Les jeux sont faits

This is it!

Yesterday I pedaled today my last 100 or so kilometers. Wednesday I finally leave for France. There is not much left to say: I'm packing my things, starting with bike and accessories, hoping it won't suffer too much on the trip.

Whatever happens, it was totally worth it. Training for the Etape was a great, rewarding experience in itself: the sense of achievement, the pure pleasure of feeling one's body starting to perform better and better, and pain and fatigue subsiding to the pure pleasure of the ride.

A big thank you to Gio, Jiro, Charles, Elke, Bob, everyone else I rode with these months, and of course Laura, who kept me very well fed: without her, none of this would have been more than a fleeting fantasy.

Why am I doing it

One of the reasons why this blog exists is, of course, to make sure I don’t back down. It is all here, visible to the public, and no matter if people read it or not, the fact of having written it somehow seals the pact with myself.

When I tell people about what I intend to do in twenty-one days, I generally get two kinds of reaction. One is a wide mouthed “cool, I so wish I could do that.” The other form of reaction is perplexity: why would you or anybody else do something so tiring/crazy/senseless. Here, I would like to address the second group. And for once I will not talk about pedaling cadence, sweat and electrolyte balance.

First, the difficulty or senselessness of the upcoming event is just a matter of perspective. There are of course several much more tiring enterprises. For instance I have a friend who would like to enter the next Brest-Paris-Brest, an inhumane 1200 km, 90 hours limit randonnée. It is clearly possible, that participants to that event might be amazing athletes, but that's not the point. What rather impresses me is the dream of something bigger, something above one's given possibilities that allows to emerge free from the the bog of everyday life, from routine or from daily frustration. It is shaping one's life, in a process similar to creating something new, even if for just a moment. Something that will brand one's memory with the flame of glorious effort. The outcome might be successful or not, but the real miracle are the energies mobilized in the quest to attain something previously impossible.

We live in the illusion as an ascending parabola, sometimes mistaking our career for our actual life. The contrary is true: the older we get the more we substitute the institutionalized goals of rank and money for real life, often just to fill the void. And not everyone has a meaningful career, or actually any serious perspective to raise in any sort of hierarchy. Some might even have struggled with their physical limits, or had to give up on what they loved to do, their damaged bodies incapable to keep up. But if there is one thing I learned in this country, is to never give up without a fight. This will to continue, to find different avenues of self-assertion is perhaps the only cultural treasure here, the only surviving gem of real or imagined epic times. It is in the eyes of the immigrant worker, blinded by the sun in the fields, or in the powerful arms of the disabled athletes, who sometimes ride alongside me, propelled forward by pure willpower.

And if there is one thing I learned during my otherwise disastrous high school years, is what Machiavelli wrote in "Il Principe":

"A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savour of it. Let him act like the clever archers who, designing to hit the mark which yet appears too far distant, and knowing the limits to which the strength of their bow attains, take aim much higher than the mark, not to reach by their strength or arrow to so great a height, but to be able with the aid of so high an aim to hit the mark they wish to reach."
-- Niccolò Machiavelli, Il Principe, Chapter 6: Concerning New Principalities Which Are Aquired by One's Own Arms and Ability

And that is, very simply, why I am doing it. I am just aiming high.

Back with a vengeance (well, almost!)

It’s nice, no, nice doesn’t cut it... it’s great to be back training once more. After the two weekshttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif setback I’m taking things slowly, planning to build up until the end of the month, then absolute rest to get through the long trip to Europe in one piece. I’m riding hills, from challenging to serious, twice a week. Wednesdays I ride the classic Old San Marcos Pass, pretty much the official Goleta climbing gym. Right around the corner, the old stagecoach road is always there to challenge anyone with two wheels and a desire for quick intense workout. I always feel bad for the poor horses that had to pull people up there: the climb to the pass is short but intense, 3.45 miles, 1253 feet or about 7% average, with a couple of steeper points. If that is not enough, just crossing the 154 offers many more miles of ascent, to Painted Cave first, then following the aptly named Camino Cielo all the way to La Cumbre Peak, the highest point in the Santa Barbara area.

So yesterday I went for the full monty: climbing up from the other side, Gibraltar Road, our mini Tourmalet. The real climbing starts right after the Santa Barbara Mission, but Gibraltar proper is an amazing (and amazingly poorly paved) stretch of road that gives access to the backcountry, hand-glider diving spots and even what looks like a still populated hippy commune from the days gone by. The climb is best performed with cooler weather, but it is doable year round. I measured 8.54 miles for 3067 feet of ascent, with an average 6.8% slope. Riding Camino Cielo was amazingly refreshing, ocean breezes blowing all the way to the top of the mountains, steep slopes on both sides of the road definitely inspiring the empowering feeling of riding on top of the world. And once the adrenaline rush of the 40mph descent is over, one would like no better than going back for more.

Restarting (almost) from scratch

I'm back after two weeks of very low mileage and short bursts of activity. Today I climbed San Marco Pass after a quick 30 miler yesterdays above Montecito. Looking at my stats I feel like I'm back in March. Definitely not good, with 35 days to the big event and counting. I'm planning a slow, structured comeback, making really sure not to injure myself again, and also trying not to overplan, to leave some space to sensations on the bike, the feedback from my legs and everything else. I think I have to re-learn how to climb. Little by little, one hill at a time.