You've stumbled upon the blog of Paul Malan. I love my family, I love to write, I love to ride my bikes, and I love to take pictures. Maybe someday I'll think of something clever or arresting to say right here.Two years ago Wendy and I took a 105-mile bike ride together. By the time we finished Wendy had sworn to never ride such a distance again—a sensible promise, but one that I predicted she wouldn’t keep. Last summer Wendy was pregnant with our beautiful blue-eyed baby so I rode the ULCER alone, but this summer she re-enlisted and the two of us rode the now 111-mile route side by side.
Riding 111 miles might sound hard, and for most people it is, but I had ridden the ULCER five times before, the weather was only in the low 90’s, and though I’m not in top cycling shape this summer I thought it wouldn’t be too bad. But the jerseys did say “Sufferfest,” a curious pronouncement that made me question the mental capacity of all 1,800 riders with me on the roadways. Very few people actually enjoy physical pain, so why were there so many of us there volunteering, even paying, to suffer?
The answer has to be that we were hoping to strengthen our identities as cyclists, as athletes, or, for those chubby riders whose pain was even more pronounced, as people determined to improve their physical fitness even if it means suffering in too-tight lycra shorts. To that end, the worse our suffering is, the more we have affirmed our status: “I am a real cyclist, and I have the t-shirt to prove it.” If we’re lucky, and if the organizers have enough foresight, the t-shirt might even include the word “sufferfest” to help us tell our story to the world.
But why would I want to tie my identity to something as impermanent as cycling? I could easily lose a hand in a freak office accident, or even the key to my bike lock, and I would quickly admit that who I really am is nothing to do with my bike, even if I did ride 111 miles last weekend. (I am not a cyclist, I just am. Am I right, all you Mormon-Buddhists out there?)
Unfortunately I had these thoughts quite early in the ride, and by the time the novelty wore off my ego was no longer impressed by suffering as a means of strengthening my identity. Finding myself physically unprepared and mentally uninterested, the last 50 miles were entirely unpleasant. Wendy and I each wondered aloud, using language that has been frequently mischaracterized as French, why we had chosen to make the mistake of embarking on a route as windy and boring as Highway 68. Featuring such cities as Goshen and Elberta, creeping slowly higher in elevation, displaying only sagebrush and barbed wire, I wouldn’t want to spend even five miles on this road. Unfortunately, we spent nearly 50.
By mile 80 neither of us was having any fun, but Wendy had two things going for her that I did not: First, she is in fantastic shape this summer, having run in the Wasatch Back relay race and two half-marathons, and second, her body turns anger into energy with impressive efficiency. Just before the 90-mile mark she declared (en français) that she had had enough, and before I knew it I had been dropped. Being dropped, of course, means that the cyclist you want to ride with is going too fast for you to keep pace. Merde!
Damaged pride doesn’t convert to energy nearly as well as anger, so I crept slowly up the hill after her, already plotting a way to write about the experience without sounding wimpy. I devised no such method. My wife, the runner, simply out-pedaled me. It’s a good thing I’m not a cyclist—I might really have felt stupid.
The ride ended at last, and we fled to a shaded pavilion where they gave us popsicles and played a Johnny Cash song over and over again. Sitting on a picnic bench, white salt dried across our faces, listening to “Ring of Fire”, Wendy and I both agreed that we would never set tire on Route 68 for as long as we live. The ULCER is dead to me. If I feel inclined to ride another century I’ll choose one that includes more scenery, more variety, and less Johnny Cash.
That evening I read a rather amusing blog entry from my friend Merritt, in which he considers the usefulness of learning from the mistakes of others. At the risk of driving you away from owning or riding a bicycle, allow me to present just a few lessons you could learn from our ULCER mistake:
- If you’re a man, your, uh, I don’t know the French term… your… thing… goes numb. I don’t mean tingly numb, I mean ready-for-a-root-canal numb. The eeriness is matched only by the relief you’ll feel when things return to normal.
- Unless you make friends with chamois butter (which is itself a bit grody), your first extended trip to the bathroom will leave you wondering when Charmin started marketing sandpaper.
- Even if you’re fit enough to avoid leg cramping, your neck and shoulders will never forgive you.
- Saratoga Springs has the first houses you’ll see in 45 miles. Many of them are for sale, maybe due to badly structured mortgages, but more likely because it smells like ass that close to the lake.
If you are a cyclist and you suspect these things will make you feel more like a cyclist, then the ULCER is the ride for you. But as for me and my spouse, 2008 is the last year we’ll endure the sufferfest, no matter how cool they make the t-shirts.
Actually, apart from my absolute failure to find confidence in the experiences and perspectives of others, I'm sort of drawn to a class of things that the average human being wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole. Canyoneering is a good example. Part of the reason I love it so much is because most people would never even dream of going to the places I go. Sure, they'd never have to walk through cess pools, confront rattle snakes, and take all sorts of stupid risks all in the name of challenge and adventure; but it makes me feel a little more alive and a little less like...well, like I did at BYU where I'd walk around and see hundreds of copies of myself everywhere I went. As you pointed out, maybe I'm not a canyoneer, but canyoneering (and things like it) make me feel like I at least have a unique identity.
So anyways, I'm not quite ready to pick up a road bike, but almost I am convinced.
(By the way, you've got to change your flickr link to open a new tab. After clicking on it before submitting my comment, I thought I had lost everything I just wrote. And eloquence like this doesn't spout from my brain just anytime. Ya heard?)