Yesterday I wrote about what it means to “suffer” on the bike. I may have left the impression that bike riding is all pain and no fun. While there is some amount of pain involved in bike riding, for the most part riding a bike is a great deal of fun. If bike riding were not a fun, healthy and socially responsible activity, you would not see so many people out on their bikes, enjoying the fresh air.
Bike riding, however, is more than just making your feet spin in a circle to transmit forward momentum to the bike and keep moving forward (hopefully while staying upright). As Henri Desgrange the man who created the Tour de France (TdF) once commented, bike riding is all about the “tete et jambes” (head and legs).
There is a huge mental component involved in bike riding. Simply put, bike riding often becomes a purely mental exercise. We all have heard tales of the human body accomplishing incredible feats of strength-the same is true in bike riding. For a bike rider there are many situations when the chips are down and Dr Pain starts to knock at the door. This is the time to mentally battening down the hatches and telling your subconscious to ignore the pain coming from the legs and to just keep on going for another meter, for another kilometer. Or as Desgrange might have said: tete over jambes!
I find the following suggestions useful when under pressure. For those readers accustomed to racing or really intense levels of exercise where you push your boundaries, you’ll already have your own methods to overcome physical barriers with mental strength. I just speak from the experience of having been deep in the Hurt Locker:
Music: When I am riding hard, and especially when I am climbing hills, I like to listen to classical music. I picture myself as the orchestra’s conductor, directing the musicians (my muscles) to just play along and to keep on playing until the finale.
In a group ride, if I am struggling to keep up with better or faster riders I wait for someone to come past, and grab his wheel and I hold it as long as I can. When it start to hurt my tete tells my jambes, “two more pedal rotations.” Then two more. And two more. It is a case of pushing through my comfort zone, and getting into that red zone, and adjusting to it. Then pushing just a little bit more. This takes a lot of practice, but you need to be able to focus intensely on one thing: be it holding a wheel, or looking for posts at the side of the road and getting to the next one. This advice especially for climbing - climbing is really all about dominating your body with your mind. Many a time I’ve been on a climb and grabbed a wheel of someone much stronger and focused ALL my mental energy on just holding that wheel, and managed to ride way outside my comfort zone and to the top of the climb.
Another thing that helps me when my jambes are ready to give up is to set small targets. This is a process where you target an object just up the road – say a signpost or a tree and aim to reach it (but don’t hit it). You quickly look for the next target and bit by bit you make your way up the road (or up that nasty hill). Often, I find the process of intensely concentrating on a small, reachable target distracts me from any discomfort I am feeling. I usually then regain strength and can tap out a good rhythm again. Incidentally, this process works in “real life” as well as it works on a bike out on the road. Many times, we face a seemingly daunting project (whether it is finishing a report at work or studying for finals at school). Instead of looking at the ENTIRE project and becoming dispirited by its sheer size, try instead to focus on small sections of the project. When you complete one small portion, move on to the next and then next and then to the next. Before you know it, you will be done with the entire project and what at first seemed to be an impossible task, ends up being a very manageable project.
Finally, the best advice I can give you is: Remain Relaxed!
Nothing is worse for your body than tensing up, gritting your teeth, sucking your stomach in.
No, no, no.
You need to create a frame with your arms, lats, and lower half of your body to “carry” your innards, like a big Sikorsky helicopter. The frame provides a compartment that should be relaxed, so your lungs and diaphragm can operate without restriction.
Following these bits of advice, learned from my own trips to the Hurt Locker, won’t necessarily make you a better rider or climber. I hope, however, that when the pain comes, you will remember my advice and will be able to ride through the “suffering.”
Finally, here are some pictures of suffering and joy, from Stage 9 of the 2011 TdF (the same stage that Arc will be riding on Sunday, July 17). Enjoy!
Dutch rider Johnny Hoogerland suffering after he crashed into a barbed wire fence.
Johnny Hoogerland happy after winning the King of the Mountain shirt in Stage 9 (after crashing)
Belgium rider Van der Broeck in pain after crashing and breaking his collarbone.
French rider Tommy Voeckler happy after winning Stage 9 and wearing the maillot jaune. (Last time Thomas wore the yellow jersey was back in 2004.)
Well, I don't know if this bulls is suffering or not, but he does not seem too interested in the TdF riders passing by him.
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