Today I wanted to celebrate my 26th birthday by biking 260km. There was a good town to stop at, the path was relatively flat with a good few rest-towns in between, and I was (and probably still am) the most fit I have ever been in my life. All of my electronics were well charged and ready for a long day, I went to bed early, and slept a full nine hours before waking up at 5:30am. The forecast was good, with a cloudy morning and a sunny afternoon, and high WSW winds. I was heading more or less west-south-west, and recalling how I flew yesterday with the good tailwind, I was excited to burst out a great birthday ride.
Morning came, and I was greeted with two airless tires. One was flat, and the other lost air overnight, but could still hold pressure. I quickly replaced the first, and reinflated the second, and still made it out the door just before sunrise. All was going well. I really wanted this. I was already playing in my mind the happy exhaustion that comes with a big challenge overcome, and was looking forward to checking in to a hotel as the sun was setting on a monumental day, and just collapsing on the bed. I was planning to take a day off the next day, to really celebrate by sitting at my room, and enjoying my well-earned rest. I was excited, motivated, and would not fail. After all, what could go wrong?
Well, it turns out that when the forecast says 50km/h wind WSW, they don't mean 50km/h wind blowing towards west-south-west. They mean 50km/h wind coming from west-south-west. There's a difference between these, and those of us who know some vectors can quantify that difference at about 100km/h.
My suspicions were raised when I had incessant, persistent, and very strong wind coming directly at my face from the second I left the hotel. It's very uncommon to have strong winds in the early morning, and frankly, the winds I encountered before sunrise were already some of the strongest I've seen this trip. Yet I still managed to bike at a reasonable pace until I got to Estelline, where I was planning to eat some breakfast, get a bit of caffeine and sugar in me, and move on. Unfortunately, Estelline only has a liquor store, and even that was closed. The next town over, Turkey, was 45km away. By now, it was about a quarter to eight. I'd be getting to Turkey by around eleven, a late, but not unprecedented time for breakfast.
And so, I ate some granola bars, drank some water, and started the 45km ride to Turkey, along the empty route 86. I was cold. The sun was behind the morning cloud cover, and the wind was strong. I put on my sweater, and, unbeknownst to me, would not feel the need to take it off at all today. It was me, against the wind. My back tire lost air again. I replaced the inner tube as fast as I could, still trying to waste as little time as I could for the 260km push.
The wind picked up, and I still thought that the winds would reverse, as told by the forecast. After half an hour of biking against stronger and stronger winds, I finally looked up the convention, and my heart sank. The 260km achievement was not a present I would be getting for this birthday. As the day dragged on, the winds only increased. I lost balance many times, and I even had a full fall when I tried to get on the bike as a particularly strong gust of wind blew me down. I dropped gears one by one, as the wind wore down my unbreakfasted strength, until I was at the lowest gear, pumping as hard as I could to bike at a steady 7km/h. On downhills, it was 8km/h. The 45km stretch to Turkey, which should have taken me about two hours to finish, instead took about five and a half hours.
You can imagine the demoralization. I felt crippled in a sense - what I could do once easily now took me twice the time, and more than twice the effort. I wonder if that's what scares people most about ageing. I could curse at the wind as much as I wanted. I could take as many breaks as I wanted. Yet nothing would stop the wind. Nothing would make me arrive sooner, and time would only exhaust my food and water. This was a trek I would have to just suffer through.
I would not have been able to do this five years ago. Today, I've learned a lesson about how I've changed in my ability to swallow long pills. There's no magic time-skip button, no tricks, just brute force. Five years ago, I would not have been able to, mentally, play such a long game.
In the end, like all unpleasant things, it was over. There was no sense of achievement. No pride, or overwhelming happiness in crossing a tough barrier. I knew, in the back of my head, that had I waited two days, I would have been able to do this stretch faster. All I got was another story, another town, and a new experience. Pretty good deal.
In mathematics, an harmonic function is a function whose value at a point is equal to its average in any circle around that point. I've often told people that I don't believe in free will, and that I like to look at myself as a neural network trained by its surroundings. I like to pick up quirks, phrases, accents, and mannerisms from my circle of friend. Naturally, I curate the people I am close to. To piss off my mathematician friends, I'm going to call myself harmonic, and say that living like this means living in harmony.
I really can trace a lot of what I say or what I do to certain people. It's a fun exercise, to think about what you say and do, and see where you picked it up from. Are you living in harmony?
I am a product of my circle of friends, and naturally, I love them. If you're reading this, it probably means I value you, and look up to you in some way. But to me, friendship doesn't just mean harvesting the knowledge of others to become all-powerful. It's also a place, a situation, an understanding I have with someone else that we enjoy each others' company, and that we would be willing to enjoy it again in the future.
And so, on this birthday, I'm thinking about how I have been transformed to who I am through interactions with you, dear readers (except for future Assaf). I'm thinking about the people whose company I enjoy, and will continue to enjoy. I'm thinking of those who have influenced me, and I'm thinking about the people who will, in the future, be influencing me in ways I can only imagine. Finally, it is with a grave heart that I am thinking about all of the truly lovely, amazing, exceptional people I have enjoyed in the past, and who, for reasons of distance, death, or mere fortune, I will never see again.
This year, I'd like to start getting comfortable with that reality.
Today I biked 75km over the course of about six and a half hours.