The Road

I bought my first real road bike in February of 2004 (the same month B-Man was born I might add). Like every other American cyclist at the time I had a touch of Lance fever. I can admit that, but more importantly and not so gay sounding (not that there's anything wrong with that), I wanted a road bike to help me "train" for the upcoming mountain bike race season. I had plans to do some team endurance racing that year and thought it would help. I flirted with the road a few years earlier when I bought a cheap ass cross bike but I found it a tad ill sized, a bit too heavy and that its brakes sucked ass. Not to mention Lance, Jan and the rest of the Euro road dog, EPO man/boy-freaks weren't cresting the climbs of the Giro and the Tour on cross bikes, they were doing it on road bikes.

SO I GOT A ROAD BIKE

I got pretty into riding my road bike and I really started to enjoy it. Well, at least as much as mountain biker could and would. For me it was the perfect way to up my mileage and training hours while not beating myself (or my mountain bike) up too much. It was also a good way to avoid trashing trails during Western Pennsylvania's spring, summer, fall and winter monsoon season. An unofficial time when it seems to rain at least 5 to 6 times a week. (Note: I base that statement on having lived in Western PA for 39 years, things may have changed in the past year or so. I somehow doubt it, but I did want to be honest).

Even though at the time I spent more than half of my hours on the road and upgraded that Trek to a now extinct Salsa Campeon, I still never felt like a "roadie." I never had the want or urge to participate in weekly group rides with riders who obsessed about the rules, codes and fashion faux pas of road riding, but rarely, if ever, paid attention to the actual rules of riding their bikes on the road. (Note: I base this on the few group road rides I had done that left me a bundle of nerves from watching riders paying no attention whatsoever to traffic). 

I also felt NO urge to race on the road or in circles at crit races. I just wanted to ride my bike and get miles in. Sure, I know there are a ton of mountain bike racers who race on the road, enjoy it and will talk at length about the benefits of doing so. I'm sure it's great (for them), it just wasn't my style.

DOWNFALLS

More often than not I found myself living in areas that it just wasn't that easy to ride direct from the house, something that you would THINK could be easily done, I mean if there's one thing we have plenty of in America it's roads (and fat people). Many times it was that the town or city's infrastructure catered to cars, not bikes and pedestrian traffic, leaving me surrounded by high traffic roads or highways. Equally as sad, or sadder, was that often even though my particular neighborhood was nice (enough),  it bordered the sorts of places where you A. did not want to be seen on a multi-thousand dollar road bike, and B. did not want to be seen on a multi-thousand dollar road bike wearing garish form fitting Lycra (yep, that's my penis). The end result was that I would have to drive my car to an area that I could safely start a ride from, without being killed by high speed traffic or potential gang members. It was mildly frustrating and pretty fucking stupid but something I did so as to get a quality ride in.

Another issue I found myself having was the frequency in which I would return from a ride with my spirits crushed. Not from the difficulty of the ride (although awesome and steep Western Pennsylvania roads can often do that to you), but by people. The list of times that I was screamed at from drivers and passengers in passing cars was growing.

"Get off the road!!" was the most commonly heard phrase and often contained the words "asshole," "dick head" and "faggot" at the end for dramatic effect. Along the way I was often informed (at ridiculously high volumes) of where the local rail trail was or that I should "ride my bike on the sidewalk, where I belong." One of my favorite (bad) memories was climbing out of the saddle up a nice steady 1 mile hill. A car coming down the hill slowed down and a 30 something year old man of questionable cleanliness leaned his entire body out the window to say "get the fuck off the road you fucking piece of shit." See what I mean? Spirit crushing.

The vocal tantrums were disturbing but could be ignored easily enough, worse were the folks that would get so aggravated that they thought it was acceptable to see how close they could come to me with their side mirror, attempt to intimidate me by trailing behind revving their engines or by taking false runs at me and slamming on their brakes just short of killing me. All scary and true events from my time on the road. The thing is, I always went out of my way to give vehicles enough room, waving them around when I could, etc., I would REALLY hate to see what they would do to someone not quite as polite.

THE JERKS WIN AGAIN (PROPS TO KARL HENDRICKS)

The worst part was that the jerks were winning. I started road riding less, and when I did ride, I found my mind too occupied with news of the latest cyclist struck down and killed or wondering if the car slowing behind me was doing so to pass safely or preparing to hurl an insult or missile of some sort. I mean I used to ride amongst city traffic and NOW I found myself on urban-hick roads scared. 

I eventually begun starting my rides at the local rail trail on my mountain bike and making my way several miles south until I could jump off and hit lower traffic, crumbling farm roads ("shit roads") or I would drive 50+ minutes to the mountains to ride forest roads. All fun, but not exactly ROAD riding.

After years of supplementing my mountain biking addiction with road riding, I was giving up on it and forgetting the things that I loved about it; the joy of cruising along at 20+ miles per hour on summer evenings, the burning quads, searing lungs, twisty roads, fresh pavement, steep climbs, fun descents, increased fitness. All gone.

At the same time I was also becoming disenfranchised with the sport of Pro cycling. Rider after rider that I admired turned out to be a doper, admitted former doper or at the very least an accused doper/megalomaniac jerk. While I never raced on the road, watching the spring classics, The Giro d'Italia and The Tour de France was fun. Now the very site of many of these riders was making me sick.

That is where I left road cycling roughly 16 months ago. Discouraged, fed up, sickened.

In the past 16 months much has happened. I moved to Michigan, bought a pretty nice cross bike and discovered the joys of riding gravel roads. I could talk at length about why I love riding gravel, but that's another post for another time. The only reason I even mention it was that I found that my road bike was becoming nothing more than a two wheel coat rack. At least it was until about two months ago.

THE INJURY, THE TEMPTATION

As you many have read here on the blog or elsewhere, I crashed on some ice back in March and screwed up my shoulder pretty good. Not broke, but screwed up. Screwed to the point that mountain biking was out of the question for a good while and even the gravel roads were causing some pain. So, I was forced to add more and more pavement into my rides. I usually like to keep my "road" rides to about 10 to 15% pavement, but due to the pain I was forced to flop it and most rides were a dismal 50% gravel. Drat.

During that time I found more and more lower traffic roads. Some with wider than usual shoulders and like a drunken bachelor party buffoon tempted by the strong scent of stripper perfume, I was being tempted by the road.

I WAS TEMPTED AND I GAVE IN

It stared with a short road ride that got me lost and forced to crush a few miles of bumpy gravel on 700 x 25s aired up to 100 psi and continued most recently with an 80 mile ride on pavement with a couple friends. So you are surely thinking that my love for road riding has returned? Umm.. ah… not really.

I admit, I had a blast riding the 80 miles on Sunday and felt great the entire time. The roads my friends Mike and Chris took me on were some of the best I've ridden since I moved to Michigan: fast, quality pavement with some rolling hills, a short climb here and there and pretty low traffic. Hell, we only got screamed at by ONE person over the 80 miles and I'm pretty sure the dude was mentally ill. Yet I just didn't have the same feelings I have during or after a long gravel ride or mountain bike ride.

When I'm on the gravel roads, I space out, relax and enjoy the ride. Even when I'm struggling up a rutted gavel hill or contending with fresh, deep gravel. There's just something about being on gravel… on DIRT that is different to me. I never finish a gravel ride and think "Sure was nice not to be run down by a pickup truck and left for dead." It's just different out there.

Now, I'm not saying I won't be out on my road bike again in the near future, 'cause like I said it was fun to be able to get in a loop like that right from my house and those roads were pretty sweet compared to the ones I had been on before. But I also know that for me the lure of the dirt and gravel roads and putting together longer and longer loops is stronger than that of the road. 

I respect what the road can do for me as cyclist and VERY unprofessional mountain bike racer, but that doesn't mean I get all cow eyed and hard in the chamois area about doing it. To me road riding is sort of like light beer or decaffeinated coffee. Sure, I can drink it, and sometimes it's not bad, but at the end of the day I just don't see the point if I don't enjoy it.

Later.