Wayfinding.

It hasn’t been a glorious return.

  

If I want to be honest, I’d have to admit my reintroduction to pavement has been mostly a relearning process. For the past year, I haven’t done a whole lot of actual riding. My travel schedule meant I was relegated to the trainer for all but a couple months of the last two years. Sometimes I’d roll home from an extended stint at a radar site and not want to look at my bike, even if there was dry pavement out there to be ridden. Such was the extent of my exhaustion, Sometimes all that was available was a couple hours at the Dome, because winter had arrived during my absence. Sometimes it was projects that had to be done before I had to leave again. But mostly it was just a lack of motivation.

  

The first year I wasn’t sure when I was going to be working, so I didn’t make many plans for racing. No use in training for a race you won’t line up for. Instead, I focused on gaining weight and losing fitness, mitigating it somewhat by riding the trainer. The road rides I did get in rarely lasted more than an hour or two. I was pretty disgusted with myself, but not enough to do anything about it.

  

2020 was going to be different. I had a plan and a huge chunk of the summer free from work. The early part of the year would be work-heavy at the sites, and I would build fitness on the trainer. Then I’d roll into this stint at King Salmon, transitioning to the road and longer rides. Back in Anchorage, I’d really rack up the miles. When it came time to race, I’d be ready.

  

It didn’t work out that way.

  

First, the Arctic Bike Club schedule was less than inspiring. In the almost three month gap I had off, there were only a couple races I was interested in at all. No crits. I was going to miss the Spring Stage Race. The Tour of Anchorage was another edition for the skinny guys. The Road Division had abdicated large chunks of the summer to other disciplines, leaving huge holes in the schedule.  I’ve been there, so I know what the board was facing. We have a short season up here, and a lot of events are crammed together every year, leaching participants away. I’ve watched over the last decade as the roadies have ceded more and more to mountain and triathlons and gravel and whatever else happened to be going on. Road was less of a thing because road was less of a thing. You can read that multiple ways and draw your own conclusions.

  

My resolutions to lose weight floundered with my enthusiasm, but I still managed to stick with the trainer workouts- for sanity more than anything else. I’d push hard, peak, taper, and then start again. Things were trending in the right direction.

  

COVID-19 pretty much put the nail in the coffin.  I was extended on a hitch, which meant my original five week plan was stretched to seven weeks. I passed my fitness target and kept going, and I burned out as a result. I was sure a couple days off the bike would fix me up. A couple days became a week, then a month. Projects and family and life interfered, and probably the best weather of the summer passed with me not even kitting up once. The excuses to not ride came easier and easier every day. Some valid, some not. I got a lot accomplished, but none of it had to with pedaling. Racing has been a big motivator for me over the years, and with the entire calendar now eliminated, I floundered. What was the purpose?

  

Now I have a few road rides under my overfilled bib shorts. I still haven’t downloaded my Garmin, because the numbers won’t be inspiring and it’s really not about performance. It’s about moving. Finding the joy again. Repeating movements a million times until they become automatic and seemingly effortless. Basking in the afterglow of a post-ride endorphin rush. That sort of stuff. Sooner or later I’ll start tracking those rides and expecting more out of myself, but for now this is enough. The goal is to rebuild my relationship with the bike into something healthy and sustainable. If I count on racing as a motivator, I have to find something else.

  

Tonight I’ll go out and point my nose into the wind coming off of Bristol Bay. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll find the motivation to get out there again. Hopefully the day after that it will become that much easier. Eventually I want it to become automatic. I kitted up and got on my bike because that’s who I am and that's what I do.