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In cycling, good community can offset bad juju
“Ah, you won’t need those.”
That is, word-for-word, what my friend and sometimes-nemesis Scott yelled by way of a good morning as I dropped a set of spare wheels in the pit a couple of weeks back. His odds of being right were pretty good. Over a couple of decades of cyclocross racing, the pit had saved my race – or even factored in it at all – only a handful of times.
It was a good course for me, with lots of off-cambers in both turns and power sections and nothing too draggy. Even when legs and lungs fall short, I can usually ride sideways pretty well. And as soon as the whistle blew, it was going well. Almost unsettlingly well – one of those rare, fleeting times when everything clicks, from fitness to bike handling to setup to course, and I’m able to make choices that go beyond mere lizard-brain survival. Then, sitting comfortably top-five through the series of cambered turns that closed out the lap, I rolled a tire.
I hadn’t reglued it for this season. I was running optimistic-but-not-stupid-low pressure. I skipped the back wheel sideways under power. These were the indisputable facts around mechanical bonds and usage and physics. But the reality, obviously, was that I’d been cursed. By the universe, maybe, but the universe had spoken through Scott.
I popped the tire back into place and rode gingerly for half a lap to the pit, grabbed my old clincher off the rack and shoved it in. Only five or six riders had slipped by in the interim, and I was riding back through those spots when I heard people shouting for a medic and saw one of my teammates crouched over another at the side of the course.
When you’ve already been cursed, it’s important to listen carefully to the universe for further instructions. Miss or ignore them at your peril. I ducked under the tape and went back to check on Brad, who was checking on Mark, who did not look good.
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