Don?t let your swivel stick
Skiing...golf...tennis...hockey...you name it, my personal bests in these sports are inscribed in scroll on yellowed parchment. But maybe not in bicycling--maybe bicycling?s yet to be writ.
You think I?m delusional? Well, so what. What?s so awful about delusion if you keep it upbeat? Upbeat delusions, such as sporting delusions, are non-chemical uppers. That?s why, when I watched the Tour de France this year, I was looking for skills I could adopt as my own. I didn?t bother with obviously non-transferable skills: endurance, power, cornering, and death-defying descents when it must be only industrial-strength faith that lets them believe if they javelin over their bars they?ll land like cats and roll like tumbleweeds and spring up and catch the peleton.
No, I was able to pick out one skill, a skill that turns out to be a very basic, very adaptable one: The Swivel. When I thought about it I realized that The Swivel figures into one thing or another most of us do every day, not just in bicycling. So I watched carefully as the riders, at 30 and 40 miles per hour, swiveled their heads without ever losing an rpm, swiveled them right on past 180 degrees, both directions. And they swiveled these great arcs without ever veering into fellow swivelers or a rabid fan an elbow?s length away.
The last 10 Ks each day, when the sprinters start to shine was the time to appreciate mass swiveling. In the last 10 Ks when the stellar announcers got exuberantly carried away with the excitement, I?d back off from the TV and squint my eyes and get the panorama of the mass of sprinters, heads all a-swivel like pumpkins on sticks, checking to see which over-the-shoulder guy looked poised to duck, crank, and lean for the line. At swivel-time, all the sprinters seem to flick a switch and cut loose every neck-bound connection.
I remember the exact moment a few years back when swiveling my head became a matter of great interest to me.
I?d been pedaling toward Galena and gone far enough that I figured if I added any more miles I could be pegged as rabid, so I gave a quick check for traffic over my shoulder before I started my U-turn. I did not, however, swivel a prudent 180 degrees, nor even a may-God-be-with-you 90 degrees; probably, it was more like 78 degrees. Anyway, short of what I needed. I had just straddled the center-line when I felt the wind of an Indy 500 car as it whizzed past my rear wheel. It was an icon moment. I wobbled to the side, let my bike melt beneath me, and blinked and blinked to erase a big-screen image of SPLAT.
This near-death experience happened in the days when my swivel zone was still average. In nightmarish recalls, I figured I?d simply been complacent ? lazy. And though I resolutely made that my last lazy bicycle ride, a funny thing happened. Abruptly, it seemed, laziness had nothing to do with my dramatically dwindling swivel. Nope. What happened was I became enmeshed in Standard Evolution. Overnight, I evolved into an Advanced Being, AB meaning that my head-neck connection had turned into a tin-man?s without any oil.
The Tour this year brought my serious swivel dwindle into focus, and since the Tour I?ve developed a few painless yet effective exercises that are gradually unlocking my head. 90 degrees is a snap now, and 180 degrees seems doable. I?m even optimistic enough to think that with continued concentrated effort I?ll be able to swivel my head past the halfway mark.
In my days as a superb athlete in my own mind, I used to sometimes fret about one of my untouched talents, being a PT--Personal Trainer. I always fig-ured I?d make a great PT. I?d see lesser athletes out with their PTs and think ?What a fun, easy way to make a buck.? Maybe I?m a late bloomer?maybe now is my PT time. I?ll start a PT program tailored for Advanced Beings?almost all of my friends are ABs, and almost all of them need to work on their swivels. Not for bicycling either?forget bicycling. We ABs need to unstick our swivels so we can back out at the post office or pull into the passing lane on the way to Hailey and not get creamed.
I?m putting out my shingle: ?BB, PT for the AB?.
If the shingle fits, give me a call.
