For everyone, at some point, this is a source of great frustration. If you've ever learned a foreign language or practised an art or developed any sort of skill, you'll understand the frustration I mean. The frustration of looking out at the general population and thinking I can't do this, but he can, and she can, and they can... what if it's something in me? What if this thing is something that I just can't do?
There is a time after this, though. A time when, "suddenly", you can do what you worried about never being able to do. "Suddenly" is a relative term, and probably has quite a large dependence on just how disheartened you are when you first try something and fail. How large you perceive the difference between being incapable and being capable can be scary enough to put you off learning that skill for life. In some cases this might even be a good thing - it would encourage you to follow your more natural aptitudes. But in some cases, this perceived distance might be far larger than it is in reality.
Let's stop talking in generalisations, now, because you're probably wondering where all this is going, and if I carry on like this, I may soon forget myself. Let's take an example that most people reading this post can relate to. Riding a bike.
At some point, in the (long distant) past, you couldn't ride a bike. Then, at another point, you could. Nobody was born with an innate knowledge of how to ride a bike (probably). Even Danny MacAskill had to learn the basics of pedalling and balancing and even occasionally braking. (Probably). In between these two points, you learned. Maybe it was over a period of hours, or weeks, or months, but you "magically" went from a state of not being able to stay upright and moving and in control of a bicycle to having some level of competency of all three things.
It probably didn't make much sense at first. You'd probably seen other people cycle. Maybe your parents, or your siblings, demonstrated to you. You put your feet here, you pushed, you stayed up and you went round corners. O.k. Seems simple enough. Basic theory grasped. Then you would actually get on the bike, and realise (well, on some level of cognition) that just because you know how something should look - how, on the outside, it should be done - doesn't necessarily mean that you can just do it.
The brain's ability to adapt to a new skill; to develop a comfort with an entirely new form of movement; is breathtakingly wonderful. The natural ease with which we can move a machine as preposterously artificial as a bicycle is a marvel. It is possible to use the bicycle as an instrument of your will, as a tool with precise applications that you can manipulate to do anything which is within your skill-set. You have "mastered" riding a bike.
When you first ride in a bicycle race, you think this mastery merely needs to be applied. You know how a bike race looks, you know how to ride a bicycle. Surely you should be able to ride a bicycle in a bicycle race?
The trouble is, just because you know what a bike race looks like doesn't mean your brain is capable of telling your muscles what to do and when. A bike race is a different skill, one that needs possibly even more patient study than the initial learning of how to ride a bike.
I discovered this, to my detriment, at the Rothesay APR. Since then, I have been diligently studying, training and practising not just bicycle riding, but bicycle racing. Reading blogs, biographies and histories. Immersing myself as far as possible in the culture.
Just like learning to ride a bike, there was a time before I could race one. As of this weekend, I've taken my first wobbly pedal strokes as a bicycle racer. I have developed the skills well enough to use them for real, and my brain now knows what to do. I will make mistakes, and there is still a huge amount to learn, but the gulf that I once saw is no longer there.
The first road race of the Scottish season was in Gifford, East Lothian on Saturday the 3rd of March. As a Cat 4 rider, I would be in the "B" race, run in the morning before the main event of Cat 3 - Elite riders, who would scorch through 65 miles to our paltry 40 - 5 loops around an 8 mile circuit.
Having recce'd the course the previous week (albeit backwards), I had a fair idea of what to expect, and a workable plan "for the win", if it came down to it. Of course, I had no idea if I'd even be able to hold on yet, but I figured it'd be best to come prepared. The weather was fine, with a fresh westerly breeze that would hold any breakaways in check if they tried their luck on the inoffensive but open climb of the course. At our backs on the descent, it pushed up the speed to values that had cork smoke streaking from carbon wheels at the bottom corner, and I hadn't the confidence not to leave nervous gaps that would be filled by those aerodynamic enough to roll up through the group.
The initial roll-out was, to be frank, terrifying. Line adjustments and brake-taps were rife, and a mis-shift and thrown chain of a rider just in front of me and narrowly avoided split me from my 3 club-mates, who I wouldn't see again until after the finish line. On my own, I was vulnerable and inexperienced, and raced like I was weak, but I was canny. By following wheels, allowing speed already earned to carry me into spaces and using any time I was exposed as an excuse to move up the field, I was well-protected in the top 20 by the third lap. With an intermediate sprint for the finish line, I decided to give one of my winning strategies a trial run. The finish was on top of the lower side of a U - shaped valley, encouraging high speed descent to hold onto momentum. I went wide on the right as soon as the road in front was visible and took the front of the race. There was still just over 1 km to go, so I worked briefly with one other lad who had come away with me, but he wasn't pulling hard enough to keep the pack back. Happy enough with the practice run, I allowed myself to run on the front until 200m to the line and didn't push to hold back the three riders who went for the points. From a bad position, it wouldn't have been worth the effort. And I needed my legs for the finale.
We got into the final lap, and there was the expected increase in intensity, but it wasn't sustained. People were tiring. I was expecting this. Of the 20 of us, 10 had done most of the pulling, 5 were just holding on, and the rest of us were still in contention. A lone break had gone at the KOM on the last lap, but there was no way he'd stay out.
We got back onto the climb and he was still dangling, with another lone break now half-way between. At this point, I realised that something would have to be done, and I would have to adjust my plan. Initially, I had thought to break here and time-trial to the finish, hoping that a surprise sprint up the hill would catch people off-guard and allow my fast-descent strategy to hold me to the line. However, now, with a break to catch, I would need help. I took the front of the bunch and pulled hard, knowing that if we didn't increase speed now, we'd run the risk of racing for third. It was a big effort, though controlled to some degree, but I worried that I'd overdone it. Sure enough, I'd popped a few off the back, allowing me to sit back in about sixth as we came to the top.
All too soon, it was time to pull again. After a brief stint, I pulled out and let some of the race go by. Some of those who had popped were now back on, but showing strain. With unbroken lines, though, I had to wait until I was quite far back to slot in again.
Just before the descent into the U-shaped valley, there was a blind right-hander where we had previously passed an oncoming bus. The peleton fanned out wide a hundred metres before it, searching for my wide and fast line down the valley. I wasn't having it - it was too dangerous. I moved into the line on the left, abandoning my preferred line for carrying momentum. It was a moment of sense in the face of recklessness that, sadly, probably cost me the race.
Boxed in now as we took the descent, I found what space I could to maintain momentum, but there was an unbroken line of riders to my right and a soft verge to my left. With a kilometre to go, I seriously needed space. It would have been lovely to have a team of riders up there working for me, giving me the run-in to the line, but I was on my own and would have to make my own luck.
I was faster than the majority of the bunch at this point. Somehow, I had a sprint in my legs and there was no way through. A wide gap appeared in the middle of the pack at 800m - "Coming through!" I yelled, but once there, there was still no way forward. Then there was room on the left. I passed one rider, "On your left! On your left!", but the second wasn't having any of it. Bar to bar, I was millimetres from the road edge. He held his ground, leaned into me. I had no choice but to crash and roll onto the soft, grass verge.
Was it a dangerous manoeuvre? Probably, but then what part of a bunch sprint isn't dangerous?At some point, there was definitely a gap of a bike's width there, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get handlebar to handlebar with the other guy, and I'd passed the lad behind him with no problem or fanfare. The was no major crash, no damage done. I was the only one taken out of the finish, putting me into 26th position.
26th. I might have made third. I might have made first.
I wasn't going to settle for tenth.
I went home that day with a big smile on my face. Sure, I'd crashed. But I'd finished. I'd learned a ton, and, just as importantly, I'd successfully put into practice a whole host of things that I'd only learned in theory - in the classroom of the road, the club ride, the literature and the anecdotes of cycling. I had ridden well. I had finished the race. I had been in contention.
I had had a perfectly adequate race, and I hadn't been afraid to throw it all away for the chance of something great. One day, it might be about the mathematics. About getting that one point to upgrade to the next license category. For now, though, I've achieved something far more important to me.
I've learned how to start racing my bike.
Photo courtesy of Michael Dougal
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