Bar Mitzvah

Translated from Hebrew, "bar mitzvah" means "man of good deeds". Little known fact: translated from the original Aramaic, it means "lazy cyclist with no self-discipline".

I have been working out. I have! A bunch of rides this week, a run, a gym day. Yesterday, my sore legs hauled my sorry ass around central Jersey, and believe it or not, I did an intervals workout.

Racing season is coming, inevitable as the tide, and I am going to suck. That's to be expected, after a summer of athletic torpor. However, it has occurred to me that I run the risk of sucking too much. Everyone in a 'cross race suffers, whether racing for first or for not-lapped. There exists an inflection point, though, where the suffering exceeds the fun, and I don't want to experience that abject misery.

Thus and therefore, I have been making a real effort to ride more. And when I do so, I ride hard. Because racing season is coming.

Yesterday, for the first time this year, I did one of my favorite fall workouts: two 20-minute periods of as-hard-as-sustainable, with a surge every minute. This workout is uncomfortable, frustrating, and as much mental as physical. It went about as well as could be expected.

Two minutes into the second interval, I was grinding along Canal Road when I spotted a cluster of cyclists hunched over a bike on the side of the road. It wasn't immediately clear what they were doing - whether they were taking a break, tending to a crash victim, who knows? - and there was a car behind me, so I didn't stop... at least not at first. But something didn't seem right.

When it was safe enough, I pulled a U-turn, rolled back to the group, and asked if they needed help. Their response was a chorus of heartfelt "oh, yes, thank you". Of the three, whose total age must have exceeded 200, one had flatted and none had spare tubes or tools. I found the offending staple lodged in her tire, popped in one of my spares, and reinflated. The whole process took maybe 4 minutes.

All the while, she expressed her gratitude and tried to compensate me. "Can I pay for your tube?" Don't even worry about it. "I have friends in the UK. If you ever want to watch the Tour, they could help you". Umm... no thank you. "Is there anything I could do?" Well, there is rutgerscycling.com, you could check it out, maybe wish us luck for our upcoming season, and oh by the way we sell jerseys like the one I'm wearing.

I am shameless.

Here's the thing with having someone rescue you after a mechanical, or a crash, or a bonk. The only debt you owe is to pay it forward. Carry extra tubes, get educated on emergency repairs and first aid, and offer to help the next stranded cyclist you see. We are, when all is said and done, a community.

Repayment was unnecessary. I stopped because I don't ever want a cyclist in need to be snubbed by a Rutgers cyclist. I stopped because the Flat-Tire Gods are vengeful deities.

Most of all, as I told the group when I first rolled up and offered assistance: Anything to get out of an intervals workout.