Cycling is a tough activity, don't let anyone tell you different. It's tough for the professionals who compete on bikes and it's tough for people who ride them to work. The only difference is the speed and the equipment. The stakes are the same.
In a split second, everything can change. We're out there on the road with nothing but what we have on our backs to protect us from the multi-ton metal boxes flying past or the spot of pavement that refuses to let a bike stay upright for no explicable reason. Even when the situation is primed for cycling, things can still go wrong, terribly wrong. There's the road, there's our bikes, there are the cars, there are other people, there animals, there's the weather, and there are other cyclists. There are too many variables, even on a closed course, that will never permit cycling to be as safe and predictable as football.
All of us who tuned in to watch the US Pro Championships were heartbroken when Lucas Euser and Taylor Phinney went down hard while trying to avoid a race motorcycle during a tricky descent in the road race. Euser was able to walk away from the accident. Phinney, who won a stage of the Tour of California thanks to his descending skills and the US Pro Time Trial last Saturday, didn't get up. He suffered a severe compound fracture to his left fibula and tibia. That is a horrible injury, more than likely a season ending injury. Thankfully, he's young so it is likely that he will come back from this, but it'll be a long road. All it took was a second for disaster to strike. It can strike someone who knows better than most how to handle a bike. It can definitely strike the rest of us. No matter how many hours we spend in the saddle and no matter how much practice we get, there's always the chance that something could happen.
But, we don't think about it too much. We can't. If we played out all the possible tragedies that could happen while riding, we wouldn't ride. We'd go to a gym and ride a stationary instead. We'd get in our cars and drive to work instead of loading our stuff in panniers and pedaling to the office. We wouldn't be cyclists. But, we have to be smart about riding. We need to push our limits, but we also need to know when to make the call. Sometimes, it's wiser to sit a ride out than push on. We need to know our bodies, what level we can take them to before we end up doing damage. We need to know when the road situation isn't safe to ride. There is a limit. We have to make the call when it comes to our safety. The line is different for everyone, and no one else can make the decision for us. It's a part of cycling. Sometimes those lines change, like the more we descend the more comfortable we get with it. Others stay firmly in place. But, we know when we're pushing the envelope and when we can handle it. No Rapha ad, no editorial, no Twitter comment should determine how we approach our personal safety. Lately, pro riders have been taking some flak for protesting the conditions in races. It's easy to say, "You're a professional, suck it up." But, we're not on the roads with them. We really don't have the right to make the call. No one has the right to make the call for the rest of us either. We ride the roads, we know our bodies, we know our bikes. We make the call.
Over the last month, my husband was out of town on business, a lot. So, I dialed it back on the bike. I popped it into the trainer and missed quite a bit of nice weather. Being completely and utterly alone here adds a variable into the equation I don't really want to mess around with if something were to go wrong. I played the conservative hand to mitigate some risks. While I'm sorry I missed some potential good days out there on the bike, I'm not sorry I made the call. It would be better to miss a sunny bike ride than end up in a nasty situation while the only person that would notice I was missing was six hours away. I know that close calls are common on a clear, beautiful day when my husband is riding with me. Heck, I barely missed creaming a woman who stepped out in the street, backwards, from behind a 5 foot tall hedge last weekend. It was miracle we didn't connect! If we had, it would have been nasty. If I was alone it would have been worse. If I was completely solo in Germany at the time that situation would haven been an even uglier business. So, that's why I draw the line there. I keep rides stationary or in short circuits if I'm solo in Deutschland. Some may not agree with that decision, but sorry, it's not your call.
Cycling is tough. We have a lot to take into account when we ride. There's quite a bit we can control. We can care for our bodies so they don't fail us out there. We can keep our bikes in top shape to avoid debilitating mechanicals. We can ride defensively and carefully. But, there's a lot out there that's totally out of our hands. We know that. It's up to us to deal with it the best we can. Only we know how.
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