When I was a kid, my whole notion about gifts was that I got them, and that was cool. It took me a while to learn that giving is a whole lot more fun.
Two gifts that had a profound impact on my life were both bicycles. The “First Bike,” of course, was the one that taught me how to ride. The second bike was the wonderful Schwinn cruiser that opened up the world, and made me a rider for life. Over the year, I’ve done my level best to repay those two gifts as often as possible.
Christmas Giving is in a class by itself. It took me a while to realize that this was something we did! It took me longer to see just how well and truly good this was.
Of course, giving of gifts at Christmas implies several things. One must first get the gifts, in order to give them. That meant investing some thought in what to get for whom. Then money had to be set aside. And finally, the actual shopping had to be done. My original pattern: Do it all in the last week before Christmas, with about 50% of that on Christmas Eve. That resulted in some rather odd present choices on occasion.
Eventually, I thought to combine planning with my Christmas gifting. It worked better that way. I had time to make some things, for special people, and to save some money. I built quite a few special bikes for folks, and mostly, they were appreciated.
There was the period when I was without a car, totally on foot or on bike. That had an interesting impact on my gift selections. In those pre-internet days, I didn’t select anything that could not be transported by bicycle, or easily sent through the U.S. Mail.
Not all gift giving is of a physical object. Not all happens at Christmas or birthdays. One of the best gifts I ever saw was given on the road.
It was a mid-Summer century. There were a group of youngish women doing the ride together. They were members of a newly formed women’s racing club/team. Most were pretty strong cyclists, but all were fairly inexperienced. One member of the group was, as often happens, very new to it all. She was fit, but very new to the bike, and not accustomed to athletic riding for long periods, in high heat.
Kelly was a very experienced rider. He’d done a lot of racing back in the day. He was doing that ride, and knew several of the women. He naturally joined one group of about three of them as they rode along.
“The rest of the group rode on ahead,” Dee explained to Kelly. “I’ve had a rugged week, so we’re taking it kinda easy,” she said.
They rode for a time in companionship, enjoying the day.
At just short of the 65-mile mark, Dee’s group, with Kelly in tow, caught up to the lead group from the women’s team. That lead group had been pounding it out, but they were overextended, and their newest member was hurting. She had overextended, drained her water bottles, and was overheated. She was close to her limit, and was saying she needed to quit the ride.
A couple of the others were not looking all that good, the result of riding too hard, too early, on a blistering hot day.
Kelly, after hearing a bit of the dialogue, said, “I think we can get this done, if you all want to.”
“Here’s the problem,” Kelly said. “Several of you are a bit overheated and over-stressed. We need to slow down. Slow way down, and focus on moving just fast enough to get some cooling effect. At the same time, we all need to work on hydration. DRINK!”
As the group coalesced, Kelly went on, saying, “While were just easing along like this, I’ll explain what we’re going to do. We have one struggling member. We need to remove the load from her, and help her along. So, at the next rest stop, everyone fills every bottle, but Janet doesn’t carry her own water. We’ll do that for her. And then, I’ll tell you how we’ll organize so that we all work together, and we all protect Janet.”
What Kelly then described was a “Diamond Paceline.” It works like this:
There is always one rider on the “point,” at the very lead of the group. The protected rider, in this case Janet, would remain in the center of the diamond, immediately behind the point rider. There would be a pair of riders to Janet’s left and right, protecting her from any sidewinds. Immediately behind Janet, would be a pair of riders, side by side. Behind these two, the remainder of the group (in this case, Kelly and four other women, would stretch out in a paceline.
Now the real secret of this formation lies in how riders rotate through it, and how often they do. “No one takes a pull of more than 30 seconds,” Kelly explained. I’ll keep time and call out `ROTATE’ every half minute.”
On each rotation, the “point rider” moves to the left and drifts back to Janet’s left side. The rider who had been the left flanker would drop to the rear of the whole formation. The left flanker takes a water bottle handoff, and then drops back to the left trailer position. The left trailer drops to the back of the whole formation. Meanwhile, the right trailer moves up to right flank, the right flanker, moves to point, and the lead rider in the following paceline moves to the right trailer position. In this way, no rider is facing the wind for more than a minute and a half.
Kelly insisted the pace be kept moderate to low for the first 20 minutes. After that, it picked up a bit. Kelly had told Janet that she was to take a good solid drink of water every two rotations. He watched her, and reminded her a couple of times.
“And dowse,” Kelly said. “Here take my spare bottle and wet your head down. It helps.”
Each of those riders was getting a huge kick out of the teamwork. Their spirits were lifting. Janet was recovering visibly. By the time the group crossed the 90-mile mark, a good solid successful finish was certain.
Kelly gave a gift that day. It was a simple gift of time and experience, but it made a great day for a group of relatively new riders.
How do I know about this? My daughter was one of the members of that group. She still talks about it.
