Hugh Trenchard

Given a couple of spare hours preceding sleep and a day off work tomorrow (as all my Fridays are), and a temporary relinquishment of the pains of a course in International Finance, for a few minutes preceding the setting down of these words I thought that I might upload a video file of a flock of Brant geese on the waters near Parksville, taken during a recent weekend getaway. But the sometimes intricate mechanics of electronic file conversion has, for now, usurped my attempts and caused me to re-direct the focus of my ramblings for the night.

However, before leaving the subject of Brant geese, a subject to which I will return, I must comment that these are remarkable birds from the perspective of collective phenomena generally. I had observed how closely clustered these birds were as they floated on the heaving cold waters near to the shoreline, and I watched how they would adjust their positions when relocating en masse by drifting in behind each other, much as cyclists do when speeds are driven to a certain output threshold at which riders self-organize into a synchronized paceline. Another example of the “drafting effect”, I thought, as I watched them. The drafting effect is of course the description I apply to any natural self-organized process whereby agents in a system save energy by following others.

So, I managed to capture a brief digital video of the flock on the water, albeit in fairly poor quality. But I will leave the vagaries of file uploads for another time, when the hour is not so near the stroke of midnight, and the lids less heavy.

That said, as the seconds wind on inexorably toward that moment when today becomes tomorrow, when evening becomes morning; that moment when I vow to cry for the night “I can no more” and send myself to bed – in the intervening time there is little left of detail to be expressed, but merely a mood, a cloud of sensations which emerge from a unique sequence of synaptic events that crystallize to a few phrases on a white, empty, digital space.

Ah there it is! I can no more.

This shall be continued soon.

I’ve gone with a new background theme. Seems like a good time to shake it up. And seeing as my bluebird theme is shared with the Twitter site folks – not deliberately of course – I have another reason to make the change. I’ve chosen this theme because there is an element of a chaotic process evident, and chaos theory is closely connected with complexity theory, one of my primary interests.

The Arlington Symposium and Other Activities

Across the Potomac River from Washington, DC, is Arlington, Virginia; located there is the United States National Cemetery and the Pentagon, among other things. Also there, for me, was the 2009 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) fall symposium “Complex Adaptive Systems and the Threshold Effect: Views from the Natural and Social Sciences.”

I was fortunate to have had the following paper accepted for a presentation at this symposium, entitled “Self-Organized Coupling Dynamics and Phase Transitions in Bicycle Pelotons”.

There were actually seven simultaneous symposia occurring, all sponsored by the AAAI, a well-funded organization based in the United States, whose sponsors include Microsoft, NASA, the National Science Foundation, and US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, among others. As a part time student I was fortunate to be one among several to receive a National Science Foundation grant to assist me in my costs to attend.

Distributed among these seven symposia were about 300 people, and about 80 in the complex adaptive systems symposium.

I enjoyed the opportunity to meet people who share some fundamental intellectual pursuits. There were others in attendance whose books and articles I have seen reference to or possess. For example, Peter Erdi, author of the book “Complexity Explained” was in attendance, while Mitchell Waldrop, author of “Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Chaos and Order” and an editor for the journal Nature, gave a keynote talk, and introduced me and my presentation.

I enjoyed taking some time to explore Washington, DC, including a number of Smithsonian institute museums and galleries, some running and cycling on a rented bike as well.

Ah, presently the hour is late, and I really must to bed. Perhaps pressing the “post” button now, when this contribution has not become too long, will inspire me to resume posts here with more regularity again. Well, we shall see.

The small muscle spasms of post Victoria Marathon soreness seem to signify a good time for a long-overdue blog update. Granted, on this morning after, I am not as sore as I could be, though I certainly felt green for two or three hours post-race while a nasty cocktail of sugary/ cola drinks, too much caffeine and ibuprofen filtered through my liver and kidneys.

Training for the Victoria marathon began mid-August, following an anti-climactic end to a cycling season in which a broken chain preceded an unceremonious withdrawal from my last important race of the season, the Provincial Road race in Abbotsford. A couple of relatively weak Tuesday night time-trials in Sidney was all the body could muster in two weeks that followed, though the placings there bolstered a minor upside to my season finale by preserving a 5th place overall in the Victoria Cycling League ‘A’ standings, a weekly series of local club races that begins in March and ends in September.

To linger for a moment on the summer’s cycling events, the highlight was probably the White Rock Criterium in July, in which fitness acquired from the Mt Hood 5-stage race in June began finally to emerge, and, by the criterium finish I began to believe I still belonged in an elite level bicycle race, though perhaps not the same could have been said about the road race the next day.

Overall my cycling season was not as long and generally weaker than 2008, but perhaps a commitment to a role in a Victoria Shakespeare Society production of Julias Caesar and twelve performances beginning early July, and ending mid-August, flattened slightly my peaking capacity on the bike. For this I am not complaining, as the acting experience was rich and wonderful, and I see more of that in the cards in years to come.

To be sure, while the motivation remains to train and be competitive as a cyclist (and as a runner), there is a marked, inexorable shift in motivations that greets the advent of my fifth decade and gently nudges the expenditure of my energies in alternative directions. I feel it stronger now than I did during the last decade of life, but still the call is also strong from every bodily cell to be invigorated by intense activity. But this beckoning is now more firmly pulled against a set of intellectual and artistic imperatives that drive my energies too, the agents of which at either end are not inconsistent in principle, but which heighten the tension that sends me on my way through the dynamical dancing landscape of my life, as it does all of us to varying degrees. Of course amid that tension is the greatest responsibility we bear to our fellow human beings, the constancy of which is sometimes the hardest work we bear, at least it so often seems to me.

I have vastly digressed! But what could a post that comes three months after the last one be but one that begins from the philosophical perspective, shifts to a general descriptive overview (perhaps vice-versa in this case), but ends finally on specificities. The marathon!

My training went well, having discovered double tempo workouts once a week that culminated in one day a couple of weeks ago when I did two 10 mile tempo runs within a few hours and about 40km on the day. With a longer lead up to the event, I can see how such sessions can result in yet greater fitness.

In the weeks leading up to the race I had in mind that 2:36 was reasonable, and initially I had thought it was possible for me to shoot for the top Master time, for which some prize money was on the line. But when I had heard that Danny Gonzalez, from Oregon, was here, whose PB is 2:13 (albeit set probably 20 years ago), it seemed my chances at that were slim.

On the cold but sunny and nearly windless morning, I found it a tough day out there. While my pace was about where I had hoped through ten miles, in 58 somthing, I found the energy gradually waning through to the half, at 1:17.58. While I have had greater mental struggles to pull myself to the finish, I was surprised at how hard I was breathing at points over the second half – glad that I was able to breathe that hard and not blow completely, but somewhat chagrinned that such an effort did not result in faster leg turnover.

In the end I was not far down on the second Master, from Tokyo, whose time was 2:36, and not as far back from Gonazalez as I might have thought, who was in at 2:33. I was happy with being the third Master and 12th overall among a very strong field, with non-Canadians taking 8 of the places ahead of me.

In the simmering heat of a July weekend in White Rock for the 30th edition of my favorite bicycle race, this year did not mark two years in a row in which I could be part of a 60 km four-up breakaway in the road race. Certainly I was on better form at this time last year after returning from the 6-stage Cascade Classic the weekend before and coming into White Rock with my best form in many years. This year I have felt generally flat nearly all season long, and did not feel I gained much form after the Mt Hood stage race in early June. This despite a couple of minor successes including two mid-week wins this year (Victoria Cycling League races) in which there were few participants, and a couple of half decent Masters race results, but overall nothing of particular noteworthiness.

Still, the final result for me in White Rock was much the same as last year.

The race has for many years been of an omnium format, which means points are accumulated for placing in each individual race, of which there were three: a hill climb, a criterium and a road race – and for which the total combined points determines the winner. One may thus select any combination of races in which to participate. This is in contrast to a stage race in which the winner is determined on the lowest accumulated time, and so by necessity riders must complete each stage in order to race the next one.

I have never raced the hill climb. Being less than two minutes in length and taking place on a Friday, it has usually not been convenient to do, given work commitments etc. However, I have competed in the criterium and road race several times, with varying degrees of success, or lack thereof. Both races are very hard – the criterium has a 300 metre, 4 percent, hill up one side of the 1km course and, at 60km long (60 laps), makes for about 18k of big ring on-the-rivet climbing. The criterium was won for the second year in a row by Andrew Pinfold in 1:10, with the rest of the 45 Pro/cat 1,2 finishers through, mostly as a group, following within seconds of Andrew, and me in 33rd, with 15 or so dropping out and a couple of crashes to boot, which I fortunately missed.

I was happy with my result, given the rough state of my legs for many weeks, and I felt the body was reasonably well rested and ready for that level of intensity. The race did not feel as hard this year, as last year there were a few stronger teams in the race, it seemed, although in reality it likely was not very much slower.

The road race was held the next morning. It consists of a circuit of 11 long laps each about 11k, and 6 short laps of about 4km (or this is the way the race is supposed to be!), a total of about 134 km.
The race proved rather strange.

For my part, certainly last year I was much better recovered after the criterium, but after a long breakaway effort still ended up a short loop (4km) down on Chris Horner, the Astana team member, and me being one of the last finishers. In all my years of doing White Rock, there have never been more than 40 finishers of the 80 to 100 who usually start the race. It is such a hard race, and configured in such a way that unless you make it onto the short loop circuit before the barriers go up, you’re day is over, which discourages many riders from finishing if they find themselves off the back.

As for other finishing riders, there was much confusion. The Costa Rican leader, off on a solo breakaway, was misdirected and began the short loops too soon, while the chasers continued for one additional lap; those farther back, like myself, ended up in some other half-state purgatorial strange loop.

From the start, after three of the fastest first laps I can ever remember on that course, I found myself popped the fourth time up the 16% Magdallen climb, after a big ring sprint up Columbia just prior. But as many dropped out after similar fates, I kept going and found myself in a small group, which whittled to two of us who, seemingly by a miracle, found that we made the small circuit before the barriers went up. Meanwhile, the Costa Rican rider had soloed away from the main bunch, and thereafter occurred the noted confusion.

Being several minutes back of the main chase group, I am still not certain what exactly transpired, but I believe I was thus directed onto the small course one long lap shy of the full 11 we were scheduled for, and being more than half a long loop back (each about 11km), and they being directed for the full last loop, I and a Glotman Simpson rider, Marvin Guzman, ended up on the short circuit roughly in line with the chasers.

To be honest I am not all at all clear what happened, but as we made it onto the short course before the barriers were erected, we were allowed to finish, presumably to receive a pro-rated time based on finishing one short loop down and change. As it stands, the number of finishers was 35, and I and Marvin should have been recorded as about 31st and 32nd, with 3 others whom we were ahead of coming onto the short course being behind us, I believe. Currently, however, among all the confusion, results show us as 19th and 20th. This is wrong, and I am currently endeavoring to correct the results.

Nonetheless, in summary, I am glad for the finishing result, as it is such a hard race to do and to end up shut out by the barriers, although I do hope the results can be corrected to show more accurately where I finished.

Earlier in June the Province completed paving the road between Port Renfrew and Mesachie Lake, near Lake Cowichan. This established a completely paved circle from Victoria to Port Renfrew, to Lake Cowichan, Duncan, and then back to Victoria. Soon after hearing of the pavement completion, I’d resolved to ride the route, romanticising in my mind the concept of being able to ride to Port Renfrew and back to Victoria without retracing my course, experiencing a road not travelled before, and taking in a huge variety of scenery the entire way.

Reports, however, were conflicting about the quality of the pavement, and it was not clear how a road bike would fare on the new connector route. However, I’d received enough information to be sure that I was willing to risk my road bike on the route.

Today turned out to be ideal weather-wise for the journey, which, with a day off work, began about 6:15 this morning. At its peak, the temperature near Lake Cowichan/Duncan surely must have been near 30 degrees.

As it turned out, it was no problem at all for a road bike. In fact the first 11 or so km out of Port Renfrew are highway quality, as are the last 15k or so into Mesachie Lake. There are about 25 km or so of slightly rougher chip seal, but it really isn’t bad – basically like any secondary road anywhere. There are two very short stretches of gravel, maybe 10m long, if that, and only one little spot where there were about three potholes – that’s it! 100% roadbike rideable. The last 10k into Port Renfrew are worse for potholes, but still roadbike rideable, and there is currently much roadwork being done on that stretch of road.

The total distance is, I believe about 250km. I am estimating based on road signs and time, since I don’t have an odometer. Thinking of the route as clockwise out of Victoria, I’ve seen reference to it being 104km to Port Renfrew, then when you are on the bypass road to Lake Cowichan there is a sign that says 56km to Lake Cowichan and 88km to Duncan, both of which seemed pretty accurate based on other sign posts along the way and the amount of time it took. From Duncan there is a sign saying 61km to Victoria – you add it all up and it’s at least 250km – certainly one of my longest rides ever, if not the longest. The only possibly equally long or possibly slightly longer ride was a leg of a journey in France I’d made a few days after competing in the Zofingen Powerman in Switzerland in 2001, or thereabouts.

The Circle Route is stunning, with some fantastic lakes and streams all the way. Standing out in mind are vistas of the ocean out to Port Renfrew; the corkscrew climbs and descent into Port Renfrew, which I last rode during the now defunct Gary Lund Road Race several years ago; the glades along the first 11km of flat road heading out of Port Renfrew; the encroaching jungle-like vegetation along parts of the connector, reminding me of Costa Rica – if only there were the sounds of Howler monkeys; the clearest water in streams crossing the connector or running along side it; the ascending road upward along the connector and the gradual descent into Lake Mesachie.

My splits were roughly (give or take a few minutes) 2.5 hours to Jordan River; 4 hours to Port Renfrew; 6 hours to Lake Cowichan (a short stop there); 7 hours to Duncan, and a short stop there for a more substantial meal. Taking the main highway all the way in from Duncan, and not feeling too bad up the Malahat, I was home in about 9:45 (forgot to stop my watch for an accurate time)

All in all a fantastic ride, and having managed to keep more or less properly hydrated and fed, I didn’t bonk, and at this point in the evening actually feel quite good. A couple of hours after the ride, I made it through a Julias Caesar rehearsal, in which I have a small role, without any problem (albeit with a little assistance from Dr. Pepper).

I highly recommend the ride for anyone with the time and inclination. It is one of my most memorable and will certainly stand out in my mind forever. The key for the distance is to maintain a steady pace without pushing too hard on the hills and building lactic acid, eating and drinking plenty. It is interesting how time compresses when you are out for a long ride, especially if you mentally break your journey into segments, and this is easy on this route with such beautiful and varied scenery along the way. When it was over it truly didn’t feel much longer than some rides I’ve done at half the distance.

With that, a 4 hour ride yesterday (also taken off work) and some more riding yet on Saturday and Sunday, I hope recovery will be complete by Superweek – which begins with races in Delta next weekend.

Yesterday I returned from the five-stage Mt Hood Cycling Classic, centred out of Hood River, Oregon. Hood River is a small city located afront the majestic Columbia River upon which, in my imagination, floated the ghosts of paddle-wheelers on hot August afternoons; where on the decks stood women in their dresses, flowing in the humid breeze, much too warm for the weather and the afternoon sun; where men stood in overalls and long black slacks, their hats in hand, ignoring or enjoying the cooling spray of river water lifting and rolling off the tumbling, tumbling paddle wheel.

While those ghosts lingered and their true counterparts travelled the water 100 years ago or more maybe, just last week there, in Hood River, were teams of lean and hungry cyclists from across the western United States and British Columbia. All donned skin forming uniforms and futuristic helmets and rode atop their bicycles of carbon and titanium and precision engineering, all rode their machines far away from the water, discharging their energies in Herculean quantities from out pelotons that morphed in shape along roads that tangle like yarn around the mountains and countryside with Mount Hood at its core, ever looming, stately in its omnipresence, seen from every vantage point among the green rolling hills, the orchards and valleys around.

And there was I, among such a peloton on roads that spun the mighty Mount Hood far away from the waters of the Columbia where once the pleasant paddle-wheelers ran. Five stages: 250 miles and 25,000 feet of climbing, consisting of a prologue three miles long, two road stages of 85 and 92 miles, a time trial of 18.5 miles and a criterium 70 minutes long; and there was I but one component of a peloton system and its subgroups – teams like Bissell Pro, California Giant, Ouch-Maxxis, Red Truck Ale, Lombardi Sports. All comprised a peloton that found life 116 riders strong, an organic system that died just a little each day as riders sloughed off like detritus from the back, victims of the furious struggle for survival and triumph at the front; that in its final throes at the criterium finish Sunday afternoon, downtown Hood River, on a viscious loop with ups and downs and twists and turns, ended its life eighty-eight strong, of which I was 79th in the final general classification.

A peloton is a dynamic organic system, it is true, but among it are individuals, and ultimately it is a race, a race for victory and survival. It is as if one could narrow the scope a little to view the dramatic struggles within the super-organism; as if one could hone right down to follow the life of particular single ants in a colony-wide assault on a writhing snake lurching and twisting to escape, where the snake might be the road on which the cyclists travel, its death the final triumph for the first to experience the cessation of motion, and for every cyclist or ant that follows, each upon their respective winding surface. There are the individual riders with each their stories of drama and triumph, such as for the overall winner Paul Mach of Bissel Pro, or the individual stage winners like Rob Britten from British Columbia on the longest and hilliest stage and Jamie Sparling also of BC in the criterium, both of Red Truck Ale; tales of desolation and dissatisfaction, like for Ryan Olson from White Rock on Stage one who lost over an hour after riding most of the stage on his own – or like me, whose front wheel nearly disintegrated soon off the start on the descent at 85km/hr, forcing me to slow and to be sloughed from the pack and to ride the day partly on my own and partly among a small groupetto, ending the longest stage a half hour back.

And for every rider are a thousand stories, and for every story combined was a peloton borne last Wednesday afternoon, that rested each night and revitalized each day for five days, and finally died on Sunday. To be part of the peloton, the living system, is the objective of every racing cyclist, whether they see it that way or not. To be both an individual and a member of a broader whole: there is no truer microcosm of life than the peloton. For every living peloton whose transient trajectory I am part, whether I win or lose, if I have been part of its birth and death, then ghosts linger in me of every rolling, rolling one, accompanied by all the admiration for the individuals within them that one person could have.

(Full results at www.mthoodcyclingclassic.com)

The Sooke 10k running race was not originally in my plans. But as the months since January passed by, rather at their own choatic pace tempered by an underlying rhythm of coldness and grey; and, in contrast, as the Island running series ticked down one by one in their bi-weekly clocklike regularity, I discovered in myself an unexpected but burgeoning desire to win the top Master award (40+) for the series.

Originally I had intended to cease running altogether after the Albany Marathon in March, and to begin training in earnest on the bike soon thereafter. This plan seemed reinforced by the calls for capitulation from my troubled plantar fascia, which calls I well thought to heed.

But after returning from Albany I was quickly tempted by the possibility of a decent half marathon, knowing I could rely on marathon fitness to carry me over the next two weeks with very little running required in between. So, I partially heeded the cries of my foot by running minimally after Albany, remained well aware that the foot was far from fully healed, and knew of the risks for long term injury were I tempted by the Comox Half. Still I considered that after the Half I would certainly be replacing the runners with cycling shoes, so even if I came away injured, I would have months of healing over the cycling season before resuming running again.

With that in mind I ran the Half to a reasonable finish by my standards, but the last two kilometres obliterated my plantar fascia. And so afterward I swore to myself that that was it for the season. Time on the bike ensued and indeed my mind shifted toward the multiplicity of bike races, and away from the Island series and the possibility of winning the Master award.

But then after three weeks of no running, the Island series Master award leaked into my consciousness, and that trickle, by dint of continued analysis, gradually became a torrent. What if circumstances are such that I cannot even run at all next year? Who will be 40 next year and faster than me? Will I regret not having taken the calculated risks associated with pursuing the goal of one last race and winning the Master award?

The die was cast, but my foot was in rough shape, and I set out to calculate the minimum time I would need to run to win over the next two competitors, Hicham el Amiri and Kevin Searle. On points Hicham was not far back of me, but he was in Boston and, with only four races completed in the series, would not qualify for the award. Kevin was farther back, and I had a fairly comfortable margin over him – I could run relatively slowly, for me, and still win the series.

With that in mind, and in consideration of my injured foot and no running in three weeks, I ran three runs in the week leading up to Sooke (but plenty of riding): an easy run around the lakes on the previous Sunday during which the foot was sore but held up, a treadmill run on Wednesday with 15 mins of tempo, and an easy half hour on Friday (followed by some time on the bike), and no training on Saturday.

This proved an adequate formula. I ran better than expected and felt quite good for the race. After about a mile, I settled in with Mark Nelson, running second and third behind Dave Jackson, way out in front, and who is finally returning from a long term injury. I didn’t think I would be able to stay with Mark, so I tucked in behind him most of the way. On the return, at about 7km, where the 300m hill at about seven percent gradient is located, I discovered more gas than I thought, and found myself pulling away from Mark, and holding on for second place in 34:34, and securing the Master award for the series.

I am quite proud of winning the top Master award. It represents the validation of 20+ years of nearly continuous training and racing; a confirmation that all the years of sweat and sacrifice, the countless highs and lows of racing and training, have all been worth it; a confirmation that all the years of dedication can and do keep your body young and in fantastic shape.

Now is the stage set for another twenty years of dedication, but if it were all to end tomorrow, I would be satisfied and happy with the immense efforts of the last twenty years. And so the Master award marks both twenty years past and the uncertain future whose highs and lows no doubt will not pass with clocklike regularity, but a future that begins now with the same unwavering dedication that has buoyed all the years passed.

The Master award is truly a great honor, and I am indeed proud of it.

Now having considered a couple of scenarios itemized in the first installment of this short series, we can move to consideration of others.

As a brief refresher, recall that in the first installment, one scenario involved training in January, a time of year when it is well known to rain in spades almost continuously on the west coast; a time when there is no racing and it is arguably not particularly onerous to ride with fenders that can be installed for the long term without any reason to alternate between taking them off, if it happens to be dry, and putting them back on if it is raining. In other words, the time and hassle and the general temptation to use a hammer to straighten the fender housing, and the litany of curses that generally accompany fender installation – these need only happen once.

But now let’s imagine that it is late March and the first race of the racing season has taken place just last week. There is no race this weekend, but the local hard-butts have gathered for a training ride and, as might be predicted, it is sprinkling lightly. Everyone dutifully sports their fenders with mudflaps.

There is general chuckling and chatter in the air about the spring racing series among the local bike racers: who was displaying good form at the first race of the year? Who is peaking too early and will be flat as a pancake in June? There is more chuckling. That sort of thing. No one, though, discusses the absence of fenders during the race – they are simply not used during races, rain or no rain.

Now recall from Part I that the riders departed without Fenderless Joe, who, unbeknownst to the group latched on later, somewhere along the way. So has this occurred again.

Your good strong pull is over and you decelerate along the paceline, collecting your well-deserved brownie points as you go, which come in the form of hard-breathing and the general look of suffering on those behind you, a few cordial back slaps and breathy congrats on your good pull.

Glowing, but glad to be heading to the back for shelter, you arrive at the rear and, much to your dismay, you realize that Fenderless Joe is present again. Momentarily it sticks in your craw that he’s not breathing very hard. But he is a human being after all, and so you say “hey”, and seeing the space he leaves for you, you move to occupy it. Just then you hear him mutter something apologetically about having removed his fenders before the first race – which you are quite aware that he did not win because you would have remembered this, and actually recognize him only because you saw him at a ride in January without fenders – and that it’s now racing season.

You can barely believe your ears. Was it not enough to extend greetings to him, and now you must respond to his inane utterances? During a moment of stunned silence, you stare at Fenderless Joe from under your currently clear Oakleys with contempt and disbelief. Uncertain whether it is beneath your dignity even to respond, eventually you say, in a sort of Schwarzenegger monotone: “most people have two bikes.” Then you rise quickly from your saddle for two or three rapid forward thrusts on your pedals to ensure that you are riding ahead of him.

Now Fenderless Joe is in a quandary. Unlike you, Fenderless Joe does not have a winter bike permanently set up with fenders, and a racing bike (actually you have a time-trial bike too, but that is needless detail). Fenderless Joe has only one bike. It is multi-purpose and he uses it for both winter training and for racing, sometimes a little off-road and the odd commute to work and back. Ordinarily he doesn’t use it much during the winter, training mostly indoors or running or some such.

And so the questions arise: is Fenderless Joe obligated to have two bikes, a racing bike and a winter bike? If so, how does this obligation arise, particularly when Fenderless Joe does not train much outdoors in the winter? If he uses only one bike, should he be expected to put his fenders back on before a training ride after racing season has started?

A recent discussion about the ethics of using fenders on group rides has led me to think through a few of the various subtleties of the issue. Consider a few scenarios:

It’s January in Victoria, and you’ve been racing and training all year, summer and winter. It’s five degrees and sprinkling lightly and you show up at the bike shop to join the local winter hard corps for a soggy Sunday ride. You have dutifully affixed your fender with mudflap, as much of a pain as it was to assemble, and this time you have managed to avoid the incessant rubbing of fender against rubber that annoyed you endlessly last winter.

As the group sets out, you fall into a double paceline. You are all getting wet under the rain, but everyone has fenders with flaps and at least no one is getting sprayed in the face by Fenderless Joe. At least not at first. But twenty minutes pass and you’ve just taken a pull at the front with your two-up partner. You drop to the back – going “back for a smoke” as some would say – and lo and behold, yes, check it out, Fenderless Joe has latched on to the back somewhere along the way.

Actually, you don’t realize at first he has no fenders, but Fenderless Joe informs you of the fact and kindly opens a gap for you and allows you to slot in ahead of him. Oh well ok, you think, at least Fenderless Joe is aware of his rude fenderless nature and isn’t some sort of sociopath who will simply spray everyone in the face and not care a jot about it. Still it bugs you that he won’t be contributing to the paceline and gets a free ride the whole way, but you’d rather he sit at the back out of sight and of mind, and there you can forget about him.

But someone at the front ramps up the pace, and a split in the pack occurs. You’ve found yourself in the second group, but Fenderless Joe is strong and he passes from behind and you know he can take you straight across to the first group if you choose to get on his wheel. What do you do? Do you let him go because he is fenderless, treat him as a non-entity, or do you jump his wheel and let him pull you across and take the spray in the face? Besides, you can always shout at him after he takes you across. Let’s say you choose to take the wheel – what has happened now? By taking the benefit of his pull, have you waived your ethical right to complain about his being fenderless, or can you still in good conscience spit the sandgrits from his spray back at him or give him the evil eye beneath your mud-covered face and glasses?

Now consider you’re all riding along, moseying along fine and dandily; no one is really pushing too hard under the rain. Fenderless Joe is quiet at the back and not a worry at all – no one has yelled at him since he hasn’t been giving anyone the face spray. But look at it, yes, check it out, Fenderless Joe is moving up the outside of the group, even crosses the centreline so as not to spray anyone. how considerate, you think. Fenderless Joe passes everyone and is on a solo flyer out in front of the pack! The guys at the front don’t take the bait and Fenderless Joe gets far enough ahead that no one is getting sprayed. But your adrenaline spikes, and you think “that’s my wheel” and you head after him. Soon you latch his wheel and get a face full of muck, and in your mind you call him good for nothing for having no fender. But, did Fenderless Joe say you had to come after him? Again, what has happened here, have you now waived your ethical right to complain because you have joined him ahead of the main pack? You could have just treated him as an invisible ghost and let him ride ahead, after all.

…To be continued…

“When it is hot,” said the man, stripped to his waist, his lean brown body glistening with sweat against the windless air, above the shadowless soil. “Then winter calls to me more than summer does.” He turned his eyes to pass his gaze momentarily across the sun’s sharp trajectory.

“When it is hot,” he continued, “I am withered like a brown blade of grass and I long for days when winter winds cut my face like the last defiant slash of claws from a dying lynx; those days when I wrestle all the heavy snow with boots and high knees to fill the empty pails, and bear the punishing cold like orphaned children on my back.

“I could live and die in such air, it is true, but roots have grounded me here. I have two children of my own, a wonderful wife. The children grow quickly, and we could not leave here now, there is such abundance here. But on days like this – so hot – I look for snow in every evening shadow, for cold wind between every leaf, for frostbite on every sunburn. Tell me, cyclist man, when the sun burns you, do you long for winter too?”

Having stopped at the man’s watermelon stand — where, beside the stand, the watermelon numbered in hundreds neatly piled and interlocking like a castle wall of speckled yellow and green blunted edges — the gypsy cyclist regarded the man quizzically. “Me? Oh no, not at all. I am here where it is hot because I come from a cold climate and long for the heat. I see that you and I are opposites.”

“Opposites?” said the man, a smile turning to soften the hardness of his gaze. “I am not so certain of that. There are extremes, perhaps, of what we may bear of all that is either hot or cold. I may prefer the cold when it is hot and perhaps when it is cold I will prefer the heat, but there are no opposite things under all the stars; they are really just the same.”

“The same?”

“With certainty. I endured the terrible sharpness of the cold for the wife and children I did not have and the mother and father from which I ran. I fought and survived alone with every second of time and meagre snowflake of strength focussed and pitted against all the hardest of winter’s rages, all for the life I dreamed I someday would find.

“I have that life now, I bear it fruitfully and with immense responsibility and beautiful sacrifice. And when the hot air shimmers in waves and my sons’ sillouettes seem to spread their bodies thin against the dancing heat, I would fight alone and pit myself against the sun and the cracking earth to feed them and to protect them. But here they are, and we do not worry about our next meal, nor of hungry predators, or fear the darkness of night. And so, for every step that I take beneath the burning sun, I survive and prepare for the life I do not have. And when my children are gone, and my wife has perished in the ocean of whatever illness that must eventually befall either one of us, or both of us, then will every step still be to defy the aching heat or the piercing cold. It will not matter which.

“Perhaps,” sighed the man, “you do not see it that way, cyclist man. But will you still, for your every pedal stroke beneath the hot waterless air or against the cold lashing wind, conclude that you and I are opposites?”

“Well,” said the gypsy cyclist, reaching for a few coins from his jersey pocket. “Perhaps not so much.” The gypsy cyclist paid the man for a few slices of watermelon, and began to devour them. Until then, he had not been aware of the hunger that lashed at his sunken stomach. “Thank you!” he said, mounting his bicycle. “I have a long way to ride today, and it is a scorcher! I will take some watermelon with me for the road.”

The gypsy cyclist shifted his weight, took a drink of water, and turned his handlebars toward the sun.