How My Bike Is Saving My Life

The 100th Tour de France begins tomorrow.  For cycling fans this is what the year comes down to.  For the rest of the world, this is the only professional race they have heard of.  Rightly so.  It's a doozy.  While I waited along with you for the Tour of Tours to begin, I've spent a lot of time over the last few days thinking not so much about this upcoming competition or even the professional level of road racing.  Instead, I've been thinking about my personal relationship with the bicycle.  As the great race begins, we all enter into the second half of 2013.  Halfway through the year seems like a good time to assess how far we've come, with an eye to where we're headed.  The bicycle and I have come a long way together and I'm not just talking the kilometers we've travelled.  Like any journey, the past six months have been about more than distance covered.

Last week, my husband and I traveled home to Akron, Ohio.  We had been looking forward to this trip for quite a long time, probably about 6 months actually.  A year had passed since we had been home.  A lot had happened in that year.  We experienced things and saw places we'd only ever read about.  It had been, without a doubt, an incredible 365 days.  But, despite all that, we were really looking forward to visiting the familiar again.  We couldn't wait to see friends and family.  We looked forward to all sorts of things about home, not the least of which being all the edible delights.  Of course, we were looking forward to shopping too.  I was going to go to Walgreens for Band-Aids at midnight, just because I could.  But, one of the things I was most looking forward to was my annual checkup with my general practitioner.  Yeah, I know that sounds really bizarre.  It's true, though.  I couldn't wait to sit down with my doctor and chat about how my health had changed since the big move to Lux.

Never thought this rather lifeless view of the old hometown would warm the cockles of my heart.

The past six months have been, well, all about the bike.  I was determined to be at or very darned near a place physically where I could ride all day, every day.  I wanted to become a cyclist.  Really.  Through that process I wanted to get in the best shape of my life.  Ever.  Why?

I don't want to jostle for position in a crit or suffer through a stage race.  While I love to watch the competition, to me participating in such an event is about as desirable as a root canal.  I don't even want a QOM on Strava.  Heck, when I was a kid I'd intentionally misspell words in spelling B's so I wouldn't have to go head to head with my friends in front of the school.  The way I see it, we have enough conflict with others in life without purposefully inducing it.  But that's just the way I feel.  I have complete respect for healthy competition and those who participate in it, especially in sport.  But competition is not why I climb on the bike every day.  So, why am I here?

I don't want to wake up one morning wondering how I let things go so far.  I don't want to be popping pills for conditions I could have avoided by just living a healthy lifestyle.  I don't want to be held back from things I want to do whenever I want to do them.  I don't want to look back on my life at some point and regret a wasted youth.  In short, I want to live.  I want to live my life until the moment I finally clock out of here.

I'd made some mistakes that if continued could derail those hopes.  I knew from experience that the bicycle was going to be my ticket to correcting those mistakes.  We all have something, some sort of physical activity that we can do and love doing.  We just need to figure out what it is and then run with it.  For some it's team sports, for others it's solo sports.  For some it's the joy of competing against our peers, for other's it's the joy of competing against ourselves that keeps us coming back.  I never had a doubt about which sport was my thing.  It has always been the bike.  Figuring out exactly how the bike would become my thing has been a longer decision.  The bicycle isn't really like any other piece of sports equipment out there.  It can be used in so many different ways and in so many different disciplines that sometimes finding the one that fits takes a while.  I started on the bike with an interest in transportation that branched into recreation.  Being in Lux simplified things significantly.  I've had the means to discover a real love for road cycling.  So, road cycling is what the bicycle has become for me.  Sure, I'll still take the FX to the store, but when I think of cycling it's me alone (or with my husband), crouched over the drops, on a road somewhere, pushing myself.  Pushing myself to live.

The process started on January 1st, like all good resolutions do, and despite travel and illness it has
continued (miraculously) right up to today.  So, I was pretty excited to see how things stacked up with my doctor's records from the end of 2011.  When the first thing she said to me was, "Whatever you're doing, keep on doing it," I knew things looked good.  Blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol numbers have dropped and are exactly (and in some cases better than) where she wants them to be.  But the big story here is weight.  I've lost 40 lbs since I saw her in December 2011.  Thirty of them were lost since January of this year.  That's a big deal.

Everything has its specific place
in my diet.  In espresso's case, it's pre or mid-ride.

Obviously, it isn't just riding my bike that has gotten me to this point.  I wanted to redesign my life around the bike, not just make the bike a part of my life.  To do that I had to change the way I approached what I put in my body and how I helped it recover.  I totally changed the way I ate, from something that usually was the highlight of my day to something that helped me with what was now the highlight of the day- my ride.  High fat, high cholesterol foods weren't going to do me many favors on the bike, so they got reduced on the roster in favor of lean proteins, healthy carbs and other foods that are more efficient fuels.  Cheese, for example, while being one of my most appreciated foods had to be approached differently.  I wasn't going to cut it out all together (no need to be crazy), but I made it something I could enjoy more by giving it a different status in my diet- a special treat to be savored and appreciated, not tossed down without a second thought.  Beer had to be approached differently too.  Once again, I wasn't going to stop drinking it.  I was going to drink it differently.  Instead of going for a local pilsner, I only have beer when there's something available I haven't tried yet or I really like.  If a place doesn't have anything that meets my standards, I'll go for the water instead.  I'd rather wait for something more interesting.  Beer, in fact, is an excellent recovery drink.  So, after some of my more long and hot (there was a week here of proper summer temps) Womens 100 training rides, I'd reward myself with a small beer as a recovery aid.  Truth be told, I didn't cut anything out of my diet completely.  I didn't go vegetarian, paleo, carb free, or sugar free.  I didn't hold back on vacations either.  I use foods for how they can benefit me in my goal to be a cyclist.  Pretty much all foods can help in that process as long as they're used correctly, even bacon can have a role.

Recovery became extremely important too.  I made sure not to go overboard with the cycling, which can be hard to do when you really love it.  I listened to my body.  If something was hurting, I'd back off, do what needed to be done so it could heal, then figure out how to avoid the pain coming back in the future.  I made sure to get plenty of sleep.  I'd shape my meals around fuel and recovery, by eating things before my ride that will help my ride and eating certain things afterwards to help my muscles recover and heal.

I also started noticing some unexpected side-effects.  Cycling has given what could easily become a disjointed purposeless existence as an unemployed expat a focus.  Sure, I have my other interests and hobbies, but skipping out on photography for a few weeks isn't going to have a major negative impact on my health.  The bike keeps me on track.  It gets me up on time and in bed at a decent hour at night.  Additionally, there are mental health benefits to pedaling every day.  Something that they don't tell you in the expat brochure is that a majority of Americans struggle with being in Luxembourg for a long period of time.  Many end up on anti-depressants.  Why?  Well, it's probably for a number of reasons.  Luxembourg is not like the States.  I'm not saying it's a bad place, it's just very different and getting used to it can be hard to deal with.  The weather itself is no doubt a huge factor.  Thankfully, we come from a place in Northeast Ohio that's almost as overcast, but even the endless days of grey rain begin to take their toll on us.  Of course, it probably just comes down to living somewhere far from home, living a completely different lifestyle, and having to handle things you've never dealt with before.  You get lonely.  You get low.  But, at least for me, getting on the bike everyday has thus far combated that low feeling.  It's not just the known mental health benefits of daily exercise that have been there.  I think it has more to do with getting me out in this beautiful country.  During every ride there is a moment when I look up and say, "Wow, I can't believe I get to do this today.  Here.  I'm so incredibly blessed."  After those ride rides that totally kick my butt and then kick me when I'm down I can't help but think, "Europe is beating that crap out of me.  That's still pretty cool."

Have I met my goal of becoming a cyclist?  Yeah, I think so.  I certainly have the tan lines.  But, I have further to go.  That's the really cool thing about cycling.  There's always something else to look forward to.  The Womens 100 ride is next weekend.  When that's over, I'd like to keep up that level of riding to the winter.  When next year comes around, perhaps the goal will be doing 100 Miles instead of 100K.  Someday I want to get to a place with climbing that doesn't feel completely excruciating.   I'd like to look at almost any road, shrug, swing the leg over, clip in, and begin cranking those pedals with more excitement than trepidation.  But, I'd like a road to be out there somewhere that still holds a little dread.
 
Cuz, ya know, that's living.

Do Not Let These Roads Deceive You

We all have those rides that are just perfect.  From the moment we clip in to the final dismount, every moment is a joy.  Perfect rides are uncommon things.  We treasure every single one.

Just one of the views from the roads of the Belgian Ardennes.

It was no surprise to us that one of these rides would happen in Belgium.  I'm not going to tell you the specific route, except that it was around Bastogne.  The roads were devoid of all types of traffic and, well, I'd like to keep it that way.  There's something sweet about clicking into the big ring, getting down in the drops and just going, going for kilometer after kilometer without a care in the world.  We had that for 50kms.  When we weren't in the big ring, we were climbing.  Those climbs were steep and choppy, but clear to attack from whatever angle and pace that worked.  The only other traffic we encountered besides fellow cyclists was a tractor at the bottom of a descent and a tethered horse chilling on the MPU at the end of the ride.  They weren't your common obstacles, but at least they were few.  While it had been threatening rain and thunderstorms, we had hours of sunny bliss.  The storm finally arrived after we returned to our house in Ettelbruck, cleaned up, and had cold Belgian beers in hand.  We couldn't have asked for a better day.

The Bastogne region is a special place.  Cycling fans know it because it is host to La Doyenne, the old Liège-Bastogne-Liège race.  Those who are familiar with a little WWII history know it for being the center of the action during the Battle of the Bulge.  Nearly seventy years later, The War is still a raw memory in these parts.  Even where we live, further to the southeast, the memorials to resistance fighters and liberators dot the landscape.  The church in our town still bears the scars of mortars and bullets.  Plaques are on every corner.  The old synagogue behind our house no longer serves its original purpose.  It is now rented out for meetings and special occasions.  It doesn't take a history expert to figure out why.  There's a picture in the museum a few streets over that shows our street in 1944.  All it shows is one building and a pile of rubble.  Ettelbruck likes to be known as Patton Town, in honor of the famous General who coordinated its liberation on Christmas Day 1944.  There's a big statue erected in his honor just outside the city limits.  All along the line, towns like Ettelbruck were hit hard during Hitler's last attempt to push back against the Allies moving towards Berlin.  There doesn't seem to be any desire to forget that, nor the sacrifices made by allied soldiers and local resistance fighters.

The situation in Bastogne during Christmas 1944.

Bastogne in particular is remembered for being a town under siege.  From December 20-27, 1944 members of the 82nd and 101st Airborne along with the 10th Armored Division became encircled around the town by the Nazis.  They didn't have enough supplies or ammunition because supply drops were stalled due to snow and thick fog.  Despite heavy barrages and hand to hand combat within Bastogne, it never fell to Hitler's forces.  Eventually, with the arrival of Patton's Third Army Bastogne was officially liberated.  It is probably one of the most famous battles in military history and is definitely one of the most significant of World War II.  From that moment on, Hitler didn't have a chance.

The massive Mardasson Memorial above Bastogne commemorates the besieged defenders
who held the town despite heavy Nazi offense during Christmas 1944.

The main historic site, the Mardasson Memorial Visitor Center, is currently closed for remodeling.  The Memorial itself is still open for viewing.  However, down in Bastogne itself there is a small but professionally designed exhibit called "I Was 20 in '45" presenting the perspectives of not just the combatants, but also of the civilians.  The footage from the battle and aftermath is horrific.  The recorded interviews of survivors are just as moving.  I remember in particular an interview of an old woman siting in front of her house in a blue flowered dress, thick framed glasses are perched on her nose.  She looks like just another Belgian grandmother.  In a calm voice she is telling her memories of Christmas 1944.  Her husband had gone off in the woods outside the town with his fellow resistance fighters.  He was shot and killed somewhere along the way.  Their house had been completely destroyed during one of the artillery attacks.  So, she took her newborn and hid in the woods, without food or proper clothing.  She hid there for days, almost completely frozen.  Her child didn't survive.

As we were riding along the roads and trails, past the massive monument that towered above us on the hill, I couldn't help but think that the peaceful woods which we rolled through are still pockmarked with foxholes and bomb craters.  Those pasture lands still hold battle debris and the personal effects of soldiers and civilians.  It seems like a perfect place now, but there is still blood in this landscape.  All along the way are street signs pointing to places like Noville, Bourcy, and Foy.  There'd be a marker here, a fluttering American flag there, unexploded ordinance turned monument a few kilometers later.

I realized that 70 years really isn't that long and that this route we planned wasn't so perfect after all.

Here Are The Facts

Humans have been moving about this planet for some time now.  You would think over millennia of constant migration by foot, wheel, and water that we would have this whole traveling thing figured out.  However, it is quite apparent that most people haven't a clue how to get themselves from one point to another in a responsible and safe manner.  It doesn't matter if they're driving a car, a tractor, a golf cart, walking on their two feet, pedaling a bicycle, or pushing a scooter.  The attitude of many is one of complete self-absorption and disregard of others.  Alas, statistics indicate that this is a global problem.  Deaths by car accident in the United States have been averaging around 30,000 a year for the past four years. In Luxembourg, there have been 4 serious car crashes in the past three days.  Three of those wrecks were fatal.  Sure, we can blame their mode of transport and say cars are the problem, but honestly, unless there is some sort of mechanical failure the cause of the carnage are the drivers themselves.  Their disregard of others is usually the root source.  We focus on cars because they are involved in the most deaths.  Their "accidents" are the most deadly.  But, pedestrians and cyclists and everyone else in between all suffer from the same selfish ignorance.  This is not good.

In an effort to disseminate useful information to the general public here are some facts to help you understand the basics of proper travel behavior, whether you're walking to the store or driving 2,000 miles cross country.

1.)  You are not the only person on the planet.  The first fact of traveling is the most important.  You would think we would all know this.  I mean, obviously there are other people around.  We interact with other people on a daily basis.  But, for some reason many people seem to think they are the only ones on earth when they're out and about.  Newsflash:  Not true!  You cannot move about as if you are completely alone, with total ownership of all roadways, sidewalks, and multi-use paths.  If you do, you or someone else will get hurt or killed.  Master this first fact, and the rest make perfect sense.

2.)  Roadways and pathways are for moving traffic.  Did you know that the first paths on this earth were created so people could get from one place to another easily and as directly as possible? Modern roads and pathways are designed with the same exact purpose!  That's why roads aren't intentionally blocked by obstacles and if an obstacle appears, it is removed immediately.  A blocked road is useless.  Therefore, the next time you are traveling and have an overwhelming urge to stop for whatever reason, move off the road or path.  Roads and paths are for people who are moving.  They are not for family reunions, sunbathing, games of catch, bicycle repair, or changing diapers.  There are other places designed for such purposes.  If you can't tell the difference, you have no business being in public without supervision.

3.)  You are responsible for your dependents.  Traveling with a child or a pet?  Excellent.  Glad to see they are out and about.  But, did you know your children/pets are your responsibility?  It's true!  While it is the public's responsibility to behave in a manner that doesn't endanger your loved one, it is actually your job to keep them out of harms way to begin with.  If you remember Fact #1 you will realize that dog leashes are a necessity and children need to be kept under control.  If you refer to Fact #2 you will realize that the roadway isn't a dog park or a playground.  If your dependents can't behave properly on the roadway then you should take them to one of those facilities.

4.)  Roads and paths can and do have various users.  It is completely legal, unless otherwise posted, for pedestrians and cyclists to be on roads.  While you may not agree with them being there, they have every right to be.  Taking 30 seconds to pass with care isn't going to make you late.  If it does, then you should have left earlier.  Additionally, multi-use paths are, well, MULTI-USE.  Walkers, please refer to Fact #1.  You are are not water.  You do not have to fill all available space on a pathway.  There's nothing shocking or horrifying about a bike being on a path intended for bicycle use.  To prevent any issues, please accept their presence ahead of time and leave space on the path for them.  If you don't, they will ask you to move.  They're not asking you to move because they are horrible people, they are asking you to move because they don't want to hit you.   If they've had to ask you multiple times because you chose to disregard Fact #1, then expect some frustration from them.  Cyclists, you have the responsibility to communicate your presence to slower traffic.  Even if there is room to pass, the decent thing to do is communicate that you intend to pass.  That's just common courtesy.

Finally, and most importantly.

5.)  You and your business never take precedence over another person's life.  It doesn't matter if you're the Queen, the Grand Duke, the President, the Mayor, or the prettiest girl in school.  Your life is not more important than the lives of the other people on the road.  It doesn't matter if you're late to the birth of your first child or your first day at work.  No matter what excuse you give, it never makes killing or injuring someone ok.   Never.  Put the phone down.  That call or text can wait.  Seriously, it can.

There you have it, people.  Those are the facts.  I'm sorry that some of you were never taught them, but it's never too late to learn to something new.  Commit them to memory.  Share them with your friends and loved ones.  Post them in your car, by your walking shoes, or by your bike.  I guarantee that if you accept these things as fact and travel with them in mind, your traveling experiences will go much more smoothly.  Your risk of injury or injuring others will be greatly reduced.  Also, you may notice you are no longer the recipient of gestures or reprimands by random strangers.

See?  Everyone can benefit from a little education and personal responsibility.