Not What I Expected

What I expected, was
Thunder, fighting,
Long Struggles with men
And climbing,
After continual straining
I should grow strong;
Then the rocks would shake,
And I rest long.

Stephen Spender, "What I Expected"



I found some of this this past weekend, especially the "climbing;" Sunday I went back to the Mt. Horeb area. I set out to do the Blue Mounds loop, a series of hills that will be in the August ride. The weather was pleasantly gray, promising to reach only the 70s. As I headed down Hiway 78 toward Black Earth, past farms and a roadside repair shop, I found myself on a long smooth, winding, sometimes steep, descent, including a sign warning trucks of the steep incline; I recalled that the ride will go up this road and decided I should maybe do it myself, that day. So I changed my plans and rode on to Black Earth, reaching up to 30 mph at times,turning over the 400 mile mark on my way there. The ride was pleasant and fast, the road wide, cutting between rock-ribbed hills, past a shetland pony farm and a side road with a sign pointing to the Vermon Lutheran church, somewhere in the hills. Black Earth was just beginning to stir, though the VFW park was busy, with folks preparing for their annual Father's Day BBQ. One young man greeted me with "Beautiful day, hey? Perfect for Father's Day." "Yeah," I replied, "Good day to get away from the kids." He chuckled uneasily, but another, older, man laughed, with shared, good-natured, cynicism. But no one offered me a sample of the feast.

So I settled back with a Clif bar and some rehydration, and soon set back on my climb.

The first part of the return went remarkably smoothly, I clipped along, admiring the green hills against the sky, which had become pale blue with specks of cloud. No other cyclists, just spotty jetsam -- a few remnant route markers from the previous day's Horribly Hilly Hundreds event; a sign announcing an impending barn dance; a spot of unindentifable roadkill; flecks of gravel and chips of asphalt, the sort of things one never sees from a car.

I decided to stop at the church cut-off to take my last tube of Gu, in preparation for the final ascent. The cut-off road was gray, narrow, pocked, and steep, lined with woodlands on both sides. Seemed an invitation to explore, so I went thataway. And I expected that the churchyard might be a place of spiritual rejuvenation and recharge before the charge to the summit.

Things were not as I expected.

That portion of the trip began with an incredibly steep hill, and, despite my desperate thrust on the pedals, for the first time this spring, I had to stop. Either that or fall over, since I'd lost all momentum. I told myself it was a matter of overoptimism and underestimation, but I found myself doubting. I checked the tires in hopes that a flat would excuse this -- but they were firm. So I walked the last hundred or so feet to the crest, remounted, and visited the churchyard, which turned out to be under constuction, all dirt and equipment, no easily accessible green spot, not even a handy bench. Not what I expected. So I stood and refreshed, and turned back toward the main road. A cyclist appeared from that direction, moving at a good clip; I refrained from asking him if he found that first hill daunting, but I didn't. Because I didn't want to know the answer.

Then back to the road and upward. The grade steepened, a turkey vulture circled ominiously over the nearby hills. A small dead fawn stared blank-eyed from the verge. As I climbed the sweat built up on my brow, and began trickling into my eyes. Back to Spender's poem, I was beginning to find, I feared, "the gradual day/Weakening the will."

A sidenote here. The day before I had gone to my barbershop with a photo of Lance Armstrong, and told her to cut my hair just like that. And she did (you'd think maybe she'd have tried to talk me out of it). I'm not sure what I expected. I know I was tired of having my hair plastered to my forehead after a hot ride, and tired of trying to keep it reasonably under control at other times, only to end up like Einstein on a bad day.

One thing certain, I didn't come out looking like Lance, I looked like me with a buzz, maybe what Lance might look like if he were 30 years older, shorter and pudgier and with different ancestry. I also didn't expect that the lack of hair would mean less to hold back the beads of sweat. But that was what I got with, I feared, none of his iron-will. I wanted, I confess, to look a bit like Lance; I ended up looking like his maternal grandfather. And my eyes burned.

But something good did happen on this ride -- before I realized it, I had reached the top, and had energy to spare after all. Maybe I am "growing strong," after all. At least a bit. I rolled on into town, and added another ten miles of spinning at high speed, through Mt. Horeb and nearly to Blue Mounds, then back to the Mt. on the bike trail, mostly alone on the hard-packed dirt, with just an occasional chipmunk dashing in front of me, and one angry-looking woodchuck who glared as I rolled by. Thirty more miles. Not sure what I accomplished, though the lingering images of the previous two hours did provide me with, Spender once again, "[s]ome brightness to hold in trust."

Note, by the way, that Spender's hair is nothing like Lance's, but then I bet he never did the Tour.