Cycling Departure

I stopped cycling as a full-time occupation in March 2016.

Shame delayed the announcement.

Once upon a home voyage, I awaited a train in Nantes Gare. A soldier came across me, and I was addressed in a friendly French tongue. Grunts of bewilderment responded to his talk. Granted his audience was an English-speaking oaf, his lips tensed as he forced out foreign words,

‘You two euro? Me train Lille…’

I flipped the two euro he was short to get the man of duty on his way. With a goofy smile and a ‘chow’, I wished him well on his journey to wherever, for whatever.

When I got to Dublin, and realised I needed that two euro to get me back up to Belfast, my thoughts were, ‘I really hope your man was actually a soldier’.

That experience always made me think. Not about my lack of organisation and my general incompetence; but my reasoning to giving my last monetary scrapes to a soldier, and not anyone else.

 ‘Why should I deserve all this support when so many people are not as privileged?’ I was happy to hugely inconvenience my journey home to help a soldier out, but why would you do it for an underperforming cyclist?

Exhausting bank accounts, help and the European public transport system, I pushed my mental and physical capabilities to the limits. Money, bikes, hope, time and effort were thrown at me throughout my cycling career, to no avail. Doubt and insecurity crept into my life and laid down their anchors. Every failure hit me harder and harder.

Throughout 2015, I lived mostly on my own, in a ghost town in north-west France. Shutter Island had become embedded in the centre of Brittany; consisting of a bakery, a hair-dressers and a tabac. I hated living there. When I went out on the bike, eyes burnt into my fluorescent pink kit, as everyone in the little village documented my movements. It got to a peak, when the baker had pre-prepared all the things I was going to ask for, before I got there.

            Paranoia haunted me. I needed to know what these people were thinking of me. I needed to know why I wasn’t getting results. Going out on my bike wasn’t solving my problems anymore, but creating them.

In November 2015, I encountered Jake Bailey upon my phone screen, whilst staying with my girlfriend in London. Diagnosed with terminal cancer the week before, the head boy of Christchurch Boys High School rolled onto the stage in a wheelchair, delivering a scintillating speech, which soon became a viral YouTube hit.

Bailey was so pale and so weak, but the fire still surged from his eyes. Two brown microcosms of optimism and passion radiated into the camera, rejecting his body’s degeneration. Enthusiastically, he urged his peers to make the most of their gifts, in a moving twenty-minute address. He states,

‘Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else's hands, but not you. Of course doing this will mean at some point we may have to face our fear of falling short. Fear of looking like a fool. Fear of not being enough.’

Bailey crippled me. Emotions crumbled out as I was swallowed by my girlfriend’s bed. Disgust and distain seeped into my being like never before. Why can a man staring death in the face be a beacon of motivation, encouragement, and positivity; while I am just a wretch?

My girlfriend rushed in and told me I had a problem. The internal monologue of personal, hateful slander had to stop. I made a promise to seek help.

I held the promise, and went to see a therapist to help me with my, mostly abnormal, thoughts. Depression and anxieties had leaked into my mind and distorted my view of life. Things got a lot worse before they get better as I started lifting my sub-conscious barricades and ventured into my darkest thoughts.

But I still rode my bike. The colour-coded TrainingPeaks calendar remained green, as I focussed on making 2016 the best season yet. Coming into the New Year, I was the strongest I’d ever been. When times were tough, I thought, ‘Give it two more years, and see what happens.’ I kept plugging away, hoping the stars would align.

But the stars never would. A sticky web of weaknesses lined my conscience, as the season started. I no longer felt like the young boy at Orlock, whizzing up the Springwell. I was fitter, stronger and leaner than ever, but the feeble inaccuracies I still had, melted my remaining self-esteem away.

Races were no longer about pushing hard, about enjoying the quest to the limit. They became a sobering highlighter of disappointment, of how I still was not good enough. The unknown distance of necessary improvement, crushed my soul every time I pushed down on the pedals.

But I still kept faith. I refused to give up. I refused to be associated with the cyclists who had given up before me. I wanted to be the one who prospered, not the one who failed.

Encroached in emotional turmoil, my flight to Belgium got closer and closer. I desperately pleaded with myself to wise up, and get on the bloody plane. But I just couldn’t. Enslaved by the unanswered questions wickedly dancing in my mind’s eye, I had to give up.

Abhorrent, black weeks followed. I was walking into a wall whilst remaining in cycling; but when leaving it I felt I had turned around to walk into a wall directly opposite. Not a fibre in my body wanted to get on that flight to Belgium, but not a fibre in my body wanted to finally admit defeat to achieving a professional contract in cycling, either.

Demons from another department started to plague my head. They made me avoid seeing anyone I knew from cycling. They made me not want to ride my bike for the potential of being spotted. They made me a slave to my own existence.

But I survived. I received a lot of help and am better for it. Now, a few months on, I feel it was definitely the right choice. I feel better, less stressed and more determined to enjoy life.

An exercise fanatic from no age, I’ve realised that physical exertion was my coping mechanism for depression. When cycling became an occupation, it fuelled my woes rather than extinguish them. This is what led to the downward spiral.

I still love every minute of riding a bike. I am trying to pack my weeks with any sport I can think of, because now I know it gives me peace of mind.

To finish, I send a message out to two sets of readers:

To the full-time cyclists, I commend you. Cycling is in a new light, for me, now. Every cyclist projected on a television screen earns every ounce of airtime. They are hardened, driven individuals, and I will always be in awe of their achievements. To me, cycling is still a magnificent spectacle, and I will always love to see people conquer it.

 To the depression sufferers. You are not alone, and you are the reason I wrote this post. I took no pleasure creating it and I am glad to finish it. If you have started your journey to vitality, I wish you all the best. If you are still on your own, talk to the right people to make things right. You will be alone if you act alone. Seek the right help and you can fight it. It is a horrible illness, but one which is made to be beaten.

I write to live, and I endeavour to live to write. This is my next target. Any advice in any work experience within the writing stratosphere would be greatly welcomed.

Thanks for reading, and see you on the road.

a quentin tarantino film

Jackass

I punctured. Just like last week, only more inconvenient.

Too many mechanics spoil the rider: One wants the chain on the 11, one wants it on the 14 and another lazy frog wants you to replace the wheel all by yourself.

Up and running again with some new rubber, glued to a rear windscreen. Well, not as glued as a recent predecessor, who’s teeth marks from a few weeks ago are still fairly prominent on the heated glass. I purse my lips for protection. After all, I’m riding a flimsy piece of carbon, clad in condom head-to-toe, with polystyrene on my head, whilst travelling 45mph, 15cm behind a car. SAFETY IS PARAMOUNT.

The car takes a left at a roundabout, levitating over a small triangular traffic island. I don’t see this kerb stoned protrusion, but my new rubber does. It glides across it ever so smoothly. I would say it was the fastest ever endo. No Guinness World Record staff present so not official.

That was one my 9 lives if I were a cat. I ain’t no pussy.

Rás Mumhang-on-a-minute

I did the tragic, cruel but beautiful 4 day stage race in the south-west of Ireland. In the grandeur of National colours. What a moment…

1st Stage: Mountains Jersey.

2nd Stage: Puncture before 1st Cat Climb.

3rd Stage: Puncture before 1st Cat Climb.

4th Stage: Crash

A severe low point. I was weeping, and I mean WEEPING, against the yellow wall of the Fossa Travel Inn, on the phone to my girlfriend, currently in France visiting me… only I was back in Ireland.

I had spent the last 6 weeks crashing, or puncturing, in the cold rain of France. What kept me going was, ‘But Rás Mumhan should be good this year: I’ve never done this much good racing before it…’

Then I head-butted the ground on the last stage, splitting my team issue helmet in half.

A couple of hours later, I was on a flight to Nantes, then drove a car 150k back to my French apartment. I have no memory of this travel, apart from leaving a nice Dublin hotel at 6am.

Again, SAFETY IS PARAMOUNT.

What I should remember

Strepsils and Eye-drops

I was in the middle of a Brittany based stage race. I had woken up with a sore throat, but no Strepsils were on offer.

Forty-five minutes before the start, in the rainy town of Saint-Pol-de-Leon, I hunted for my honey and lemon flavoured relief. A pharmacist took my money, and handed me over the goods, open-mouthed at the lycra-clad knob, glaring back at her.

The way back to the van, via a cobbled street, the Strepsils box disintegrated and the tabs fell out. A car ran over them half a second later. 

Crushed Strepsils are better for digestion.

cobbles in question

I’m now an hour into the wet-and-windy stage. I’ve been painfully blinking in 59/60minutes since the flag has dropped. An unwelcome insect’s burial ground is in my eye. Insects are never welcome in my life, let alone my eye.

I go to the doctor’s car to get help, which escalates to grabbing the car, downhill in the rain at 50mph, with a madman trying to put an eye drop in thine oculus.

Nevertheless it worked. There is a fine line between genius and madness.

BUT SAFETY IS PARAMOUNT.

Disease

I was doing my home stage race, the pride of my racing career, when I contracted the just-fuck-him-up virus.

The first stage I hyperventilated, losing minutes and any GC chances. The fifth stage I got tendinitis which lasted to the end, accompanied by diarrhea for the last couple of days also.

But I got to the end of it, and it meant a lot more than the illness-free Rás I did before.

It set up a platform for the rest of my season.

Got there in the end

Johnny Cash

The National Road Race Championships were probably my most commendable result of 2015, with 9th overall and Silver in u23.

I came back from a 2 week track camp on the Tuesday,

Drove down and rode the Time Trial course on the Wednesday,

Did the Time Trial on the Thursday,

Slept on the Friday, spun out on the Saturday,

And raced on the Sunday.

Why didn’t Craig David sing about it?

For me, the race itself was like squeezing the last few ounces out of a bar of toothpaste. It HURT. I was completely goosed, with no kick at all. I rode like a big Massey Ferguson.

But nobody else noticed, I survived in the break, unfortunately at the wrong end of it.

I must say, pretending I was Omagh-man Marc Potts for the race made it a lot easier.

‘Gowan Pottsy, son!’

‘Get gardening, Potts!’

‘Show me the clay, Potts!’

The last two may be satire.

I’ll always think how I would’ve done if the champs were a week later, with all the fast miles in the bank beforehand. Ifs and buts, sighs and tuts.

The Linguist

The best result I had in France was 6th overall (2nd in u23) in the AggloTour, due to finishing 3rd in the last stage, which was laps up a brutal 10 minute climb. It was a real confidence booster, showing what I was capable of, and what I should’ve been doing all season. There was nowhere to hide on the course, and I certainly wasn’t hiding.

I lost the sprint on confidence. In a carbon-copy situation in Ireland, I would’ve wiped the floor with my breakaway companions.

But I didn’t. I waited. And I finished 3rd.

The last k was the last few minutes of the lap’s climb, gradually sloping off. The freshest man would’ve won. They just had to go after 500m to go. I was out of my comfort zone in the French countryside, and I didn’t think straight. I treated it like a fast, flat sprint, waiting last minute, which was never going to work. The first sprinter to sprint, won.

Afterwards, the commentator forced me to give him an account of my day, which involved some humming and me pointing at the hill, pronouncing it to be, 'trés dur’.

The Linguist… more like ‘The Pianist’, by Roman Polanski: violently depressing, making you want to shout, ‘NO, NO, NO, NO!’ near the end.

Valerie

My loyal companion to it all was the team’s van, a lengthy pink VW, named Valerie.

On a good day she’d shudder to a start. Her max speed was a cool 100kph (downhill).

She is currently in a coma (flat battery). Someone reversed her into a wall last week so she is still coming to terms with that.

She’s taken me everywhere, and we’ve seen many highs and lows together. But we got through it.

And we’re better for it. And stronger.

We’ll look back at those days and take them as motivation for the next ones.

Not sure where I’ll be next year, but one’s thing for sure: I will NEVER accept cheese and wine as a post-main-course meal.

I will get my cake.

And I will eat it.

Follow @DanBikeStewart and @DaveRaynerFund on Twitter

Special thanks to all who've helped me get to this point. I will continue to work hard with your gratefully welcomed support.

LA CRÈCHE

A great tool of the modern era is that of the social network. What a day we live in: through caressing a plastic block’s screen, you can have your unnecessary opinion projected to millions. I am truly thankful, as without it, I wouldn’t be able to broadcast my ramblings. Well, I could write them on walls with my own blood; but that would limit my word-count.

However, with pros come cons; and I absolutely loathe when cyclists refer to our outside world as ‘their office’.

It is in no way an office. A cyclist isn’t clogged in an oxygen-depleted container, filled with other sweaty colleagues trying to make a buck. A cyclist isn’t exposed to the monotony of the greyscale nine-to-fiver. A cyclist doesn’t have to chortle at an obnoxious trump on the other end of a phone line just to get a bonus at the end of the month.

A cyclist’s life is freedom.

A cyclist gets to explore so many different cultures and landscapes, their day-to-day visuals rich with exotic languages, fascinating people and jaw dropping landforms.

You could say I am labelled as one of these folk.

I thought I’d take you for a day in my life: ‘La Crèche’. Where I’m back at the nursery, learning by doing, living the simple life.

I’m taking you through a Tuesday. It seems the most productive day of a week.

Prepare to be WOWed.

I am always woken up at 7am by the church bells of Kervignac church, and Tuesday was no exception.

This remote little village in the centre of Brittany, about 5k from Hennebont, is battered by these religious fog-horns on an hourly basis.

I can’t admit to appreciating them. I’m not a morning person, and the church bellowing doesn’t help. Their hour notifications are somewhat crueller: they ring at four minutes past the hour; torture for a lad like myself who likes dotting the ‘Is’ and crossing the ‘Ts’.

I enter most days with a thought of vicious blasphemy.

I return to slumber, until about 9ish.

I grab my phone in attempt to survey the world without opening the shutters. My current WiFi is woeful, which leads me to halt internet information gathering, and return to my latest read: ‘Gang Leader for a Day’ by Sudhir Venkatesh.

After receiving a jewelled recommendation, I’ve become encapsulated. It details a sociologist who manages to waltz into one of Chicago’s most dangerous areas, and hits it off with a prominent gang leader, known as ‘JT’.

Judging aside from his blasé observations of crack dealing, prostitution and beatings; I am astounded as to how similar a sociologist behaves to how I act amongst the average Breton.

I see myself listening and studying, scared to exhaust my French, noting their mannerisms and behaviour, akin to Venkatesh.

I finally give up, and get up and drag myself to the coffee maker. I’ve reduced my caffeine intake since last year (http://tinyurl.com/o6o7wur), and replaced a hefty majority of it with the liquid herb: green tea.

However today I feel groggy, so I need a good slap in the face from Dr Caffeine, and he surely delivers.

I’m back bouncing, so I start to make breakfast: some muesli, shredded coconut and walnuts, lathered in natural yoghurt, topped off with honey.

I’m living in a kooky apartment at the moment. It’s a charismatic settlement. Basic in structure, it has a double bedroom with an en-suite, and a kitchen; all you need. It’s easy to heat up, and easy to clean up; and when July comes, this little flat won’t be far from ‘Le Tour’ action, with stage finishes in Plumelec and Mur de Bretagne not even an hour’s car journey away.

I cloth myself in my pink uniform and get out the door with my bike under me, into the sunshine. I have enjoyed learning that a Brittany spring is an Irish Summer.

This year, my winter lasted 2 weeks at Christmas time, as for the rest of it I was somewhere milder; which was great.

But that’s life in la crèche.

These country folk give you the same look they would if they are eyeing up the camera for a mugshot. It takes a while to get used it to it, and you learn they are waiting for a ‘salut’ or a ‘bonjour’.

I get out into the Brittany outback. Today, I’m doing a pretty brisk two hours. It flies by when you are blessed in such a great location.

You are either wrapped in oaks and pines or hand in hand with seaside and beaches; it truly is a wonderful part of the world.

I return to ‘studio un’, get some protein down my gullet and carry out some light stretching. I have a gander in the fridge to see what I’m going to have for lunch.

I find some double cream, rice, eggs and chorizo. What do you make?

Scrambled eggs with the consistency of mashed potato of course!

As the water with the rice gathers energy to boil, my mind wanders out the adjacent window. Thinking about anything and everything, I am in my own little bubble, just like the hundreds of others within the rice saucepan. Thinking about the future, thinking about the past, theorizing and planning, living and learning.

I fall back to reality when the rice erupts and I have to turn the heat down. I mix it into the poteggo mash and engulf.

The second session is next up: 30second efforts, 3 of them.

It’s hard to fathom how so much pain can be inflicted in ninety seconds. No matter how each thirty seconds go, you are left panting, exhausted and demoralised. Chris Hoy, Daniel Stewart and Joe Bloggs all feel exactly the same after an anaerobic effort.

I hate these intervals with a passion. As each second passes I feel the lactic acid sinking its venom deeper into my muscle fibres, ripping them apart; whilst my lungs are trying to turn themselves inside out, instead of pushing the bad air out and good air in.

I shower, have some more protein and collapse on my bed. My legs have clocked out for the day.

I’ve taken too much caffeine and my mind is still whirring. I want to sleep but my eyes can’t shut: they’re like a rabbit’s facing headlights.

Instead of napping for an hour, I lounge for an hour.

I get up to eat some more food. Hating the stereotype, I have some pasta. But not any old pasta; I’ve heaped every worthwhile vegetable from the local supermarché into this Bolognese. It is DELICIOUS. After all, I made it.

I retire to my bed and strum through some more ‘Gang Leader for a Day’. Another couple of sessions ticked, another day gone.

That was a day in the life, thanks for reading.

Follow @DanBikeStewart and @DaveRaynerFund on Twitter.

all cyclists are fruits

After a month of base training, whilst squatting in the Mallorca Cycling Ireland house, I’m heading to London for some downtime with a gem. I’ll then head off to France to start my 2015 racing campaign, with Hennebont Cyclisme.

What a jolly life cyclists/holiday makers have: frolicking and jet-setting, pottering across the globe.

This post gives you an insight.

I was never a fan of Shrek, but I would rather quote it than the Bible.

In the first movie, Shrek says to Donkey,

‘Onions have layers, Ogres have layers … You get it? We both have layers.’

Shrek posits the hardened, fearless and ruthless personality of his kind, through a common vegetable.

Cyclists are fruits.

this is an orange

More specifically, cyclists are oranges.

From the outside, they are shiny, colourful, happy people. The naked eye suggests their life is a breeze, they’re always in lovely places having a grand old time. And look at their legs; who can be annoyed when your legs look better than Pixie Lott’s?

However, their inside is mush. Physically and mentally; their innards are soft.

A cyclist going well is a normal human being not going well.

Physiologically, cycling turns your body into a shrivelled, bewildered old man. You walk at snail’s pace, you take regular naps, and you could thoroughly benefit from a stairlift in your home.

It’s a hard graft psychologically. You are always battling your emotions, living out of a suitcase, with no constant income. I now spend about 60% of my life in situations where I don’t have a clue what is going on, because my Spanish/French/German/Dutch is not up to standard.

Sometimes you ask yourself, ‘What am I doing with my life?’

It always helps when you know that others are playing the same quiz.

Jack Bobridge, a recent challenger to the world hour record, is an excellent case study. He was claimed to be the next big thing by many analysts, but never acclaimed his full potential.

Over the past years, he has battled with lack of form, illness and criminal charges.

This year it looked like Jacky Bobby was the original Jacky Bobby again, winning a stage in the tour down under, and securing the mountains classification.

But just when everything seems to be back on track, he misses out on an Hour Record he was expected to obliterate, by 500m.

Imagine how colourful his book would be.

What compels him to keep on riding?

What has troubled him to do the things that he has done in the past?

Jacky Bobby fully lit

Cycling is the cruellest sport known to man.

I have tried a lot of sports in my life time, and the only sport that is close to the cycling pain threshold is marathon running. But even then, cycling still wins the brutality prize because a race more or less always outlasts a marathon.

Cycling is a team sport rewarded individually.

A cycling career’s fate is two-pronged: You are either the individual who wins and gets the car, money and fame; or the individual’s helper who eats porridge every morning, with maybe some honey thrown in on their birthday.

It’s the most dog-eat-dog sport out there.

In a bike race, no one cares who you are.

If your legs aren’t good, no one cares.

If you crash, no one cares.

Nobody needs you to finish a bike race.

It’s only the cyclist’s sheer determination driving them to finish the race.

If a chicken can survive without a head for 6 months, an injury-free cyclist should be able to finish a bike race. Whether they’re number one or 30minutes down, they can always finish.

The time when you finish 30minutes down is when you learn about yourself the most.

After all this, I still find myself eager to get to France to ride bike races.

Is that the only difference between cyclists and oranges?

The juice inside a cyclist-orange is laced with some crazy hallucinogenic stimulant which makes you wholeheartedly dependent on pedalling a two wheeled bicycle?

Who knows.

All I can say is, I can’t wait to start my 2015 holiday in France on the 18^th February.

If you want a holiday yourself go to the Beechlawn Hotel on the 27^th February at 1900.

For more information go to http://on.fb.me/1DPkBJB - Remember to click attend.

Follow @DanBikeStewart and @DaveRaynerFund on Twitter.

Part IV: Opinionated Mixed Grill (Case Study included)

I have so many stories from France. Some, great and some, not so great. But doesn’t this happen to everyone?

Time to be critical. I’ve built up the rapport to be able to speak my mind.

I’ve read a lot of blogs in my time, especially when I was in France, mainly due to my dormant to-do list, when throwing pine cones at a swing’s framework was popular recreation. One consistent thing kept on bugging me.

Well, two things. The first was excuses, although I sympathetic and easy on people who use them. Any great performer makes excuses in order to keep themselves motivated; even though at some stages, everyone else is thinking,

“They’re just shite”

And thus, I am okay with so-and-so’s reasons for why so-and-so didn’t do well in the this-and-that race. Someday, so-and-so might become a great, and it’s because of those excuses that they moved on, so that they could be great.

Excuses are how you cope.

Coping. This leads me onto my next point. Up-and-down. Oscillations. I was guilty of it myself:

Every single end-of-season report/interview/status update/smoke signal has the words ‘up-and-down’ in it, as if it’s a surprising thing to occur during your season!

Mark Cavendish, love him or hate him, is rather good at his job. I prefer to listen to paint dry than hear him speak, but he can fairly ride a two-wheeled cycle.

The most wins he had in a year is twenty-four: a serious amount of time with your hands in the air. This was in 2009 when he was with HTC. In that year, he had 82 race days, meaning he won 29% of the races he was entered into.

A world class cyclist only wins a minority of the races he is entered into on his peak year, and spends the remaining 71% of races grovelling and wondering why he is in this cruel sport.

After reading that case study, you can see why I am frustrated by reading the word’s up-and-down on people’s timelines. It’s part of the sport!

The only way you are going to have a consistent season, is if you are consistently shit. My point is, be thankful for those ups and savour them, as that is what this sport is all about.

You grovel, you curse, you sweat, and you suffer.

If you get across that line first, you were the smartest on the day. You were the strongest on the day. You gain ownership of that day:

‘That was the day I won that race in the middle of nowhere.’

They may come few and far between at some points, but the highs are what make the sport. That ecstasy you’ve been training towards. That five seconds which felt like 10minutes are why you ride your bike.

Looking ahead to the future, it’s pretty likely that I’ll be going back out to France in 2015. I look forward to arguing with them in the races again, and having a crack at their swear words.

I also hope to get a bit more ride time in the coveted emerald jersey of the national team. I’m going into the winter motivated, and wiser than 2013. In 2015 I have a lot I want to do. My legs will do all the talking.

I look forward to another up and down season next year.

It was a pleasure to write this strung-out 2014 blog and I hope you enjoyed reading it. If you are interested in rewarding me for my blog, I would appreciate a cult created in full support of me and my actions. That will be all.

peace

DS