As the surprising result of a
back operation at the age of 50, road bicycling became the recreational passion
of my later adult life. For 30 years I
ran for exercise. For 45 minutes, three
or four times a week, usually at dawn.
Running kept me in decent shape.
I ran frequently along the C and O Canal a block from my home near Wash
D. C, and once ran past then vice president Bush on the canal, preceded and
followed by secret service agents on mountain bikes. I encountered the vice president again, this
time at Ft. McNair in l983 as Bush ran around the campus with Alberto Salazar.
I was then a student at the National Defense University.
I could run anywhere, an important feature of my Foreign Service
life. All I needed in my suitcase was a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and good
running shoes. In the l960s I ran as I watched
the sun rise in Madagascar and Mali. I ran in sun and rain in Paris and
Strasbourg and Bordeaux in the l970s and in snow in Stuttgart, and more rain
and sun in Munich, and Vienna in l983. I
could run anywhere. I couldn’t cycle
anywhere. Certainly not in congested
Singapore. So I continued to run,
usually at first light, on the asphalt lanes near the US Embassy in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia until a disc in my back ruptured and had to be removed. Following the operation a State Department
doctor told me my running days were over. I immediately thought about
cycling. I had lived on a bicycle as a
boy in Athens, Ohio, so many years ago.
“How about cycling?” I asked.
“And no cycling. You can swim.”
“But I don’t like to swim.”
“Sorry.”
I worked at swimming in the
embassy pool in Malaysia but swimming did not seem to be helping and I was
miserable without a physical activity I truly enjoyed.
Down Under
My next tour took me and my family from Malaysia to
Canberra, Australia. More than a year
after the disc removal my back was not healing and continued to hurt. I went to a primary care physician in
Canberra. I told him about the
continuing pain in my back and he asked,
“Have you tried
cycling?”
“I was told I couldn’t
cycle.”
“That’s odd,” he said. “You
see,” and he cupped his hand, palm down, to simulate the rounded back of a
rider on a road bike with dropped handlebars, “That opens up the discs and
should be good for your back.”
The following morning I climbed on the green Gitane I had
bought at La Samaritaine, the famous department store in Paris, but had not
much used. I coasted from my house in Garran down the street to an entry to
Canberra’s network of 450 miles of independent paved bike paths, rode 15 miles,
and for the first time in ten months, my back felt good. When I did not ride for two days, the pain
returned. So I set a goal of riding
every other day and began to lengthen the distance from 15 to 20 to 25 miles. For about two months. Then came an extremely busy time at the
embassy and I missed four days of riding and the pain did not return. After two months of regular riding I had no
more pain and have never looked back. By
then I so enjoyed the wonderful sense of health and well being that long rides
produced in my body that I was addicted to riding my Green Gypsy (Gitane is
French for gypsy), and did so two and three times each week. Unlike running, which I made myself do
because it was good for me, I enjoyed every minute on my bike.
A
Cyclist’s Paradise
Canberra, Australia, is a capital created out of sleep pastures near
the Brindabella Mountains in New South Wales, three hours from Sydney by car
and not much further from the Snowy Mountains.
Neither Sydney nor Melbourne, Australia’s largest cities, was willing to
cede the honor of being the national capital to the other. The compromise worked out at the beginning of
the 20th Century was to build an entirely new capital at a location
between the two cities and, for reasons of national security, far enough inland
to be beyond the range of the largest guns of the world’s most modern
battleships at that time.
The award for the best design for the new city went to
Burley Griffin, a landscape architect from Chicago, who was ably assisted by
his talented wife. The centerpiece of
the Griffins’ plan was a large lake -- created by damming the Murrumbidgee
River -- around which the city’s commercial and government centers were
developed. The Griffin plan left large
tracts of pasture land and native eucalyptus groves to separate a network of
satellite suburbs. So extensive was the
natural area left free of any development that it was often said that living in
Canberra was like living in a national park.
There are abundant kangaroos near central Canberra to prove that.
In time a 400 mile paved cycle network totally free of
motor vehicles was built centered on the lake, now named for Burley
Griffin. The network passed through the
city center, wove around the handsome new one billion dollar Parliament House
and other government buildings and then spread out through pastures and woods
to the edge of the city in all directions.
As the city grew, so did the bicycle network. Imagine over 400 miles of independent pave
cycle trail, often eight feet wide! I
know of no such bicyclist’s paradise anywhere else in the world.
Physical Changes
Beyond the healing of my back, I could see other changes in
my body as I rode week by week in Canberra.
I had more energy. I was more
relaxed. I found that cycling quickly
dissipated the stresses accumulated at work.
My immune system was stronger. I
no longer succumbed to winter colds. The sustained effort at a moderate to high
aerobic level gave me what felt like a total body tune-up. I even found regular cycling a means of
weight control. Running didn’t do that
for me. In those days I was somewhat
heavier than I wanted to be but I soon found that when I cycled 75-100 miles
each week, I could eat as much of anything as I wanted and not gain an
ounce.
Now in my late -70s, I continue to ride regularly, at least
twice each week when the weather permits, and at least one 40 mile ride each
week. I also do a three times each week senior’s fitness program at the Y that
promises to exercise every muscle in my aging body. It’s a great program but only long cycle rides give my body what
feels like a total tune-up and make me feel twenty years younger for two or
three days. I have just read in a health
newsletter that regular vigorous physical exercise adds years to our lives.
Healthy years. That wasn’t an
established fact when I began cycling but as I age, I will be glad to add it to
all the other reasons I cycle.
How
to Solve Problems
I found yet another benefit in cycling. Problem solving. I would often leave the office on Friday
evenings with a problem I had wrestled with all week that seemed to have no
solution. Then, during long weekend
rides, letting my mind wander to the sights and smells of the landscape
(eucalyptus groves have a marvelous aroma), solutions that I immediately
recognized as right popped into my mind. As if from nowhere. As research uncovers more secrets of the
brain we are learning that such insights come from intense attention to a
problem or a creative work, and then parking the issue in the unconscious and
letting the mind wander. I suspect this
is a process that creative artists have always understood intuitively. Walking or simply sleeping on a problem may
work for some, but for me, the rhythmic cadence of pedal strokes on a 40 mile
bike ride is the best way to encourage new insights as well as relieve
stress.
Other
Joys in Cycling
There’s yet another reason I ride. I feel like a boy again when I’m on a
bicycle. Perhaps that’s because my
brothers and I lived on our bikes in the small college town in which we were
raised. We could ride anywhere in
daylight and for hours at a time and our parents need not worry. Bikes were our means of freedom to
temporarily escape adult supervision and go more or less as we wished.
When I began riding with groups in the Potomac Peddlers in
Washington, D.C. (1992-95) I was amused to hear them brag that cyclists have
the best sex. Well, science is
confirming that as well, but not just for cyclists. “High levels of any sustained, vigorous
nonsexual physical activity go hand-in-hand with sexual well-being, especially
for men.” (UC Berkley “Wellness
Newsletter.”)
I now live in Eugene, Oregon, near the center of the city
because I want to be within walking distance of the University of Oregon and
Eugene’s downtown. But I love the
country and cycling takes me out into the county where I can feel the wind on
my body, breath pure air, smell the fields and woods, and enjoy the changing
seasons. The arrival of first swallows
in late February, new born snow white lambs in the fields of March, horses frolicking
on a warm spring day in April, freshly mowed hayfields in June, ripened grains
in July, blackberries in August. There is something special about moving
through rural scenery at 15 miles per hour that is very different from rushing
through in an automobile. I don’t have
to own the farms and horse properties to enjoy them. Someone else takes on that responsibility
while I ride pleasant county roads along their borders.
Not all road riding is bucolically peaceful. I remember well a near encounter with a black
bear on an isolated road in Idaho and having to outrun a rogue boar in
Southeastern Ohio. Dogs are a menace in
some states but loose dogs in Oregon are rare. Occasionally young men driving
pickup trucks on lightly policed county roads or inexperienced RVers make
cycling in Oregon more dangerous than it need be. And occasionally there is a sad
sight, the road kill of our automobiles seen up close. I have picked up a yellow warbler just struck
by a car, its warm body in the palm of my hand and watched as its eyes close in
death before I buried it. Any road
cyclist has seen countless birds, dead squirrels, raccoons, possum, and deer
along the way.
Meditation
on a Bike
I like the silence of country roads and solitude without
the background noises of the city. For
me, cycling three or four hours in a prefect blend of human body and machine
brings a depth of relaxation rarely experienced otherwise. Cycling through natural beauty punctuated by
the steady rhythm of pedal strokes (rather than counting breaths) can be a form
of meditation that brings a deep sense of peace and joy.
Companionship
I don’t always ride alone.
I enjoy company and have ridden with half a dozen groups, large and
small, since arriving in Eugene over 17 years ago. There is a special camaraderie among
cyclists, a sense of adventure shared and challenges (steep hills, strong
headwinds, and blowing rains) successfully overcome. One group of three I rode
with included a doctor in his mid 70s, born and raised in Eugene, and a road
cyclist his entire adult life. He added
a special flavor to our touring by sharing his in-depth knowledge of the
history and historic sites and geology of the south Willamette Valley.
Still
More Benefits
I have not mentioned saving gasoline or kindness to mother
earth as reasons to cycle because mostly I cycle because it’s fun. My spirits rise after a long ride. Cycling is a powerful mood lifter. And cycle tours, whether a professionally
organized like those of Cycle Oregon, or a low budget week of cycling and
tenting with friends in the San Juan Islands make a wonderful, healthy, and
relatively inexpensive vacation.
The sport is within the economic reach of all. I figure my Green Gypsy and the red Cannondale I bought to replace her when
Gypsy’s down tube cracked have cost me about three cents per ride. I expect a
similar return from the Specialized Roubaix carbon fiber bike I purchased five
years ago, a sweet bike with frame geometry especially kind to aging
bodies. Is there a better bargain in
sports equipment than a fine bicycle? I
don’t think so.
