Do we train to race or race to train? It is an interesting question. Certainly most bicycle riders spend far more time in the saddle training than they do actually racing. Of course you can’t race without training and it is hard to get motivated to train without the end goal of racing.

This past week was spent at team training camp in North Carolina riding in the Smokey Mountains. A great way to come off a winter of frigid weekend rides and endless hours on the nowhere bike. It’s kind of like Christmas in March. New team kit, fresh rubber on wheels, everyone breaks out their new toys from PowerTaps to cool sunglasses.

 

The other things folks want to show off at training camp are their legs after a winter of weight lifting and basement riding. Just like an early season race everyone comes in with their poker face. Downplaying their training and work over the winter but dying to attack that first hill and see where they stand in the pack. Was all that advice from your coach worth while? Did starving for weeks to lose weight give you an edge?

Your family sees the training side more intimately than anyone. They wake to the hum of your trainer at 5:30am. They are greeted to the fragrant scent of sweaty work out clothes hanging about your home. Whenever they open the refrigerator they are faced with your weird diet choices for their dining pleasure and the sink is littered with water bottles containing secret ingredients. Your kids can’t even sit on the couch on Saturday and watch TV because you have collapsed there for your afternoon nap following a frigid ride on snowy roads. Even Christmas memories are filled with those reminders of training with gift wrapped PowerTaps, heart rate monitors, components, even a card from your coach on the mantle.

The passion that goes into training can be seen at the local Tuesday Night World Championships. While these are “training” rides to many participants it is their race. I am always amazed to see forty plus riders on Tuesday night yet when it comes to a real race on the weekends many of these riders cannot even make down the road to Woodburn to pin a number on and support local racing. This training ride can be as fast as many races and the thrill of that final sprint is like being in a race. Tuesdays are all about the training but we get to pretend it is a race.

Camp is about the training and more. Friends, food, the first rides of the season with short sleeves… Here it is all about the journey and the experience along the way. Those memories that cannot be captured by pictures but paging through a photo album reminds you of the great miles on the road. The sound of whitewater creeks with kayaks negotiating them. Waterfalls filling brooks that fly fishermen wade into with their Shimano equipped rods. The screaming descents where you can hear your tires hum as they grip the asphalt in the corners. A dozen riders cruising along in a thirty mile an hour paceline with matching jerseys as riders rotate through the front. The stunning vistas as you reach the crest of an agonizing climb.  The journey is exhilarating.

Though as much effort as we put into training there is nothing that can match the thrill of racing. Until you have pinned on that number and rolled up to the start line you will never realize there is more to riding a bike than just riding along in the country. You feel your heart jump as fifty riders simultaneously clip into their pedals on the starters whistle. Pushing yourself harder than the most grueling day of training or fighting the stiffest of headwinds. Watching everyone’s finishing strategy come together in the final kilometer as the sprint for the finish line winds up. Bike racing can be described as running a marathon and then playing a game of chess. Pin on a number and it is all about the race. 

At camp riding the Tail of the Dragon with its 318 curves in 11 miles, it is the journey not the destination. But the last mile up the 10% grade to our cabin is all about the destination. So the question whether it is the journey or destination cannot be easily answered, maybe it’s both. Just remember that on Monday morning no one asks how your training is going but they do ask about your race results. And when you are on any bike ride with more than one rider the gauntlet goes down when that townline sign appears in the distance and it’s a race!

Squirrel Hunter