Magnuson - Heft on wheels: a field guide to doing a 180

Contents

To Elizabeth Rose Magnuson

When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.

EZEKIEL 1:21

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Id like to thank the following people without whom this book would not be possible.

Lisa Bankoff, literary agent, who has never told me that cycling is crazy. Thanks so much, Lisa, for your continuing patience.

Teryn Johnson, editor, who has cracked the whip and helped me to believe in myself again.

Thanks to all the cool people at Harmony Books, particularly Shaye Areheart, Kim Kanner Meisner, Tara Delaney Gilbride, and Bill Adams.

My daughters, Anne and Helen, real troopers.

My wife Elizabeth, to whom I dedicate this book.

My mother-in-law, Freda Barbeau, who has been such a great help to our family so many times.

Dr. John Foster and Dr. William Turley and Dr. David Anthony.

And Dr. Clarisse Zimra. Its really your fault, Clarisse; you arranged for me to ride with those guys in the first place.

Thanks especially to the Wine Trail Maintenance Crew: Darren Sherkat, Mike Pease, Tony Steinbock, Don Mullison, John Reimbold, Heston Roop-Duval, Gerald Schumacher, Ben Miller, Thomas Price, Loren Easter, Goeff Maring, Christina Cannova, Rachael Cunnick, Stephanie Grant, and Kristen Carter.

And whatever happened to Matt Gindlesparger? Or Ed Erickson? Or Alan Farm Frites Wagner? Or Brad and Melinda? Or the oldest cyclist in the world, Jeff Bell?

And Dr. Fred, what are you still doing on that recumbent?

Thanks to everyone at Carbondale Cycle, especially Choak Samkroot, Chris Norrington, Brendan and Mary Collier, Alex Reyes, and Scott Schnaufer.

Thanks, too, to Gary Doering at Team MACK Racing Association.

And finally, Id like to thank my colleagues in the Creative Writing Program at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale: Rodney Jones, Allison Joseph, Judy Jordan, Beth Lordan, Brady Udall, and Jon Tribble.

Oh, lets not forget Ricardo Marcello Vazquez, who will never forget the canolis, and Dave Neis, who will always say, What do canolis have to do with it?

Special thanks to the following:

Backroads Active Travel

Bicycling magazine

Caldwell County Chamber of Commerce in Lenoir,
North Carolina

Carbondale Cycle

Litespeed Bicycles (American Bicycle Group)

Cathy Rhuberg

Joe Shrader at Birds Eye View Photography

Southern Illinois University Cycling Club

Team MACK Racing

Greg The Animal Wilson

A truck will hit me.

Im forty years old, the age of doom coming on and regret setting in, et cetera, but hey, Im not caught up in all that. Im happy. Im not overweight anymore. I dont drink anymore or smoke anymore, and, imagine this, Im not depressed anymore. Im completely having a great time being healthier now than Ive ever been and totally stronger, which is unbelievable sometimes to me. I mean, I expected, when I reached this age, that my athletic lifes peak would occur on a Sunday afternoon in January, slamming pitchers of beer and eating peanuts and watching the NFL playoffs with my buddies at the sports bar, but I didnt go that way, I guess, or I didnt stay that way.

Instead, a couple of years ago, I spent twenty-five hundred bucks of my professors salary on a race bicycle and started showing up three nights a week for a fast group road ride here in southern Illinois, at Carbondale Cycle, and three nights a week the group handed me my proverbial fat ass on a platter, which stood to reason. Back then, I smoked a pack a day and drank a case or two of beer a week and did shots of tequila or bourbon or kamikazes or you-name-it regularly at the bar with my graduate students. I weighed, suited up in a skintight XXL cycling jersey and shorts, 255 pounds. Five feet ten inches tall, 255 pounds. I shouldnt have shown up for group ride in that condition. I could have been hurt. Seriously. The group was just too much, too fast, flat-out beating the crap out of me every time. Its a miracle I didnt have a heart attack or a stroke or something trying to keep up.

I kept coming back for more, though, because I needed the crap beaten out of me. Thats right. I needed atonement. Im sure my associates at the bar in those days would agree. And, ah, how atonement comes with the group riding out of Carbondale on Dogwood Road into the mobile-home-littered hills and chip-and-seal roads of the Shawnee National Forest and hammering for forty-five miles, pounding over the hills, working inhumanely hard to spit each other off the back of the draftline and make each other suffer the way dropped cyclists have always suffered, like dogs. Man, back in my heavy days, Id think if I could stay within sight of the group, even for short sections of the ride, Id be scoring an extra-large moral and metaphorical victory. I win, Id think, just because Im participating. The big unhealthy man rides with the local fit fast road-bike group and gets dropped, the inspiring part being the odd truth: He doesnt get dropped as badly as youd think hed get dropped. Isnt it terrific the big guy can even stay close to those little bike racers?

But metaphor only goes so far in this world. Two hundred fifty-five fat drunken pounds: You ride road bikes with people who are a hundred times as fit and a hundred pounds lighter, they kick your ass. Its that simple.

Two years, twenty thousand miles of training and racing later, I weigh 173 pounds, and my lungs are as clear as my head is free of booze.

Speaking of metaphors, check out this one: If I used to go on group ride at Carbondale Cycle because I needed the crap beaten out of me, these days, I go on group ride because I possess the need and the ability to beat the crap out of others.

Let that be lesson number one.

So this Monday group ride in June, Im the strongest rider. Im not bragging or presenting myself as twice the man I really am. Its simply true. Im the strongest. Another guy in town, my buddy Darren, we train together a lot and race for Team MACK Racing in the Masters 3545 division and basically ride bikes way more than we should, hes much stronger than me and way more experienced and can and will obliterate me on the road whenever the situation warrants, like when Im bragging about being the strongest rider on group ride, but shoot, hes not along for the festivities tonight. That means, and I vow to bear this responsibility with maturity and style, Im the boss.

You can see me there, up front, in all my glory, setting the tempo and the vibe. Im the guy in the Team MACK racing uniformred, white, and pale blueriding the battle-scarred Trek 5200 and wearing the loud red helmet and those stupid football-coach, sports-bar-goer glasses that I know look stupid but are important for me to wear, a small reminder of who I used to be before cycling. You will note, too, that Im pulling our snaky dozen-rider group-ride phalanx at a comfortable, social, conversational pace, making sure we stay together and keep it mellow and have a positive experience in the early part of the ride, which isnt a corny thing to have, a positive experience.