L'Eroica Dreams

The above is credited to Fausto Coppi along with his brief recommendation about training, “Ride the bike.” And, that’s where most of us are in preparation for the various Eroica events for which we’ve registered. You have registered, haven’t you?

I’ve begun my own training and preparation, though most of that effort has been devoted to how I might consume food and wine at the rest stops. The riding preparation has only just begun. In looking back to last year’s California event, I realized that I started about the same time, perhaps a week earlier. And, unlike our hero Coppi and the many racing greats before, I’ve taken up a much more deliberate or pseudo-scientific approach.

It really just boils down to intervals while riding, but on a schedule that presumably accelerates the effects. I signed up with Today’s Plan and I track efforts in no less than three websites including the popular Strava, RidewithGPS, where Eroica California hosts it’s mapping information, Garmin Connect, and of course, Today’s Plan. You might think it would be better to focus on just one or two sites, but each provides something a bit different. Regardless, it’s the training that will result from the combination of information, motivation, plans, and routes that hopefully gets me up and over the Santa Lucia mountains in a few weeks.

Could we just rely on methods from Coppi’s day? Get out, ride the roads, hills, and gravel sectors and you’ll do fine. I suspect my first Eroica was just that, though I recall putting in many more days on the Brooks saddle in preparation for that in 2011. Here it is and it’s nearly embarrassing to think that I am going through these kinds of contortions when the Coppis and Bartalis of old, to which Eroica pays homage, just rode their steel bikes through the countryside. Very fast, maybe, and for long distances.

Not long after my last post, I took a spill at the end of a training ride. Maybe I can blame the newfangled, post-1987 pedals that I could never use on an Eroica ride that broke on a climb. I had to turn around and go home via a route I would not have used. But like the Jimmy Buffet song says, it’s probably “my owned damned fault.” No women to blame, just rainfall and a slick spot under a bridge. In a heartbeat, my rear wheel was horizontal and so was I, tumbling to the concrete pavement. I ended up with the number one and two most common cycling injuries: road rash and a broken collar bone.

Just as I was coming into form for a season, the cruel fates sidelined me. Just as I was gaining confidence that I might be able to stay in the gruppetto in very amateur category racing, I found my arm in a sling and my kit on a hanger. That was 12 weeks ago and it’s time to see just what can be salvaged of the season.

I’m thinking that I might get my mojo back by returning to the Moseman that stood me in such good stead for l’Eroica and decades of enjoyable cycling. Perhaps the carbon fiber needs to take a rest a little while longer and the reliable steel bike returns to the sunlight. I said there was no woman to blame, but if we ascribe female genders to ships, why not bikes? If so, the Cervelo was either a cruel mistress or the Moseman was a jealous, jilted lover. Regardless, the result was the same: a crash, weeks of recovery and rehab along with streaming video of the Giro d’Italia. And, a welcome end to the obsessions of Garmin uploads to Strava.

Perhaps as a sort of voodoo ritual to ward off advancing decline, I have regressed to a point more than 30 years ago. I’ve registered to race. The impulse was generated watching my son-in-law, not that many years my junior, race cyclocross these past two seasons. In Oregon and elsewhere, cyclocross is not the serious, but somewhat less demanding, off-season sport for amateurs and pros. Here, it is part race, part side show and part beer bash. Occasionally, there is a costume party. The more I observed, the more I became curious and, perhaps in a misguided way, thought that I might be able to compete. I then realized that I would need a cyclocross bike since none in the stable are really capable of being raced through the mud and muck of that kind of course. Since these impulses typically occur at the end of the season, it was obvious that the racing bug would have to wait for a new bike and another year or . . . .

Sign up for some other kind of racing. The obvious and surely the safest would be the time trial. Lucky for me, a local clinic is offered in just two weeks. I quickly registered with the local sanctioning body, Oregon Bicycle Racing Association, booked a spot in the clinic and promptly, and coincidentally, caught a bad cold. Holidays and the cold interrupted a decent jump on off-season training, so I looked a bit farther down the calendar. And, there it was. The Gorge Roubaix.

The name implied, and the description of the course confirmed, that this was a race partially over rough roads, the Oregon version of the strade bianchi. With more than three months in front of me, I figured what could be more suitable? And, there was always the option of violating a Velominati rule of some kind, wimping out and riding the difficult Fondo version of the race, the Gorge Gravel Grinder, on Sunday.

Now, I find myself in that somewhat terrified state of four years ago when I registered for l’Eroica. I’ve signed up for something that I’m not really sure suits me. Will I be pushing my 2-wheeler up a dusty gravel track, wondering whether I’ll get back to the starting line before dark? Or, will I find myself under a pile of carbon, aluminum and steel in some crucial turn near the end? Perhaps a pile up caused by my own lack of experience? More to follow.