recycled by Arizona 5 up, knowing that I would fall back anyway. Why should I worry other riders or an event s sponsors because I was slow? While I could still do most one-day century events, because there would always be other slow cyclists, I would henceforth do most multiday rides on my own. Perhaps humility was not the lesson that Arizona was teaching me, since I continued to be as proud as ever of my prowess, and I still thought of myself as an athlete. Rather, I was gaining a new perspective. No matter how well they maintain their abilities, old men and women are still old. While senior riders can sometimes compare their abilities favorably with the performance of younger athletes, I would generally be happier when I choose events where a good percentage of riders were in the later decades of their lives. Because of the lessons that Arizona worked on me, I moved into my 70s as a recycled bicyclist: as self-confident as ever, but with a little more caution; as aggressive as ever, although slower and ever more grateful that my bicycles the world s most benevolent machines were helping me accommodate my diminished body.